BBC Breakfast viewers were left distracted from the headlines on Monday, August 24, by a major format change to the programme's on-screen graphics.
Ben Thompson joined Sally Nugent as host, stepping in for Jon Kay. The day's headlines focused on the Middlesbrough crash on Saturday that left seven people, including two police officers, dead, as well as the return of the Premier League, with a tribute to Kevin Keegan during Newcastle's match against Liverpool.
However, attention quickly turned to the visual overhaul. Instead of the red timebox and headlines running at the bottom of the screen, the studio background graphics are now blue, while the taglines at the bottom of the screen feature a red-to-blue gradient, highlighting what is coming up in the show.
Viewers react to the new look
Reaction on social media was swift and largely negative. "Can't the producers decide on ONE colour for graphics?" one person fumed. Another said: "These captions are annoying, get rid, if I want captions I will turn the subtitles on."
"Why have they tried to make the graphics look like a mobile phone? They look ridiculous," a third seethed. Another replied: "That's what I thought. And I don't like it."
Someone else said: "I can't concentrate on two things at once so I'm either trying to read that extremely small text or watching the news report."
Further criticism and context
"Someone been at the crayons.. what's with the colour scheme?" yet another said, as someone else wrote: "So weird." Another viewer said they "hated" the change, as one person added: "Might just as well watch ITV now they've put this s**t on the screen and dumb down completely."
Someone else called it "really rubbish", as another fumed: "Ffs - get rid of these annoying captions! They are very distracting & totally unnecessary!" One added: "#bbcbreakfast have obviously misjudged the demographic of their early morning viewers with this new format."
The change comes after the BBC Breakfast team celebrated National Television Award nominations during an edition of the show last week. As two nominations include heartfelt documentaries from the BBC Breakfast team, Jon shared how "honoured" they were. Meanwhile, BBC Breakfast's rivals Good Morning Britain have been nominated in the Daytime category alongside James Martin's Saturday Morning, Loose Women, Scam Interceptors and This Morning.
BBC Breakfast airs daily from 6am on BBC One and iPlayer.
