BBC Breakfast

Ashley, don't mention the misaligned Barcos! That might also set Worzel off on his "hippy ticker" phase again.

As we've wandered off topic somewhat, and drifted back in time, can I please just take this opportunity to post this wonderful clip of the legend that is Moira Stewart (sometime BBC Breakfast Newsreader).

Perhaps the only woman who could ever get away with not only waving her script at a fly with extreme grace; but apologising for it afterwards, being the ultimate professional, and also getting her comments to appear on 888 subtitles.

Something is definitely imminent. How much of a change though. Tweet of someone on the production team it seems.

Change is coming... pic.twitter.com/BNN59h4tdU

— Richard Main (@RPMain) June 1, 2018

You can’t imagine today’s version of Breakfast coming from a desk. Remember weekends at TVC used to be entirely hosted from a desk in a formal news channel set up. I can’t imagine Dan Walker reading the news from behind a desk.

I would have never imagined Kate and Ben hosting a full ITV Breakfast show from behind a desk neither though.

Who would have thought that in 2018 that ITV’s breakfast show is behind a desk and the BBC’s is sofa bound. But when I see a red sofa at breakfast, I still reminds me of GMTV.

On the subject of sunrise backdrops...

In the real world, the period that the morning sky would be at that pinky/orangey stage clearly would never be up to 4 hours solid. So, the current CGI sky backdrop remaining stubbornly stuck st sunrise colour for Breakfast's full duration does look daft.

I certainly wouldn't condone the Daybreak mk1 situation of having unwelcoming total darkness for any part of the programme (at certain times of year). GMB's pre-recorded Thames-side view never gets darker than "dusky"/ early-part-of-the-sunrise light levels, even when the real world is still pitch black. Then progressing to full blown daylight approximately in tandem with reality.

I'd welcome Breakfast doing likewise.

TBH I don't watch long enough in the morning to see a set designer's moist fantasy of an 'ever-lightening set' to match the sunrise, and neither do most other people.


A nice set would be fab: and I mean a NEW one, or a relit MOTD set!

I'm amazed they are sticking with that awful set, it's completely different from any other BBC News set and has never looked nice on screen. Honestly, even what Look Leeds now has would be far better than the current one.

It looks better when North West Tonight are in there.

I'm hopeful there may be some new backdrops and set lighting at least because as you say, it does look better (still not good) for NWT.

It's a versatile set, and serves its many purposes, but blimey . . . there comes a time!


I concur that it no longer matches any of the NBH-style sets used in the regions, so even BBC NW must be hankering after something new.

I guess we'll all be disappointed soon enough. **sobs**

Can't help but feel this can't be beat with an early morning feel, and simplicity and freshness...


The music feels almost like a gentle alarm clock, and even the set had a nice friendly feel.

I've been in the studio. It's quite small and hot, a low roof, very noisy (mics cut out background noise). The couch is pretty uncomfortable too. For a big show, it's a terrible studio.

Probably been mentioned here before but the original idea was to use a ground floor window to the Salford docks as a backdrop but this was changed , I think in part because of light dazzle from the water