''Breakfast News'' is a breakfast news programme which first aired 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 ...

on 2 October 1989. The programme was previously known as '' Breakfast Time''. It was planned to launch on 18 September 1989 but was held back by two weeks due to technical issues with its new studio. The programme adopted a rolling news format with news summaries every 15minutes plus weather and regional news every 30minutes. Other features included a review of the day's newspapers and regular business news updates. From 22 November 1989, following the commencement of televised coverage of the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

, the 8am to 8.15am part of the programme was simulcast on BBC2 as part of a new news hour which encompassed a review of the previous day's proceedings at Westminster. The final edition of ''Breakfast News'' aired on 19 January 2001The Evolution of Breakfast
BBC News, January 2008 and on 22 January 2001 it relaunched as ''

BBC Breakfast ''BBC Breakfast'' is a British television breakfast news programme, produced by BBC News and broadcast on BBC One every morning from 6:00am. It is also broadcast on the UK feed of BBC News channel on weekends. The simulcast is presented live, ...

''.

Presentation

The programme went through three main visual changes. The initial look lasted until 8 April 1993. The 13 April 1993 revamp saw the programme presented from the same set as the One, Six and Nine O'Clock News bulletins. A further and final revamp took place on 2 June 1997 when 'BBC' was shorn from its title, and on-screen it became known as simply ''Breakfast News''. It was during this final period that the tone began to shift, with the return of a sofa set, alongside more features, and more interaction between the presenting team.

Broadcasting

''BBC Breakfast News'' only aired from Mondays to Fridays with no weekend editions, although weekend editions were shown during the early stages of the 1991

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. This compares to their ITV counterparts

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 ...

and later

GMTV GMTV (an initialism for Good Morning Television), now legally known as ''ITV Breakfast, ITV Breakfast Broadcasting Limited'', was the name of the national ITV (TV network), ITV breakfast television contractor/licensee, broadcasting in the Uni ...

who were on the air seven days a week. However, in September 1991 the BBC launched a short 5 minute weekend breakfast news summary. The Saturday edition aired at 7:25am to commence their Saturday schedule. The bulletin was not presented from the Breakfast News set, but from the main BBC News set based in the newsroom. The Saturday breakfast bulletin was dropped from the schedules in the autumn of 1999 with the last Saturday morning bulletin airing on Saturday 11 September 1999.

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matte ...

had already been broadcasting an hour of news from BBC News 24, branded as "Weekend 24" on Saturday mornings from 8am to 9am since 31 January 1998, over two months after the launch of BBC News 24 and so the short Saturday breakfast news summary on BBC One started to become redundant. On Sundays the short morning bulletin would air at 9:10am and this would later be incorporated into the '' Breakfast with Frost'' programme which launched on 3 January 1993.

''Business Breakfast''

''Business Breakfast'' was a daily news programme which aired between 6am and 7am, directly preceding Breakfast News between 4 January 1993 and 2001. Initially the programme aired as part of ''Breakfast News'' broadcasting between 6:34am and 6:55am. From Tuesday 4 January 2000 until Friday 19 January 2001, Business Breakfast was subsumed into the BBC Breakfast News programme with Breakfast News starting at 6am each weekday. Business Breakfast remained as a feature not a separate programme however, with business news a key feature in the first hour of the programme. This set up was to change from January 2001 with the launch of BBC Breakfast.

''Breakfast News Extra''

''Breakfast News Extra'' launched on 5 February 1996, as an attempt to compete against

Lorraine Kelly Lorraine Kelly (born 30 November 1959) is a Scottish television presenter. She has presented various television shows for ITV and STV, including '' Good Morning Britain'' (1988–1992), ''GMTV'' (1993–2010), ''This Morning'' (2003–2005, ...

. The programme was presented from the ''Breakfast News'' office, on a blue sofa, and hosted by Juliet Morris. It was short-lived, and was axed in the summer of 1997 with the last one shown on 29 August 1997. By this stage the main BBC Breakfast News had undergone a dramatic visual revamp with a new studio set which included sofas alongside the main presentation desk.

Notable presenters

* Nicholas Witchell * Jill Dando * Sally Magnusson * Sara Coburn * Laurie Mayer * Justin Webb * Andrew Harvey * Juliet Morris * Fiona Bruce * Kirsty Wark * Noel Thompson * Michael Peschardt * John Nicolson * Huw Edwards * Sophie Raworth * Tanya Beckett * Jeremy Bowen *

Julie Etchingham Julie Anne Etchingham (born 21 August 1969) is an English journalist who works as a television newsreader with ITV News. A graduate of Newnham College, Cambridge, Etchingham joined the BBC as a trainee after completing her studies, and went on ...

* Liz MacKean

References

External links

* {{UK Breakfast TV BBC television news shows 1989 in British television 1989 British television series debuts 2000 British television series endings 1990s British television series Breakfast television in the United Kingdom