Daybreak Northern Ireland

Daybreak Northern Ireland is the regional news strand for Northern Ireland provided for the ITV breakfast station ITV Breakfast.

Unlike the ITV plc-owned regions, UTV - the ITV contractor for Northern Ireland - do not provide regional news broadcasts during Daybreak (previously GMTV). This is due to a dispute between UTV and GMTV which dates back to 1994 when UTV opted out of the national breakfast contractor in breach of their broadcasting licence to provide live coverage of the breaking news of the Combined Loyalist ceasefire.

GMTV Northern Ireland was rebranded as Daybreak Northern Ireland in September 2010, when GMTV was replaced by new breakfast programme, Daybreak. Regional bulletins air every Monday to Friday at 6.05am, 6.35am and 7.35am, and includes a look at the days main headlines, a travel news update, and a weather forecast.

Service
In January 1995, GMTV contracted the service out to Reuters, who then provided the GMTV national news service. The service was later produced by ITN and currently, as of 2005, is produced by Macmillan Media, a company founded by former ITN and BBC correspondent Michael Macmillan.

In return, UTV never purposely promote any ITV Breakfast programming, and in their last news broadcast of the day, promote their next bulletin as being at 1.55pm, not mentioning the local breakfast news.

Macmillan Media took over from STV as the regional breakfast news provider in the Central Scotland and Northern Scotland regions in 2007.

Current presenters/reporters

 * Sonia Butterworth
 * Maura O'Brien
 * Paul Reilly
 * Jane Veitch
 * Richard Cull
 * Charlie Oundo

Former presenters

 * Lynda Fulford
 * Lindsey Armstrong (now with BBC Northern Ireland)
 * Vicki Hawthorne (now freelance, appears on Sky News)
 * Emma Johnston


 * Aideen Kennedy (now with UTV)
 * Barbara McCann (now with BBC Northern Ireland)
 * Siobhan McGarry (now with UTV)


 * Kirsteen O'Sullivan (Now with TV3)
 * Nicola Thompson (now with BBC)
 * Patricia Wilkinson (now with BBC Northern Ireland)