Breakfast Time

Breakfast Time is British television's first national breakfast show, broadcast from 1983 until 1989 on BBC One across the United Kingdom. It beat TV-am, the breakfast show contractor for the rival ITV network with their programme Good Morning Britain, to the air by two weeks and one day.

Formation
On 30 December 1980 BBC announced there intention to also introduce a new breakfast television service to compete with TV-am. BBC stated it would start broadcasting before TV-am, but made clear the BBC hands were tied until November 1981 when the new licence fee income become available, to help finance extending broadcast hours, with the hope of starting in 1982.

BBC took the decision in June 1981, to delay the introduction of breakfast service until 1983, to allow more time to decide develop the format, and to make sure it was feesablie.

BBC finaly confirmed in March 1982, its plans to start a breakfast television services. The original idea for "Radiovision" a combined radio and television service, after a successful one week trial in Glasgow in 1980 had been rejected along with a proposal for the programme to emanate from Birmingham. BBC main reason for starting the service as it believed viewers should be given a choice, as with other times of the day.

By early January the Breakfast Time was conceded as being down market from TVAM. A week after intianil start of broadcasting, eight million viewers had started to turn into the "Breakfast Time" Ron Neil "the Jeremiahs who said there wasn't an apetite for Breakfast time have been proved wrong. Our task now is to listen very carefully to what the audience say there like and dislike so that we can fine-tune the programme for them

Breakfast time continued its lead in the ratings until August when TVAM finally 100'000 more viewers, Mainly down to the help of Roland Rat. It was short lived as by mid September BBC regained its lead.

Overview
The show was revolutionary for the time. It mixed hard news with accessible features, creating a cosy feel, with sofas and bright colours — a stark contrast to the Open University programming that had previously aired during that timeslot. 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 (fitness).

Breakfast Time was an unexpected success. A rival commercial breakfast show, TV-am, was headed by a star line-up and almost everyone assumed it would trounce the BBC, but Breakfast Time got on the air first and the format and presenters proved supremely popular.

One of Breakfast Time's most notable episodes was on the morning of the Brighton bombing when Nick Ross in the studio presented continuous live coverage of the Provisional Irish Republican ArmyIRA's attack at the Conservative Party conference in 1984, including live pictures of the rescue of senior politicians such as Norman Tebbit.

Change of Format
In time TV-am simply copied the BBC's approach, and Breakfast Time became less sure-footed, losing some of its friendly accessibility as it strained to be more serious in tone. By 1986 ratings where about one million be hide that of TVAM, so In March BBC announced it was relaunching the Programme to become " Harder Edge" as part of its plans for the new Daytime service being introduced in the October 1986. New Breakfast time was to Concentrate more on Specifically on the days news with less topical features shortly afterward Selina Scott left.

The new upmarket look for Breakfast Time was adopted on 10 November 1986 the show became Breakfast News. The serious news format, was presented by Frank Bough, Sally Magnusson, with John Stapleton, Kirsty Wark and Laurie Mayer jointing in 1987, when Frank Bough left.

On the 2nd October 1989, it was renamed BBC Breakfast News, this was planed to take place on 18 September 1989 was was held back, due to technical issues with its new studio.

Presentation

 * http://tv-live.org.uk/wp/index.php/bbc/bbc-news/bbc-breakfast/bbc-breakfast-time-1983-1986/

Presenters



 * Frank Bough
 * Sue Cook
 * Jill Dando
 * Fern Britton
 * Debbie Greenwood
 * David Icke
 * Sally Magnusson
 * John Mountford
 * Jeremy Paxman
 * Debbie Rix
 * Nick Ross
 * Mike Smith
 * Selina Scott
 * John Stapleton
 * Kirsty Wark
 * Francis Wilson