The Breakfast Television Revolution

Today - January 17 - marks 22 years of the first, regular European breakfast television.
From what I can remember of it, originally:
A BBC1 announcement from the continuity announcer: "This is BBC Television, revolutionising television for you while you get ready for the day, we join Frank Bough and Selina Scott as they bring you Europe'd first regular TV service. This is BBC Breakfast Time!"
Then the 'chimes' were played and Frank Bough introduces the first programme.


I created this thread due to the 22nd anniversary of regular breakfast TV and it being Frank Bough's birthday last Friday - he's 72 - and an excuse to try to bring Frank Bough back to TV.
So what of Frank's reported "dungeon sex and kinky S&M" of the late 80's!

Well that kind of thing doesn't seem to have harmed Jamie Theakston's TV career. Not sure that Frank would want to re-start his at 72 though.

But anyway, Happy Birthday breakfast television! Here's a gratuitous pic of the original (and best) Breakfast Time logo to celebrate...

http://thetvroom.com/images-bbc-one-news/breakfast/images-1983/titles-2f.jpg
Image: The TV Room

And, arguably, its best incarnation. Why the BBC decided to make it more "upmarket" a few years later is anyone's guess.

They changed it to make it more upmarket because by 1986 Selina Scott had left the programme and the editors said that they had lost the battle with Good Morning Britain and that they weren't going to compete, hence why it went into the boring format and why Frank Bough left a few months later.

Also my birthday too, I'm 18!

BBC news has got a vid of behind the scenes and showing the lead-up to the first broadcast - click Here

Frank Bough's crime wasn't so much what he did, rather his timing.

Can somebody set me straight on a few things? I believe Frank had a brief spell at TV-AM following his sacking from the BBC after he was 'caught out' the first time.

As I understand it he was 'caught out' in 1988, then went on to work for TV-AM, Sky News, LWT and ITV Sport amongst others before being 'caught out' again in 1992. After this he worked for LBC Radio in 1994 and finally Travel in 1996.

He's apparently burned all contact with the TV industry now and had a successful liver transplant a few years ago.

I personally would like to see him back, today there are people on our screens every day who have done far worse things than Frank.

As for the format, the original would look very dated now but it was by far the best. I find the current BBC Breakfast format dull and a bit heavy for that time of day (though I enjoyed the Jeremy and Sophie era) and GMTV seems a bit too lightweight and feminine these days.

Times have changed, and not for the better.

Yes, after the Bough and Scott era ended, we had several years of the Witchell Wizard, which were dire, although that was sandwiched between watchable eras involving Paxman, Wark, Stapleton, Armstrong, Magnusson, Dando, Raworth and Nicolson, amongst others.

Would love to see Frank Bough back doing something - not sure what though!

I would like to admit I did not search on the Internet for this. I did it from memory, even though I was in my early stages of primary school - it's astonishing what you remember.

I wonder where abouts Selina Scott is nowadays - - the last time I heard Prince Edward tried to chat her up on live TV.

On a programme shown on BBC Two in 2002 (called Fame, Set and Match) it said she presents dodgy Health and Safety at work videos and promotes socks for a small firm in Scotland. Though (according to them) what killed her career was a programme she did about Donald Trump, though she was around him for ages during filming, afterwards she was quite harsh and Trump didn't like it.

Sounds very much like a Michael Jackson / Martin Bashir situation. Perhaps Tonight With Ronald McDonald should snap her up as a reporter.

Yup, you couldn't have said it better, she did a whole series of them, usually interviewing members of the Royal Family and people of importance. They were shown on ITV in the mid 1990's, but the Trump one wrecked her career. Though AFAIK I think the thing she did after that was at NBC Europe.