Kirsty Gallacher is the sports presenter

That is no more than watched its predecessor, The Big Breakfast, when it was axed because of poor ratings.

Little fanfare was given to the launch of Rise, in which a team of presenters deliver a mixture of serious and irreverent news.

The ratings statistics come as Channel 4 searches for advertisers after blaming a �20m loss on an advertising slump.

Rise was watched by just 5% of all those who were watching television between 0655 and 0900 BST on Monday, the figures show.

GMTV on ITV1 was watched by an average of 1.2 million - or 35%, while BBC One's Breakfast drew just under one million.

This is a long-term project that is not to be judged on its first day

Rise spokesperson

Children's shows on BBC Two such as The Really Wild Show were watched by up to 500,000 people.

And more viewers were watching shows like Mr Men and Little Miss on Channel 5 during the middle hour of Rise.

But the producers said the show was "soft launched", and the intention was not to go for the biggest audience possible on the first day.

"This is a long-term project that is not to be judged on its first day," a spokesman for the show told BBC News Online.

"Rise wasn't launched like a sitcom that will be going for six weeks, whereby you have to attract as many people to it as you can at the beginning. It was deliberately soft-launched."

It could not be compared to the other channels or The Big Breakfast because it was going for a different audience, he said.

"There is an overall strategy to get it right and for it to appeal to the Channel 4 16-34 audience, a lot of whom are not watching breakfast television at the moment."

'Appalling'

BBC News Online received hundreds of e-mails from viewers after the show, most of whom were negative about it.

"The first episode was truly appalling," wrote Gavin Martin.

"Wooden presenters, bad content presentation and extremely dull," was how another viewer, Nick, described it.

Edith Bowman interviewed Denis Leary

But others said it had potential, and praised attempts to be different, such as in the lack of theme music.

"Hopefully, this will develop into a much classier version of the Big Breakfast, and entertain as well as educate," wrote Matt, from Coventry.

Sky Sports rugby presenter Mark Durden-Smith heads the team of seven presenters, who appear in a high-tech studio with a breakfast bar instead of sofas.

They chat informally, and on Monday the talking points included everything from the Middle East to David Beckham's new clothes and whether Pakistani president General Musharraf wore a wig.

Another Sky Sports presenter, Kirsty Gallacher, presents the sport, while the team also includes MTV host Edith Bowman and former Newsround frontman Chris Rogers.

They all take turns in presenting the weather.

Producers expect viewers to dip in and out of the show rather than watch it at length, meaning some items are repeated at least four times per show.