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

BBC1 BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins ...

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, started its service with the programme '' Good Morning Britain''. 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 Francis Joseph Bough (; 15 January 1933 – 21 October 2020) was an English television presenter. He was best known as the former host of BBC sports and current affairs shows including ''Grandstand'', '' Nationwide'' and '' Breakfast Time'', wh ...

Selina Scott Selina Mary Scott (born 13 May 1951) is an English television presenter who co-hosted the first dedicated breakfast television programme in the UK before crossing the Atlantic to join '' West 57th'', a prime-time current-affairs show broadcast f ...

and

Nick Ross Nicholas David Ross (born 7 August 1947) is a British 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 TV programme ''Crimewatch'', whic ...

anchored the show, with regulars such as

Russell Grant Russell John Dammerall Grant (born 5 February 1951) is a British astrologer and media personality. He has written several books on astrology, provides syndicated newspaper horoscopes and operates premium rate astrology phone lines. In March 20 ...

(astrology) and Diana Moran, also known as the "Green Goddess" due to the colour of her

leotard A leotard () is a unisex skin-tight one-piece garment that covers the torso from the crotch to the shoulder. The garment was made famous by the French acrobatic performer Jules Léotard (1838–1870). There are sleeveless, short-sleeved, and ...

. 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 '' 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 Ian McCaskill (born John Robertson McCaskill; 28 July 1938 – 10 December 2016) was a BBC weather forecaster. Early life McCaskill attended Queen's Park Secondary in Glasgow, and then the University of Glasgow, where he studied geology and ch ...

stood in during Wilson's absence. During Breakfast Time's 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 Ten Network, Channel 10 or simply 10) is an Australian commercial television network owned by Ten Network Holdings, a division of the Paramount Networks UK & Australia subsidiary of Paramount Global. One of five ...

for Australia,

CTV CTV may refer to: Television * Connected TV, or Smart TV, a TV set with integrated internet North America and South America * CTV Television Network, a Canadian television network owned by Bell Media ** CTV 2, a secondary Canadian televisio ...

for Canada, CBS and ABC for the United States, TVB for Hong Kong and NHK 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: * Day of the present, the time that is perceived directly, often called ''now'' * Current era, present * The current calendar date Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Today'' (1930 film), a 1930 ...

'' 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. The programme notably broadcast continuous live coverage of the

Brighton hotel bombing A Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) assassination attempt against members of the British government took place on 12 October 1984 at the Grand Hotel in Brighton, East Sussex, England, United Kingdom. A long-delay time bomb was plant ...

at the Conservative Party conference in 1984. TV-am, meanwhile, were castigated by the broadcasting authority for their 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 British 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 underg ...

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

Hillsborough football disaster The Hillsborough disaster was a fatal human crush during 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 Southeast As ...

and 1988 Summer Olympic Games 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.

presented the programme with

David Icke David Vaughan Icke (; born 29 April 1952) is an English conspiracy theorist and a former footballer and sports broadcaster. He has written over 20 books, self-published since the mid-1990s, and spoken in more than 25 countries. In 1990, Ick ...

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 Stephen Rider (born 28 April 1950) is an English sports presenter, and was the anchorman of ITV's football coverage. He anchored ITV's Formula One coverage from 2006 to 2008, and football coverage from 2006 to April 2010. He was the lead presen ...

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
/ref>

References

External links

*

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

Format

Comparisons with TV-am

Olympic Breakfast Time

Further reading

References

External links