Diary – 26 October 2017

To ITV’s London headquarters at the ungodly hour of 3.30 a.m. Piers Morgan is sunning himself in Beverly Hills and I’m sitting in for him on Good Morning Britain. I’ve known and liked Piers for 30 years, from the days when he used to scribble for the Mirror’s showbiz page, and although we could hardly be more different we do have one thing in common: we’re both television Marmite. People either like us or loathe us. But in the mysterious, perverse alchemy of TV ratings, detesting a presenter doesn’t necessarily mean shunning their show. Viewers enjoy shouting at their bêtes noires, so it’s all good for business. I too have presenters I love to hate; household names who’ve never done me any harm but for some reason I can’t abide. If I meet them, all that bile usually melts away; it’s hard to hate a real flesh-and-blood person, yet so easy to casually revile their flat-screen incarnation.

Meanwhile after years in the doldrums, ITV breakfast telly has finally regained confidence and GMB’s ratings are steadily climbing. All programmes need to have a belief in the fundamental reason for their own existence or they perish. That’s why the godawful Nightly Show, which earlier this year briefly shunted News at Ten out of its slot, flopped so dismally. Its smattering of scriptwriters floundered to grasp the point of the series. America’s late-night political satire shows, which TNS tried to ape, succeed because they understand the importance of employing big writing teams who’ll deliver stiletto-sharp opening monologues, sketches and songs. Letterman, Leno, Corden etc are direct descendants of Bob Hope’s live radio series of the 1950s and 1960s. Hope paid up to 30 top writers (30!) to be his feeds. One night he was about to go on air when he phoned his writers’ room.