Has Richard ruined it for Judy?

What a difference a year makes. Twelve months ago Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan were two of the most successful people in television.

Their morning show, This Morning, which they hosted for 13 years, brought in millions of viewers and gave them an almost iconic status.

Today, rumours are rife that their Channel 4 teatime show Richard and Judy, which is struggling for viewers, could be axed. Strain is showing on the ever-bubbly Finnigan, who was pictured over the weekend looking drawn and exhausted.

Their new show has been plagued by problems since it went on air in November. First, they lost their trusted editor Karen Smith (whom they had poached from ITV) when she left suddenly in February. It took three months to replace her when several top executives turned down the job, calling it "a poisoned chalice" (rows with This Morning's executive producer Maureen Duffy prompted the move to C4), and there are stories of an unhappy atmosphere behind the scenes, where the couple are now referred to as Bitchy and Moody.

What's gone wrong? Insiders point to one main factor - the on-screen chemistry between the couple that made This Morning work has vanished. Why? Because Madeley is taking a bigger and bigger role, on-screen and off. Where once Judy (regarded by everyone who works with them as the better journalist and the more intelligent of the two) was clearly the driving force, Madeley is taking control, with Finniganresignedly adding less to the proceedings. Madeley used to display an attractive labrador puppyness with Finnigan regularly gently slapping him down. Now he looks like an outofcontrol rottweiler.

This shift in balance from working with Finnigan's strong points (empathy, life experience and intuitive intelligence) to Madeley's weak ones (getting easily bored, not quite grasping a subject) spells disaster, as one senior C4 executive explains. "Richard was frustrated with the lack of control he had on ITV. Having executive-editor status (on Richard and Judy) means he is more involved in the structure and running of the show. In my view, it is Richard's involvement at this level that has contributed to the new show's failure."

On This Morning, the research team had a file called Richard's Stupid Ideas, crammed full of Madeley's suggestions. It eventually found its way to the bin. On C4, however, it looks as though his more deranged moments are the starting point for the show. One daft idea after another is wheeled out with much fanfare, only to be dropped a week or two later when it hasn't worked. So desperate are the couple for ideas that they regularly exhort the few viewers they have to ring in with suggestions. In the Nineties they had amazing success on This Morning, an eclectic mix of celebrity interviews, cookery items, phone-ins, fashion and make-overs. Madeley, 46, and Finnigan, 54, were a broadcasting phenomenon and hit an audience high of more than three million - a remarkable figure for morning TV.

But the one-hour 5pm Richard and Judy programme, which follows Countdown (three million viewers) and is in competition with The Weakest Link on BBC2 (five million), has yet to reach the two-million mark after its first-week high of 2.2 million. C4 bosses are not sure that the £2 million, twoyear deal is paying off.

And, for all its dross content, This Morning was ground-breaking and innovative, even if embarrassing on occasion - such as when a man examined his testicles live on air for a testicular-cancer special, and when a selection of wrinklies described the effects of Viagra on their sex lives in real-time TV, as they went off to hotel rooms to try it.

The show also had the first transsexual make-over and the first gay wedding on daytime TV. With Richard and Judy, however, all you get is one TV nonentity after another, talking in soporific detail about the cop/ doctor/ midwife/teacher they are playing in a soap or TV drama as celebrities desert the First Couple of TV in their less successful timeslot. As one top agent told me: "Why interrupt your filming schedule for 1.5 million viewers, when you can do breakfast TV or an evening chat show for three or four times that number?"

As for the serious stuff, discussions on school bullying, paedophilia and the justice system are marred by hideous gimmickry and Madeley's propensity to get things wrong.

For fans of embarrassing TV, Madeley's cock-ups and Finnigan's blushes are now the only reason to switch on. Madeley confused actor David Suchet with his newsreader brother, John and had to be corrected twice by his red-faced wife; to a police officer, he said: "If I can summarise it in argot, what coppers say is, 'We know he done it guv', but he got away wiv it'"; he asked singer Sophie Ellis Bextor: "Where did you get your face? It's Egyptian"; and, to the pro-fur lobby: "If you saw a mink with an electrode sticking out of its anus, would you wear it as a hat?"

Perhaps sitting with all those celebs on the sofa over the years has gone to Madeley's head. He is seen at most first nights and galas in London throughout the week, often accompanied by the couple's teenage daughter, Chloe.

Insiders say that Finnigan would be happy to live in quiet retirement. She is a mother of four (adult twins and two teenagers by Madeley) and, as the cannier of the two, knows that neither has what it takes to make really successful solo careers.

Her consumer programme, We Can Work It Out, and his weather series, Eye of the Storm, have not been recommissioned after tiny audiences and derisory reviews.

It could be that Richard's takeover means that Judy has already decided to end her broadcasting career. Perhaps someone should tell her husband that his could be just about to hit the buffers ...