BBC1 Breakfast show boosted by Chile miners coverage

BBC1's Breakfast programme has opened up its biggest lead over ITV1's Daybreak, at one point watched by nearly three times as many viewers as its commercial rival yesterday, Wednesday 13 October. Breakfast averaged 1.824 million viewers between 6am and 9.15am yesterday, a 37.6% share of the audience, against Daybreak's 725,000 viewers, a 15.9% share, between 6am and 8.30am. Possibly boosted by its live coverage of the Chile miners' rescue – viewers have a tendency to switch to the BBC during big breaking news stories – Breakfast peaked with 2.56 million viewers, 36.7% of the audience, between 8am and 8.15am, nearly three times the 887,000 watching Daybreak. The BBC1 programme's audience was nearly 400,000 up on its previous day's average of 1.438 million, while Daybreak was marginally down on the 733,000 who watched on Tuesday. The disappointing ratings so far for Daybreak, which replaced GMTV , has led to speculation about changes to its format . The programme launched with 1.015 million viewers, 24.9% of the audience, on 6 September, behind Breakfast's 1.405 million. • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email [email protected] or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. • If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".