Breakfast Television launched in the UK in... 1983

This week the BBC went into one of its periodical self-congratulatory modes as it marked 30 years of breakfast television in the UK, by showing an excerpt of the first edition of 'Breakfast Time', which launched on January 17th 1983. It is certainly true that the BBC were first onto the air with a breakfast TV programme, however their feature looking back on the start of the Breakfast TV era left out a significant part.

Until 1983 the only programmes broadcast at that time of day were for The Open University; regular programming would not start until much later in the day. The plan was originally to launch TV-am (broadcast through the ITV network) as the first breakfast TV station in June of 1983, with the franchise being awarded by the Independent Broadcasting Authority over two years previously. However, once the plan was put into place, the BBC gazumped the ITV network by rushing to put their own breakfast programme on and beat TV-am to the punch. TV-am had poached several big-name presenters including David Frost, Michael Parkinson and Angela Rippon, with the intention to make the programme a serious news-based one, taking on the BBC at what was considered to be their own game. However when the BBC show launched it completely wrong-footed the rival station, with the format being a much lighter style. Indeed, the presenters were not placed behind news desks, but on sofas, dressed casually in cardigans rather than sober business suits. The format was a success, and when TV-am did launch in February its more serious tone attracted criticism and the chief executive was soon ousted. His replacement began the cull of the established presenters and by the summer, the serious news presenters had been usurped by a puppet! The introduction of Roland Rat proved popular with viewers, and the transformation of TV-am from a serious news-orientated programme into a lightweight format (copying the BBC formula) was complete.

And now, time to jog a few memories!
Here is TV-am's first day (titles begin at 2:30 into the clip)


And here is the BBC's offering (around 2 mins in):