''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 franchis ...

, the commercial breakfast television station, started its service with the programme '' Good Morning Britain''. On 2 October 1989, the show became ''

Breakfast News ''Breakfast News'' was a breakfast news programme which first aired on BBC1 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 tech ...

''.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 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'', whi ...

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 2 ...

(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 ''London Plus'' was the name of the BBC's regional news programme for southeastern England. Launched on Monday 3 September 1984, the programme represented the BBC's attempt to boost regional news service for the South East. Prior to the launch ...

'' 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 Michael Fish, (born 27 April 1944 in Eastbourne, Sussex) is a British weather forecaster. From 1974 to 2004, he was a television presenter for BBC Weather. Career Educated at Eastbourne College and City University London, Fish was the lon ...

, 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 c ...

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 for Canada,

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

and

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

for the United States,

TVB Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) is a television broadcasting company based in Hong Kong SAR. The Company operates five free-to-air terrestrial television channels in Hong Kong, with TVB Jade as its main Cantonese language service, and ...

for Hong Kong and

NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...

for Japan. Among the in-studio guests on the first "Breakfast Time" on 17 January 1983 was

Jane Pauley Margaret Jane Pauley (born October 31, 1950) is an American television host, and author, active in news reporting since 1972. Pauley first became widely known as Barbara Walters's successor on the NBC morning show ''Today'', beginning at the age ...

, 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 plan ...

at the

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

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 research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study o ...

. 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

The 1984 and 1988

Summer Olympic Games The Summer Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'été), also known as the Games of the Olympiad, and often referred to as the Summer Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inau ...

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 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, 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
/ref>

References

External links

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{{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