Can Ri:se ever shine?

How do you follow the Big Breakfast? For some time, it has looked as if launching Ri:se, as Channel 4 did two months ago, was not the right answer.

Its launch ratings were much worse than even the darkest days of Big Breakfast, which came off air at the end of March this year. Then, the Big Breakfast was being watched by around 300,000 viewers. But when Ri:se launched in April, just 200,000 people bothered to tune in. For the past few weeks, things have improved, but that may only be a blip, of which more later.

If you're in the majority and haven't seen Ri:se, it's a tabloid take on news-led breakfast TV. It's more akin to Heat magazine than The Times, featuring four or more presenters sitting around a desk discussing gossipy items about the day's news interspersed with lots of entertainment features. News summaries are presented in front of a wall of TV screens in pre-digested chunks, reminiscent of the Channel 5 "five facts" format.

The BBC and GMTV breakfast shows routinely attract more than a million viewers, so where does Ri:se fit into the market? Ri:se is made by Princess Productions - which brought us Light Lunch - and BSkyB, which operates its own news channel, Sky News. The part-nership itself suggests a degree of uncertainty about its core values.

"We had to create a show for an audience which wasn't being served by GMTV or the BBC, but which also wasn't in the habit of turning on the TV in the morning," says Ri:se's executive producer, Sebastian Scott, who worked on the Big Breakfast shortly after it launched 10 years ago. "It was tough, not just following Big Breakfast, but following a show which nobody watched. We have to persuade people to turn off their radio and turn us on."

But one of their rivals, GMTV editor Peter McHugh, is dismissive of the approach: "They're trying to find another niche in the breakfast market, targeting those aged 16 to

34. But they seem to think that age group behaves differently in the morning to the rest of the population." McHugh believes breakfast TV is just "radio with pictures", used as background to people's early-morning routines. Broadcasters need to grab five minutes of attention here and there. Rolling news headlines across the bottom of the screen, as Ri:se does, won't work because the TV isn't being constantly watched, he suggests.

Ri:se's combination of entertainment and news makes for an uneasy mix. One source close to the programme says celebrity gossip was always seen as a cornerstone of the C4 offering. But Ri:se launch editor Mark Killick sensationally quit the programme after it had been on air for just two days, apparently in a row about editorial direction.

Killick's background was in consumer-watchdog programming while Scott's is in lighter, celebrity programming. The producers have made other changes, although they insist these are subtle. So far, the evolutionary change has meant fewer items are repeated, the show includes more outside broadcasts - where new presenters have been added to the mix - and a performance element has been introduced.

Publicists insist that, contrary to reports, no decisions have been made about changing the presenter line-up, and anchor Mark Durden-Smith is staying. Scott insists he was always allowing for evolutionary change to the show while on air.

"These things are almost impossible to get right from the first; it's a process of finding out what the audience wants," he says. "But it's got more relaxed, and it's found a voice that's funnier and more entertaining than before."

While the show has got lighter in tone, it has seen an increase in viewing figures. In the past few weeks, it has been piggy-backing on another C4 show, Big Brother, featuring live feeds from the Big Brother house and interviews with friends of the housemates. Last Wednesday, Ri:se was watched by 500,000 people between 8am and 8.30am, a crucial slot for any breakfast broadcaster. But will viewers stick with the programme once Big Brother ends in five weeks' time?

For its part, C4 is happier with Ri:se than ever before. A spokeswoman says that, while the upturn in viewing isn't dramatic, it also is not entirely because of Big Brother. Certainly, C4 director of programmes Tim Gardam wants to see 500,000 regularly tuning in by Christmas. But when Big Brother comes off the air, the chickens will come home to roost.

As Scott says, it was always going to be hard to replace the Big Breakfast, even if the audience for that show had slumped in recent years from a high of 1.5 million. Ri:se, unlike the Big Breakfast, airs 52 weeks a year without a break - a serious amount of live TV for any organisation to turn out. But the show is disproportionately important to C4, which has to deliver high numbers of elusive 16 to 34-year-old viewers to advertisers to make most of its living. Shows such as Ri:se and the Big Breakfast are meant to "punch above their weight", in the words of one competitor, because while they may not draw huge numbers of viewers, they can create "profile", just as the likes of Johnny Vaughan and Denise Van Outen make for good celebrity publicity. C4, like the other commercial channels in the UK, needs every advertising pound it can get this year, as the industry comes out of a deep recession.

There is concern that a lack of on-screen atmosphere is stifling the show. "It's got the presentation of GMTV or BBC, with Big Breakfast content." says one insider. "At least with Big Breakfast you felt there were people in the house, having fun." GMTV's McHugh is even harsher: "If you take Big Brother away from Ri:se the problems are still there." He confesses he was concerned about the competition before Ri:se launched, but is now more worried it will be scrapped or radically overhauled from September. "It's not a workable proposition for £12 million or whatever a year."

It's fair to say that in the offices of GMTV and Channel 4, viewing figures will be eagerly read the day Big Brother ends.