''Breakfast Time'' is British television's first national breakfast television programme. It was broadcast from 17 January 1983 until 29 September 1989 on

BBC1 BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and Flagship (broadcasting), flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includ ...

across the United Kingdom. It was broadcast for the first time just over two weeks before

TV-am TV-am was a TV company that broadcast the ITV franchise for breakfast television in the United Kingdom from 1 February 1983 until 31 December 1992. The station was the UK's first national operator of a commercial breakfast television franchise ...

, the commercial breakfast television station. On 2 October 1989, the show became '' Breakfast News''.first tx. of "BBC BREAKFAST NEWS" (BBC1)

Format

''Breakfast Time'' mixed hard news with accessible features, creating a cosy feel, with sofas and bright colours. The presenters typically wore casual clothes instead of formal suits, in contrast to the regular news broadcasts. Frank Bough, Selina Scott and

Nick Ross Nicholas David Ross (born 7 August 1947) is an English radio and television presenter. During the 1980s and 1990s he was one of the most ubiquitous of British broadcasters but is best known for hosting the BBC Television programme ''Crimewatc ...

anchored the show, with regulars such as Russell Grant (astrology) and Diana Moran, also known as the "Green Goddess" due to the colour of her leotard. The news was read by Debbie Rix, while each region opted out of the main programme at quarter past and quarter to the hour to broadcast short regional news bulletins. Initially, viewers in London and the South East were provided with their regional news by one of the main ''Breakfast Time'' presenters rather than a regional presentation team. This continued until autumn 1985 when the new London and South East regional news programme '' BBC London Plus'' started to provide the regional news opt-outs during the programme. The weather slot (known as ''Window on the Weather'') was presented by Francis Wilson, and reflected the rest of the show in having a more laid-back feel. ''Window on the Weather'' actually introduced modern, projection-style graphics some two years ahead of the transition from the old-style magnetic boards used in the BBC's main weather bulletins. Whilst Wilson was the resident weather presenter on the show, other presenters such as Michael Fish, Bill Giles and Ian McCaskill stood in during Wilson's absence. During ''Breakfast Times first broadcast, letters and telegrams were sent from different breakfast shows around the world to wish ''Breakfast Time'' good luck such as

Network Ten Network 10 (commonly known as the 10 Network, Channel 10 or simply 10) is an Australian commercial television network. It is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Paramount Global's Paramount Networks UK & Australia, UK & Australia division and is o ...

for Australia, CTV for Canada, CBS and ABC for the United States,

TVB Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB; zh, t=電視廣播有限公司) is a television broadcasting company based in Hong Kong. The company operates five free-to-air terrestrial television channels in Hong Kong, with TVB Jade as its main Canton ...

for Hong Kong and

NHK , also known by its Romanization of Japanese, romanized initialism NHK, is a Japanese public broadcasting, public broadcaster. It is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television licence, television license fee. NHK ope ...

for Japan. Among the in-studio guests on the first ''Breakfast Time'' on 17 January 1983 was Jane Pauley, presenter of NBC News ''

Today Today (archaically to-day) may refer to: * The current day and calendar date ** Today is between and , subject to the local time zone * Now, the time that is perceived directly, present * The current, present era Arts, entertainment and m ...

'' in the United States. ''Breakfast Time'' aired from 6:30 am until 9:00 am each weekday morning. On Monday 18 February 1985, the programme changed to a later time slot of 6:50 am until 9:20 am. On Monday 10 November 1986, ''Breakfast Time'' was relaunched with a news desk and presenters in suits. Hardened journalists such as Jeremy Paxman and Kirsty Wark joined the team as the programme shifted its tone to analysis of the morning's news stories, especially politics. The new look programme also started later, running from 7:00 am and ended any time between 8:30am and 8:55am.

Comparisons with TV-am

The commercial breakfast show

launched two weeks later on ITV. Despite TV-am's high-profile presenters, ''Breakfast Time'' proved more popular with viewers. ''Breakfast Time'' notably broadcast continuous live coverage of the Brighton hotel bombing at the Conservative Party conference in 1984. TV-am, meanwhile, was castigated by the broadcasting authority for its poor coverage of the event. TV-am had just one crew covering the conference, but they had been called back to London to cover a train crash in Wembley. Only John Stapleton was present in Brighton, and had to make do with phoning in reports from a public phone box, with a picture of him shown on screen, along with an archive picture of the hotel. Unlike TV-am, ''Breakfast Time'' was only broadcast on weekdays; weekend breakfast transmissions on BBC1 continued to consist of programmes from

the Open University The Open University (OU) is a Public university, public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by List of universities in the United Kingdom by enrolment, number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate ...

. However, on two occasions, weekend editions of the programme were broadcast. They were to provide coverage of the Zeebrugge ferry disaster and the

Hillsborough disaster The Hillsborough disaster was a fatal crowd crush at a football match at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, on 15 April 1989. It occurred during an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest in the tw ...

Olympic Breakfast Time

The

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...

and 1988

Summer Olympic Games The Summer Olympic Games, also known as the Summer Olympics or the Games of the Olympiad, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The 1896 Summer Olympics, inaugural Games took place in 1896 in Athens, ...

took place during the period when ''Breakfast Time'' was on air and during both Games, with the exception of news, weather and regional news, the programme was entirely devoted to Olympic coverage. In 1984, the time difference meant that ''Olympic Breakfast Time'' was given over to highlights of the overnight action. Frank Bough presented the programme with David Icke providing "Olympic Action Summaries" at 7.05, 8.05 and 8.50. In 1988, ''Olympic Breakfast Time'' coincided with the middle of the afternoon local time so the programme mixed live coverage with overnight highlights. Steve Rider was the presenter with David Icke providing Olympic summaries at 6.30, 7.30 and 8.30am. During both Games, ''Olympic Breakfast Time'' was also broadcast over the weekend, although the Sunday edition in 1984 started at the later time of 7am. The weekend editions also included news summaries, albeit hourly rather than every 30 minutes.BBC Genome Project – BBC1 listings 1 October 1988
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References

External links

* * {{UK Breakfast TV BBC television news shows 1983 British television series debuts 1989 British television series endings British English-language television shows Breakfast television in the United Kingdom

Format

Comparisons with TV-am

Olympic Breakfast Time

Further reading

References

External links