Piers Morgan Morning Show and ‘Dark Heart’ Drama Coming to BritBox
By Stewart Clarke
LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – BritBox subscribers will soon be able to get a daily news and entertainment fix from the U.K., served up by Piers Morgan. The BBC and owned streaming service is bolstering its news and current affairs output with the addition of daily breakfast news program “Good Morning Britain,” which is fronted by Susanna Reid and Morgan.
He is known to U.S. viewers after landing his own show on CNN that ran for three years until 2014. He has also been a judge on “America’s Got Talent,” and was the winner of Donald Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice.” Morgan has maintained a relationship with Trump, interviewing him on Air Force One during his recent controversial trip to the U.K.
Britbox will also run highlights from “This Morning,” a daily magazine show and stalwart of ITV’s daytime schedule in the U.K. Both programs will be packaged together for a weekly recap show under the “This Morning: This Week” banner.
AMC is a minority shareholder in alongside ITV and Studios, the U.K. pubcaster’s commercial arm. ITV said this week that the SVOD service garnered 250,000 subs in the twelve months since its launch last spring, and is on track to double that number in its sophomore year.
At its TCA presentation it also announced a raft of drama programming, including a new original, “Dark Heart.” An adaptation of Adam Creed’s Will Wagstaffe detective novels. It will air on ITV in the U.K. and stars Tom Riley (“Da Vinci’s Demons”) as Wagstaffe.
Britbox will also give U.S. premieres to BAFTA Award winning miniseries “Three Girls” from director Philippa Lowthrope (“The Crown”) and writer Nicole Taylor (“The C Word”), “Bancroft” featuring Sarah Parish (“Broadchurch”) and “Shakespeare & Hathaway,” which was the biggest drama launch for a BBC daytime series in the last five years.
BritBox also said it will simulcast a live Halloween special of dark comedy-drama “Inside No. 9.” Two shows it presented at its TCA presentation earlier this year, “Mum” and “Trauma,” will return in 2019, the streaming service added.
“BritBox is proudly a mass niche service,” said BritBox president Soumya Sriraman. “We blend the immediacy of broadcast with the swagger of a digital streamer creating what I like to call a ‘broad-streamer.’ We feature the stars you know, the stars you will know soon and one-of-a-kind originals that with an unmatched library of classic and current entertainment gives you the unapologetically British experience.”
