Good Morning Britain beats BBC Breakfast for first time ever with Piers Morgan's final show

By Neil Wilkes, Editor-in-chief | 1h

Good Morning Britain finally beats BBC Breakfast in the ratings in what turned out to be Piers Morgan's final episode as host.

Good Morning Britain triumphed in the ratings against BBC Breakfast for the first time ever on Tuesday morning, overnight ratings figures have revealed.

The programme, which devoted most of its airtime to continued coverage of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry's interview with Oprah Winfrey, featured Piers Morgan storming off set when quizzed by colleague Alex Beresford about his criticism of the couple.

The episode turned out to be Morgan's final turn in the GMB hosting chair as later in the day he handed in his resignation, having refused to issue an on-air apology to Markle.

Across his more than five years working on the show, Morgan regularly referenced how GMB had been managing to close the ratings gap on its BBC rival - and in a bittersweet twist, it finally overtook Breakfast in the ratings with his final episode.

According to early figures, GMB averaged 1.29 million viewers and a 35.3% audience share on Tuesday morning, narrowly ahead of BBC Breakfast's 1.25 million average with a 33.4% share.

Reacting on social media, Morgan wrote: "BREAKING NEWS: Good Morning Britain beat BBC Breakfast in the ratings for the first time yesterday. My work is done."

Morgan is now thought to be wanted by multiple rival broadcasters, including the major new news channel GB News, headed up by Andrew Neil.