At first glance, daytime television seems to be the same as it has always been. Estate agents mull the potential of drab flats, Countdown contestants come up with rude words while bizarre debates continue to rage on topical shows. Recent examples include: “Is it OK to let a dog wee on someone’s lawn?” and “Has Halloween become too sexy?”.
If you look closer, though, daytime TV is in trouble – and has been for a while. It started when Channel 5 unexpectedly dropped the Australian soap Neighbours, resulting in a high-profile finale (although it was later revived by Amazon). Then, ITV’s This Morning, the jewel in the station’s daytime crown, lost its lustre. It began with outrage over a dystopian spin-to-win quiz, in which viewers competed to have their energy bills paid, and allegations that Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby skipped the queue to see the Queen lying in state. It ended with Schofield quitting after admitting an affair and Willoughby stepping down after a failed kidnapping plot.
Then last week, things got worse for daytime. Doctors, the BBC soap seemingly meant to be watched while eating soup on a sick day was cancelled after 23 years – and more than 4,500 episodes. Less than 24 hours later, Channel 4 announced the cancellation of consumer and lifestyle show Steph’s Packed Lunch. Steph’s Packed Lunch will finish at the end of 2023 while Doctors will end in December 2024.
It is not all bad news. BBC Breakfast continues to perform strongly, while the magazine show Morning Live has been a welcome addition to the schedules. But BBC Two, which used to have its own current affairs show fronted by Victoria Derbyshire, now just simulcasts BBC News and BBC Radio 5 Live until lunchtime. Daytime is also, strangely, creeping into the evenings. Last month it was announced that Hollyoaks is to move to E4 (because most viewers watch there and online first). Its replacement? Four in a Bed, a show in which B&B owners make passive aggressive remarks about other B&B owners – and which viewers commonly associate with the middle of the day.
What is going on? While This Morning may recover if it invests in a presenting lineup as successful as Phil and Holly – after all, the show still cuts through to millions due to viral online clips – the audiences for most daytime shows are heading elsewhere. Channel 4 cited changing audience habits as a reason for the cancellation of Steph’s Packed Lunch, only months after Ofcom announced the biggest decline in broadcast television viewing (AKA people watching live television) since records began. This decline is now not just happening with younger viewers, but also with older viewers, the demographic we mostly associate with daytime television. Given that audiences don’t tend to catch up with daytime shows via streaming sites, this is bad news for their viewing figures.
As for Doctors, its cancellation is due to the other challenge that television is facing: lack of money. The BBC licence fee has been frozen by the government until April 2024, at a time when inflation is high. Drama production, like everything else, has been getting increasingly expensive to the point where the BBC’s justification for axeing Doctors referenced “super inflation in drama production”. With the BBC having announced it will cut 1,000 hours of original programming this year they’re having to make choices about what to actually produce. It isn’t much better for commercial channels, which are having to choose carefully about what to commission because of a slump in advertising.
The risk, however, with cutting shows such as Doctors is not just what it will mean for fans, but what it will do to future careers. The soap is essentially a training school for actors, with past storylines featuring Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Jodie Comer, Eddie Redmayne and Nicholas Hoult before they became household names. It has also been a training ground for people behind the camera, becoming a rite of passage for many directors, script writers, producers and others on their way to an established theatre, television or film career.
Television needs to reflect changing viewing habits, and at a time of tighter budgets, the channels need to spend accordingly. But if opportunities for the next generation to hone their craft and build a name for themselves disappear, then talent won’t have the chance to come through. That is bad for all television, no matter when it airs – so it is to be hoped that broadcasters can find a way to revamp daytime TV to work for viewers as well as the next wave of television superstars. And if they can fit in the odd bizarre TV debate, all the better.
• This article was amended on 24 October 2023. An earlier version said that Doctors would finish in December 2023. This should have been December 2024.
