Breakfast Time (British TV programme)

Breakfast Time is British television's first national breakfast television programme, broadcast from 17 January 1983 until 29 September 1989 on BBC1 across the United Kingdom. It was broadcast for the first time just over two weeks before TV-am, the commercial breakfast television station, started its service with the programme Good Morning Britain.

For other uses, see Breakfast Time (disambiguation).

Breakfast Time
GenreBreakfast television
Presented byFrank Bough (1983–87)
Sue Cook (1983–86)
Jill Dando (1988–89)
Fern Britton (1983–84)
Debbie Greenwood (1985–86)
Sally Magnusson (1985–89)
John Mountford
Jeremy Paxman (1986–89)
Nick Ross (1983–86)
Mike Smith (1983–86)
Selina Scott (1983–86)
John Stapleton (1988–89)
Kirsty Wark (1988–89)
Francis Wilson (1983–89)
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
Production
Running time150 minutes (1983–86)
120 minutes (1988–89)
Release
Original networkBBC1
Original release17 January 1983 (1983-01-17)[1] –
29 September 1989 (1989-09-29)[1]
Chronology
Followed byBreakfast News

On Monday 2 October 1989 the show became Breakfast News.[2]

Format

Breakfast Time mixed hard news with accessible features, creating a cosy feel, with sofas and bright colours.[3] The presenters typically wore casual clothes instead of formal suits, in contrast to the regular news broadcasts. Frank Bough, Selina Scott and Nick Ross 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 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 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 for Australia, CTV for Canada, CBS and ABC for the United States, TVB for Hong Kong and NHK for Japan.[4] Among the in-studio guests on the first "Breakfast Time" on 17 January 1983 was Jane Pauley, presenter of NBC News Today 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.[5]

On Monday 10th November 1986, Breakfast Time was relaunched with a news desk and presenters in suits.[1] 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 8:30 am and 8:55 am.[6]

Comparisons with TV-am

The commercial breakfast show TV-am launched two weeks later on ITV.[7] Despite TV-am's high-profile presenters, Breakfast Time proved more popular with viewers.[7][3]

The programme notably broadcast continuous live coverage of the Brighton hotel bombing at the Conservative Party conference in 1984.[3] TV-am, meanwhile, were castigated by the broadcasting authority for their poor coverage of the event.[8] TV-am had just one crew covering the conference, but they had been called back to London to cover a train crash in Wembley.[9] 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. 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.

Olympic Breakfast Time

Two editions of the 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 coverage of the Games. 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 three "Olympic Action Summaries" at 7.05, 8.05 and 8.50.[10] 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.[11] 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.[12] and the weekend editions did include news summaries, albeit hourly rather than every 30 minutes.[13][14]

Further reading
  • Ian Jones, Morning Glory: A history of British breakfast television. Kelly, 2004. ISBN 1-903053-20-X

References
  1. "BBC NEWS – Programmes – Breakfast – Presenters – The Evolution of Breakfast". news.bbc.co.uk. 14 November 2008.
  2. first tx. of "BBC BREAKFAST NEWS" (BBC1) BBC Timeline at the Wayback Machine (archived 29 November 2014)
  3. Gough, Patrick (13 January 2008). "Wake up call". Bournemouth Daily Echo. Retrieved 27 August 2019.
  4. Breakfast Time – First Edition Wishes. TVARK. 17 January 1983. Archived from the original on 29 April 2016. Retrieved 29 June 2013.
  5. "Breakfast Time – BBC One London – 18 February 1985 – BBC Genome". The Radio Times (3196): 41. 14 February 1985.
  6. "Breakfast Time – BBC One London – 10 November 1986 – BBC Genome". The Radio Times (3285): 50. 6 November 1986.
  7. "BBC Breakfast celebrates 30 years". BBC News. 13 January 2013. Retrieved 27 August 2019.
  8. Dawkins, Andrew (February 2013). "Breakfast TV's 'turmoil' recalled". BBC News.
  9. Bonner, P.; Aston, L. (13 December 2002). Independent Television in Britain: Volume 6 New Developments in Independent Television 1981–92: Channel 4, TV-am, Cable and Satellite. ISBN 9780230287136.
  10. BBC Genome Project - BBC1 listings 30 July 1984
  11. BBC Genome Project - BBC1 listings 23 September 1988
  12. BBC Genome Project - BBC1 listings 5 August 1984
  13. https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/bbcone/london/1984-08-04 BBC Genome Project - BBC1 listings 4 August 1984]
  14. BBC Genome Project - BBC1 listings 1 October 1988
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