THIS Morning could be saved from its current scandal caused by one man and a London-centric culture of out of touch elitism by going back to its roots in Liverpool, Politicalite says.
False reports claimed today that ITV could “axe” the long-running daytime show – but this would be the wrong decision even if reports were credible.
It’s a show that many of us have grown up with, from being off school ill as a teenager to watching whilst off work as an adult – it’s a show that has broke boundaries and given us many telly firsts and many of the greatest moments in live television history.
This Morning introduced a nation to Viagra and had the first television smear test, and TV’s first testicular cancer test.
It’s much loved contributors like Dr Chris helped Britain’s most obese man Charlie Walduck lose weight and even run a marathon and who can forget the late Denise Robertson helping many people with their problems in the legendary phone-ins.
This Morning even saved a woman from domestic abuse in the 1990s when she phoned in to one of its phone-ins and told Richard and Judy she had been locked in her home by her abusive partner – they called the Police and rescued her. Tap here to watch video.
For those not old enough to remember, This Morning began in 1988 fronted by Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan where it spent almost a decade coming live on weekdays from Liverpool’s famous Albert Dock – the waterfront landmark first opened as a working dock in the 1840s and was renovated in the 1980s. It’s just been purchased in a multi-million pound deal and is at the centre of a vibrant working-class cosmopolitan city.
Madeley who now presents Good Morning Britain on ITV said: “We felt like we were mavericks. We were in Liverpool, right at the heart of it, and we could walk out and down the docks and speak to people. It kept us real and helped us come up with new and exciting ideas.”
The husband and wife team steered it during its most successful period throughout the nineties and early 2000s until they left for Channel 4 in a big money move. Since then This Morning has forgotten its roots and become a shadow of its former self.
It’s been on our screens for over 35 years – some could say it has become a British institution and axing it would be a great shame, why let one man burn the show to the ground just because he had an affair and was fired? Why make the viewers suffer because of one poisonous man? We cannot allow Phillip Schofield to be the cause of the axing of This Morning – but what we can do is force it to champion the British people again and go back to its roots.
One of the problems ITV is facing right now is that a network that once knew the beating heart of Britain through its strong regional franchises has become a London centric conglomerate that has forgotten its roots and has disconnected from reality.
It spent three years ignoring a scandal that everyone knew about – because the people running it and working in it don’t enter the real world, they don’t speak to the people anymore because they’ve mothballed the regions and moved everything to London – and that’s a real shame, because ITV is the people’s network.
It’s the network that brought working class life to life with Britain’s longest running soap-opera Coronation Street, it’s the network that made normal people like Will Young and a shy man with a stammer Gareth Gates superstars on Pop Idol, it’s the network that brought us ground breaking documentaries like 7up, global investigative shows like World in Action and the show that set the bar for modern TV news – News at Ten.
Channel 4 already knows the future of media is outside of London, it’s why it’s own daytime show comes live from Leeds, and it’s why they launched their biggest ever talk show Late Night Lycett in Birmingham, giving jobs to some of the most countries most disadvantaged media graduates. Why not do this for the North West and Liverpool? Level up the British media industry.
ITV needs to re-connect with the masses, it needs to be the people’s network and stay true to its name of being Independent Television and it needs to go back to the regions, if Eurovision – that pulled in 162 million viewers this month, thinks Liverpool is good enough, why doesn’t ITV?
