WHEN This Morning bosses arrived at the ITV studios on May 10 last year, they could have been forgiven for thinking the show had hit rock bottom. On that day The Sun had exclusively revealed how its beloved hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield were in the depths of a bust-up that would tear the programme apart. 5 This Morning's ratings have plummeted under new presenting duo Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley Credit: Rex 5 ITV has struggled to find the right formula since the exits of Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby Credit: PA 5 Alison Hammond would have been a popular option if ITV had gone with her instead Credit: Rex Within weeks he resigned amid revelations of his affair with a much younger member of the production staff , and she followed him out of the door months later.
With the show’s golden couple gone and its future in limbo, surely things couldn’t get any worse? Well, fast forward 12 months and the good ship This Morning finds itself in even stormier waters. A year to the day later, on May 10, 2024, the show’s team learned that the most recent ratings were the worst in its history . The previous day, its viewer numbers had slumped to an average of just 486,000.
It was a bewildering bombshell, because new hosts Ben Shephard and Cat Deeley had been drafted in as the show’s supposed saviours. As ITV battled plunging advertising revenues and the rising cost of making live telly, the duo were seen as a safe pairs of hands. But it turned out they might .
