MTV aims for Big Breakfast slot

The show unveiled new presenters earlier this year

MTV has set out plans for a music-orientated youth show that it hopes will replace Channel 4's The Big Breakfast.

Channel 4 recently invited ideas for a replacement or relaunch of the show because of falling audience numbers.

MTV, which describes itself as the biggest youth broadcaster in the world, says it wants to bring the style of its cable and satellite channels to terrestrial breakfast television.

We really know youth. We know what they like.

Dylan Jones
MTV

Also interested in The Big Breakfast's slot are TalkBack Productions, which makes They Think It's All Over and Da Ali G Show, as well as GMG Endemol Entertainment UK, the company behind Big Brother, according to the Media Guardian website.

"What we'd like to bring to it is the MTV style," the channel's spokesman Dylan Jones told BBC News Online.

"We really know youth. We know what they like and other broadcasters... want a piece of that."

The show would be "related to music, but not wholly centred on music", he said.

"Everything MTV does is about music, but we broaden that remit to involve films and celebrities.

"MTV has continuous access to the biggest stars around the world, and we can draw on a network that broadcasts to 365 million homes around the world."

The music channel will submit a bid to Channel 4 by the 9 July deadline.

Its production partner would be At It Productions - which has already worked for Channel 4 on the Jo Whiley Show and Pop World.

Singled Out

MTV is also hoping to announce deals to make more shows for terrestrial channels soon.

It has so far only produced one show for a British terrestrial TV station - Singled Out for Channel 5.

Channel 4 last month confirmed the end of The Big Breakfast in its current format, which has seen its audience fall to less than 500,000 - and sometimes as low as 290,000.

Currently made by production company Planet 24, the show will either be replaced or relaunched early in 2002.

Channel 4 said any new show will have the "distinctiveness and invention" to rival The Big Breakfast's appeal to its core audience.

Johnny Vaughan: One of the most popular hosts

The programme recently lost presenters Paul Tonkinson and Donna Air, but the presenting team had failed to match the appeal of previous pairings.

The show's glory days were back in 1992 when Chris Evans and Paula Yates - and later Gaby Roslin - attracted audiences of up to 1.5 million viewers a day.

Next came a ratings drop under Zoe Ball, Mark Little and Sharron Davies until Johnny Vaughan and Denise Van Outen revived the show in the late 1990s.

A reunion of Vaughan and Van Outen for three months at the beginning of 2001 failed to recapture the old magic, as did an extensive relaunch with new presenters.

But comedian Paul Tonkinson was replaced as host in April after just two months as ratings continued to fall.