BBC Breakfast News

Yes I remember it - not that well. If I remember Juliette Morris often presented it and it ran till 0915. Where did it come from though as I'm sure it looked more like an office.

Thanks to Google this was what was known about BBC Breakfast News Extra last time it wasn mentioned:
http://www.tvforum.co.uk/thenewsroom/bbc-breakfast-news-extra-15148

Whatever happened to Business Breakfast presenter, Paul Burden ?

He became Director of Communications at the John Lewis Partnership, and has since retired. More info about him here:

http://www.classiquepromotions.co.uk/8/2038/Paul+Burden

Thanks for all the feedback, chaps, on presenters and so on.

Does anyone recall the structuring of the first hour of Business Breakfast, though? The Paul Burden and Sara Coburn hour. Was it a global business review, with input from correspondents around the globe (just like Rico Hizon and Michelle Fleury do now on The World Today, or was it more of a UK-centric light business digest?

Any feedback welcome, please.

(What really provoked me to start the thread actually was giving some thought to the current dwindling content of BBC Business News, or, what appears to be dwindling content. It then evoked memories of BB.)

To add to what's on that thread, Breakfast News Extra actually lasted I think eighteen months. It came into fruition as part of a mini-revamp of BBC1 daytime in February 1996 (which also saw Pebble Mill moved to two o'clock for its last few months) and I think one of the main reasons for it was so they could start programmes at 9.20am to get one jump ahead of ITV who of course started their daytime line-up at 9.25. The first show at 9.20 was Can't Cook Won't Cook which had been doing really well at 10am, given the rest of BBC1 daytime was in a right state at the time, so they wanted to use it to get the line-up off to a good start.

Breakfast News Extra stayed on throughout the whole of the summer, even when all the other shows had ended and they were just flinging on films and repeats (the kids holiday shows were on BBC2 that summer) and stayed after the revamp in September 1996 which abandoned the idea of a long magazine, a la Anne and Nick, in favour of half hour and hour-long shows, which is what we stil have now. But it finished in the summer of 1997, I think.

As for Business Breakfast, it was around as a "brand" from the very start of Breakfast News in 1989, when Breakfast News started at 6.30 - usually Witchell or whoever would do a quick hello and read the headlines, then Business Breakfast would run through to seven o'clock (I think it was billed in the Radio Times as starting at 6.34). Then in 1993 it was branded as a standalone show running 6-7, though it still had all the sport and the weather and so on during it. I think it was 1999 when it was merged back into Breakfast News which was now billed as one complete show from 6-9.

I've got the Radio Times for the first few weeks of Breakfast News and the timetable is hilariously unwieldly because instead of just saying "News on the hour and half hour, sport at 6.35, 7.35, 8.35 and all that, they bill each half hour so you get "7.00 News, news analysis, sport, weather, business, brief newspaper review, regional news; 7.30 News, sport, longer newspaper review", which can't have been any use, especially as the last was "8.00 As above, with frequent updates".

[quote="Steve Williams" pid="753956"]

I seem to remember that its final titles were the same as the final Breakfast News titles, except it was
"BREAKFAST NEWS" on the top line, and "EXTRA" below, where "NEWS" would have been.

THIS JUST IN - The last Breakfast News Extra was on 29th August 1997, the following Monday Can't Cook Won't Cook started at 9am. Well, that was the plan, anyway.

Of course, Steve, there was something else rather important that knocked CC,WC off the schedules on the particular date in question..............

Breakfast News Extra came from the programmes production office on the 6th floor of stage 5 at TVC. There were 3 cameras on teal peds and the main area overlooked Wood Lane. Some cameras were replugged which meant that N2 lost cameras just before the switch. Part of the floor was carpeted and part lino, so a real pain. During the 1997 General Election, the programme was extended to cover reports from other parts of the newsroom and a new location for a 1+4 disco.

Which was?

The Princess of Wales.