BBC Breakfast News

Trying to avoid this getting lost in Salford.

Remember the days when the main presenters of the programme were Jeremy Paxman and Kirsty Wark? What was it called in those days? Breakfast Time, Breakfast News, or just Breakfast? Who else was part of the presenter line up of that era? I'm trying to recall if Frank was still on in those days or had he left by then.

After that, pre virtual era, we had a combination of Messrs Witchell, Mayer, Dando, Coburn, Burden and, possibly, Hayton and others. It was somewhere amidst this era that a specific Business Breakfast strand was introduced and which filled the first hour, 6 to 7, if I'm not mistaken. Can anyone recall specifically which year this happened and was it Burden and Coburn from the off, or did they eventually take over?

Also during Business Breakfast, was there a presenter over at the Exchange, or any other fixed OBs?

Final question, in both of the eras mentioned above: was the weather live, or prerecorded?

So many questions. Thanks in advance.

It was called 'Breakfast Time' right up until 1989, when it became 'Breakfast News'. However, it was three years prior to this in 1986 when Breakfast Time went more 'upmarket', got rid of the sofa and went all serious and desk-bound. According to TV-Ark, Frank left the programme around Christmas 1987. There's actually some images on that website of him wearing a suit and sitting behind a desk, which I've never seen before. Other presenters in that era included John Stapleton and Sally Magnusson. It was when Breakfast News launched in 1989 when the presenting team became Nicholas Witchell, Kirsty Wark, Laurie Meyer and Jill Dando, however Kirsty had already been a presenter on the programme since around 1987 and stayed up until 1993ish when she joined Newsnight. I don't think Philip Hayton was ever a presenter on Breakfast News.

Business Breakfast, according to TV Ark, was launched in 1993 as a 60 minute programme in its own right and the initial presenters were Nick Clark and Sara Coburn.

On a separate note, who is this lady presenting Breakfast News alongside Justin Webb in 1997?

http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/news/bbcnews/images/breakfast/1997/breakfastnews_1997_t1310b.jpg

Sarah Montague

From the image below, it seems she was still around at the refresh.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/945000/images/_947149_breakfast300.jpg

Wasn't she the one that allegedly mouthed FO at the camera & disappeared soon after?

Thanks for the comprehensive response, Dan.

Does anyone remember how the first hour (Business Breakfast) was structured? Was it heavy with markets and numbers, or was it more feature based?

That's not Sarah Montague in the TV Ark picture from 1997, its actually Liz MacKean (now Newsnight reporter) who co-presented Breakfast News for a few years in the late nineties. Other presenters in this period included Sophie Raworth, Julie Etchingham and Emma Howard.

Montague joined at the start of the relaunch in October 2000 as Friday presenter with Darren Jordon.

I'm not 100% sure Kirsty Wark was around until 1993 . . . I remember Beatrice Hollyer being a co-presenter in the Jill Dando era.

Didn't the change from Breakfast Time to Breakfast News coincide with moving from Lime Grove to TVC?

I remember the launch of Breakfast News being delayed by a few weeks, with Breakfast Time continuing, with the CA explaining that there were "problems with the new studio" and Pink Panther cartoons filling the extra half hour, as Breakfast News was due to begin earlier.

I never found out what the full story was.

It was "four coffees". I don't know how you could possibly think it was anything else

Supposedly the end of the last ever 'Breakfast time' and a preview of the new programme:

http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/mivana/mediaplayer.php?id=e63c384dfe2357b6fd6c7abb96c3b170&media=breakfast_time_lastedition1989close&type=mp4

And here is the last ever 'Breakfast Time':

http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/mivana/mediaplayer.php?id=a5e66cb7bdaafa61b9e6b68531e1da21&media=bfast_time_last_edition_1989close&type=mp4

To me it still is, and always will be, 'Breakfast time'!

Thanks for the pointers, tightrope, but for some reason individual videos on TV Ark can't be referenced as a direct link on other websites.

But this is the clicky for the main BBC Breakfast page on TV Ark, which gives access to all of them.

I've just spent a rather nostalgic hour looking at some of the previous incarnations of the programme.

I think my favourite title sequence was the one from 1997, when the programme was called Breakfast News.

http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/news/bbcnews/images/breakfast/1997/breakfast_news_open1999a-01.jpg http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/news/bbcnews/images/breakfast/1997/breakfast_news_open1999b-01.jpg (TV Ark Pics)

Were the 'studio problems' causing the delay of the 1997 re-launch ever more fully explained?

No, Breakfast Time moved to TVC around 1988, but it was apparently union issues that led to Breakfast News starting a few weeks later - same as why the Breakfast Time revamp in 1986 was also delayed. Frank Bough left in December 1987, to be replaced by John Stapleton in January 1988, but Stapleton hated it, he thought the show was boring and didn't like the editor, and left after a year.

It wasn't just for the mouthing that Sarah Montague left Breakfast very quickly, I think it was felt she was also too posh. I think she did Fridays with Darren Jordon for the first three months with Sian Williams replacing her in January 2001.

The initial look used images of people going to work alongside the Breakfast News music. This only lasted a few months, until the Virtual look came in (although the Business Breakfast studio was never virtual).

Does anyone remember Breakfast News Extra, which I think was a phone in which ran for a few years in the late nineties? It had completely different titles, but then adopted the 1997 BN look.