ITV production chiefs are tearing their hair out wondering what on earth went wrong with their plans to revitalise their morning news magazine show.
Viewing figures for Daybreak make depressing reading for the independent network - just 600,000 viewers tune in while the BBC's Breakfast regularly attracts 1.5 million.
And this is despite ITV poaching presenters Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley at great expense.
"It's baffling," said an ITV insider. "It's not working - it's all gone a bit wrong or, to use a broadcasting term, tits up.
"It just seems to confirm what most people believe - that ITV is mainly crap.
"There's a feeling here that it's just an unavoidable equation: ITV's crap... everyone's that much crapper in the morning... therefore Daybreak must be crap cubed."
Popular mathematician and broadcaster Inigo Sums said: "That all adds up all right. Yes, where crap equals c and you muliply that by the morning crapness - c-squared - the result is crap-cubed."
