GMTV also broadcast its own children's programmes, independent from CITV until Boohbah was cross-promoted on both sides, with different credits for each.

[9] Greg Dyke was appointed chairman of the GMTV board and tasked with overhauling the station format, which included 'more popular journalism'.

[18] In early September, GMTV approached the Independent Television Commission (ITC) regarding the possibility of decreasing its quota of news.

The ITC acknowledged that considerable improvements had taken place up to the start of that year, but its news bulletins continued to be 'unsatisfactory, and initially too short to cover depth or authority', adding: 'its current affairs and children's material did not meet the aspirations... in terms of quality or production.'

As part of the package to rectify the issues, American children's television series Barney & Friends was introduced, in addition to the "Reuters News Hour" and an upmarket Sunday morning programme.

[24] Turner left the station on 24 December 1996, after a dramatic falling out between the pair, which finally resulted in Holmes publicly calling her 'Princess Tippy Toes'.

[28] GMTV continued to strengthen its output, receiving further praise from the ITC in its Annual Performance Review of 1999: 'The overall programme quality improved...with more feature items and greater breadth of coverage, better journalistic and technical resources.'

The ITC praised GMTV's greater emphasis on overseas coverage and access to key figures in the news, particularly for live interviews.

There were signs of improvement in the information content of the magazine programme for older children, Diggit (previously criticised by the ITC).

[30] By September, an agreement had been reached to acquire Guardian Media Group's 15% stake for £20 million, but both Carlton and Granada objected to the deal.

STV believed having a controlling stake in GMTV would allow an effective command against the newly formed ITV sales department.

[38] In April 2007, BBC One's programme Panorama made claims that Opera - a company dealing with GMTV's phone-in competitions - were finalising shortlists of potential winners 'long before' lines closed, which resulted in viewers wasting an estimated £10 million a year since April 2003 on entering premium rate phone competitions.

[39] This contradicted claims made by Panorama that in 2003, sales director Mark Nuttall at Opera had discovered the situation and sent an e-mail to staff, saying: 'Make sure they never find out you are picking the winners early.

ITV and Disney agreed a £4.5 million investment to modernise the production of the programme, including new equipment such as Avid editing suites.

[45] This then led to the relaunch of GMTV on 5 January 2009, introducing Emma Crosby and Kirsty McCabe, who themselves replaced Fiona Phillips and Andrea McLean.

In July 2008, it was announced that McLean would quit working on GMTV to focus on her role on Loose Women, to share the permanent host job with Jackie Brambles.