''Breakfast News'' was a breakfast news programme which first aired 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, ...

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 15 minutes plus weather and regional news every 30 minutes. 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 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 parliament. ...

the 8am to 8.15am part pf 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 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. The final edition of ''Breakfast News'' aired on 15 September 2000 and on 2 October 2000 it relaunched as ''

BBC Breakfast ''BBC Breakfast'' is the BBC television Breakfast television, breakfast news programme. Produced by BBC News, the programme is broadcast on BBC One and the BBC News (TV channel), BBC News channel. The simulcast is presented live, originally from ...

''. ''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

Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Iraq were carried out in two key phases: ...

. 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 acronym for Good Morning Television), now legally known as ITV Breakfast Broadcasting Limited, was the name of the national Channel 3 breakfast television contractor/licensee, broadcasting in the United Kingdom from 1 January 1993 ...

'' 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 broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

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 ''Breakfast with Frost'' is a Sunday morning BBC current affairs programme hosted by Sir David Frost. It covered the main political news of the day, with Frost interviewing key figures in the world of politics, and celebrity guests reviewing the ...

'' 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 2000. Initially the programme aired as part of ''Breakfast News'' broadcasting between 6:34am and 6:55am. From Tuesday 4 January 2000 until Friday 15 September 2000, 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 October 2000 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 journalist and television presenter. She has presented various television shows for ITV, including '' Good Morning Britain'' (1988–1992), '' GMTV'' (1993–2010), ''This Morning'' (2003 ...

. 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 Nicholas Newton Henshall Witchell OStJ FRGS (born 23 September 1953) is an English journalist and news presenter. The latter half of his career has been as royal correspondent for BBC News. Early life and career Witchell was born on 23 Septemb ...

Jill Dando Jill Wendy Dando (9 November 1961 – 26 April 1999) was an English journalist, television presenter and newsreader. She spent most of her career at the BBC and was the corporation's Personality of the Year in 1997. At the time of her death, her ...

Sally Magnusson Sally Anne Magnusson (born 1955) is a Scottish broadcast journalist, television presenter and writer, who currently presents the Thursday and Friday night edition of BBC Scotland's ''Reporting Scotland''. She also presents ''Tracing Your Roots' ...

Sara Coburn Sara Coburn (born 25 December 1962 in Northern Ireland) is a journalist, and a business presenter on BBC Breakfast and the BBC News (TV channel), BBC News channel. Career Coburn joined the BBC in 1985. Her first role was as a reporter with B ...

* Laurie Mayer *

Justin Webb Justin Oliver Webb (born Justin Oliver Prouse, 3 January 1961 in Portsmouth, Hampshire) is a British journalist who has worked for the BBC since 1984. He is a former BBC North America Editor and the main co-presenter of BBC One's '' Breakfast ...

* Andrew Harvey * Juliet Morris *

Fiona Bruce Fiona Elizabeth Bruce (born 25 April 1964) is a British journalist, newsreader, and television presenter. She joined the BBC as a researcher for '' Panorama'' in 1989, and has since become the first female newsreader on the ''BBC News at Ten' ...

Kirsty Wark Kirsteen Anne "Kirsty" Wark FRSE (born 3 February 1955) is a Scottish television presenter with a long career at the BBC. Starting on Radio Scotland, where she became a producer, Wark switched to television, presenting The Late Show and Newsnig ...

* Noel Thompson * Michael Peschardt *

John Nicolson John MacKenzie Nicolson (born 23 June 1961) is a Scottish journalist, broadcaster and Scottish National Party (SNP) politician. Since the 2019 general election he has been the SNP Member of Parliament (MP) for Ochil and South Perthshire. He ...

Huw Edwards Huw Edwards (; born 18 August 1961) is a Welsh journalist, presenter, and newsreader. Edwards presents ''BBC News at Ten'', the corporation's flagship news broadcast. Edwards also presents BBC coverage of state events, international events, th ...

Sophie Raworth Sophie Jane Raworth () (born 15 May 1968) is an English journalist, newsreader and broadcaster working for the BBC. She is a senior newsreader and is one of the main presenters of BBC News (mainly ''BBC News at Six'' and ''BBC News at Ten''). S ...

Tanya Beckett Tanya Louise Beckett (born July 1966) is an English television and radio journalist. Early life Beckett was born in 1966 in Maldon, Essex. She has one brother. She was educated at the independent Redland High School for Girls in Bristol, Engl ...

Jeremy Bowen Jeremy Francis John Bowen (born 6 February 1960) is a Welsh journalist and television presenter. He was the BBC's Middle East correspondent based in Jerusalem between 1995 and 2000 and the BBC Middle East editor from 2005 to 2022, before being ...

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 Elizabeth Mary MacKean (30 November 1964 – 18 August 2017) was a British television reporter and presenter. She worked on the BBC's ''Newsnight'' programme and was the reporter on an exposé of Sir Jimmy Savile as a paedophile which was cont ...

''Business Breakfast''

''Breakfast News Extra''

Notable presenters

See also

References

External links