Phil and Holly’s dramas made you think This Morning was exciting – but it’s not a patch on its BBC rival
IT’S a great line – don’t sell the sausage, sell the sizzle.
And This Morning has been doing just that for years.
Never mind that the ITV stalwart has become a predictable parade of mediocre “meh”. Think of all the excitement around the presenters! Just what will the krrrazy Holly and Phil do next?
Interview Rishi Sunak while high on magic mushrooms? Get Doctor Ranj to remove a Bafta award from Ant McPartlin’s bottom LIVE ON AIR?!
Of course they rarely did anything exciting and just phoned in endless hours of Take A Break telly.
Then it all came crashing down – the two former bezzies now covered in each other’s bile and cast off into oblivion.
But for more than a million daytime viewers, this ITV pantomime was of no concern – they were too busy tucking into Morning Live on the BBC.
Morning Live is the kind of TV show that feels like it was made by ten people shouting out random thoughts for an hour while someone hastily wrote them all down then declared: “Right, that’s tomorrow’s show.”
Witness yesterday’s edition. Within three minutes we had learned from hosts Gaby Roslin and Michelle Ackerley how to de-ice a car window and sharpen a pair of blunt scissors.
Then it was into a preview of what was to come: How to deal with grief at Xmas, not getting ripped off by energy firms, shopping hacks, behind the scenes at EastEnders, party food for 75p… and a blast of Strictly-style fitness.
This Morning, on the other hand, saw hosts Rylan Clark and Emma Willis spend the first three minutes talking about themselves, complimenting each other and showing off about what they did on Friday night.
OK, thanks for that.
You see, the beauty of Morning Live is that you never know who is going to present it – and, quite frankly, you don’t care.
Its success is a lesson in content being king. It’s not about the presenters, however well-known they may be.
As ITV sifts through the mountains of outrageous agent demands for moderately talented “stars” hoping to front This Morning, it should take note.