SW
When Anne and Nick launched, one of the things they talked up was the fact that as Anne and Nick were both journalists they would be able to deal with breaking news, hence how it carried on when John Smith died, though not particularly impressively, just repeating that interview over and over again and Anne saying what a nice man she thought he was.
Daytime BBC1 was in such a state in the early nineties, obviously they had got on air first with Open Air while ITV still had schools programmes but this This Morning launched and, as Richard Madeley said, "we just took away all their viewers". Hence the arrival of Daytime UK in 1990, which enveloped the whole morning, but was a right mess, the schedule is ridiculously complex - https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/bbcone/london/1990-10-15#at-8.50 - and there are just weird junctions all over the place, the low point surely being "Before Noon" which is the most obvious filler. When they relaunched daytimes the next year, the editor said they did some interesting things but would sometimes just go around the country for the sake of it, and the low point was the eight minutes on boiling an egg.
So the following year came the revamp, but a lot of it stayed the same - https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/bbcone/london/1991-10-14#at-9.05. The difference was the timings, with People Today now at 11.30 and presented by Miriam Stoppard. In the Radio Times feature to launch it, they say that the idea was to make it a bit harder-edged and more topical by getting in Miriam Stoppard and showing it later in the hope it would appeal to men tuning in for the news (which was over an hour later, but never mind). Of course, one of the problems with daytime BBC1 is that it always had to get off to a standing start because of the Party Conferences in September (which couldn't be shown on BBC2 because of schools programmes), so by the time the daytime line-up got underway in October, This Morning had already been on for several weeks.
Then in 1992, Manchester's long contribution to daytime came to an end, and Anne and Nick arrived, also from Pebble Mill - https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/bbcone/london/1992-10-12#at-9.05 This was such a shameless rip-off, Richard Madeley said it was if the neighbours suddenly decorated their house the same way as you and driving the same car, and they even had little fake ad breaks as well. But they persisted with it for so long, and every time they'd do a revamp it would just be the same programmes again but in a different order or with a new theme tune. In 1994 they launched The Morning On BBC1, which was exactly the same line-up as before (albeit with Playbus now palmed off to BBC2), but Mo Dutta linked them all like the Broom Cupboard - https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/bbcone/london/1994-10-17#at-9.05
This all carried on for an embarrassingly long time until, of all people, Polly Toynbee wrote a column in the Radio Times in early 1996 basically saying "BBC1 daytime is a load of crap, isn't it?", which for some reason became a national talking point for a week (Toynbee said she was even invited on Newsnight to discuss it with Anne Diamond) and everyone agreed and everything finally got axed, and then in the autumn there was a complete revamp where the idea of one big long programme covering the whole morning went for a burton and it was now just half hour and hour-long programmes like we have now. There was still quite a heavy Pebble Mill presence in the whole thing with The Really Useful Show live every morning, and quite a lot of programmes were made in Birmingham like Call My Bluff and Change That.
But of course Kilroy amazingly carried on until 2004, only ending when he had to, cough, go away, at which point the ratings went up. Who knows what might have happened had they got rid of him much earlier?
However what isn't done well in that programme, 'People Today' is that after the newsflash they continue as if nothings happened, just a brief mention in the phone room. At the end of that part at 10 they finish by saying they'll be back after the news and Children's BBC, only for Judi to appear and throw to 'rolling' news coverage which looks like it continues for the rest of the morning. As it's name suggests it's remit was about people and issues and unlike programmes like This Morning, Open Air, Ann and Nick didn't have the ability to do reactive newsy stuff. Looks like it came back in the autumn of 1991 in a much shorter form and with different presenters
It was a bit different a few years later when the death of John Smith was announced as a newsflash during Anne and Nick, they were lucky to have a resident doctor in the studio at the time and so could have an informed discussion about heart attacks. He'd also been a guest in the programme so they had that interview to play.
Incidently Daytime UK was all co-ordinated and anchored Birmingham, it was axed as a name in 1991 but I remember seeing a phone number for it popping up on a schedule or similar in Presentation about 10 years later. I assume that the daytime schedule was still managed in Pebble Mill even though nothing came from there
It was a bit different a few years later when the death of John Smith was announced as a newsflash during Anne and Nick, they were lucky to have a resident doctor in the studio at the time and so could have an informed discussion about heart attacks. He'd also been a guest in the programme so they had that interview to play.
Incidently Daytime UK was all co-ordinated and anchored Birmingham, it was axed as a name in 1991 but I remember seeing a phone number for it popping up on a schedule or similar in Presentation about 10 years later. I assume that the daytime schedule was still managed in Pebble Mill even though nothing came from there
When Anne and Nick launched, one of the things they talked up was the fact that as Anne and Nick were both journalists they would be able to deal with breaking news, hence how it carried on when John Smith died, though not particularly impressively, just repeating that interview over and over again and Anne saying what a nice man she thought he was.
Daytime BBC1 was in such a state in the early nineties, obviously they had got on air first with Open Air while ITV still had schools programmes but this This Morning launched and, as Richard Madeley said, "we just took away all their viewers". Hence the arrival of Daytime UK in 1990, which enveloped the whole morning, but was a right mess, the schedule is ridiculously complex - https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/bbcone/london/1990-10-15#at-8.50 - and there are just weird junctions all over the place, the low point surely being "Before Noon" which is the most obvious filler. When they relaunched daytimes the next year, the editor said they did some interesting things but would sometimes just go around the country for the sake of it, and the low point was the eight minutes on boiling an egg.
So the following year came the revamp, but a lot of it stayed the same - https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/bbcone/london/1991-10-14#at-9.05. The difference was the timings, with People Today now at 11.30 and presented by Miriam Stoppard. In the Radio Times feature to launch it, they say that the idea was to make it a bit harder-edged and more topical by getting in Miriam Stoppard and showing it later in the hope it would appeal to men tuning in for the news (which was over an hour later, but never mind). Of course, one of the problems with daytime BBC1 is that it always had to get off to a standing start because of the Party Conferences in September (which couldn't be shown on BBC2 because of schools programmes), so by the time the daytime line-up got underway in October, This Morning had already been on for several weeks.
Then in 1992, Manchester's long contribution to daytime came to an end, and Anne and Nick arrived, also from Pebble Mill - https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/bbcone/london/1992-10-12#at-9.05 This was such a shameless rip-off, Richard Madeley said it was if the neighbours suddenly decorated their house the same way as you and driving the same car, and they even had little fake ad breaks as well. But they persisted with it for so long, and every time they'd do a revamp it would just be the same programmes again but in a different order or with a new theme tune. In 1994 they launched The Morning On BBC1, which was exactly the same line-up as before (albeit with Playbus now palmed off to BBC2), but Mo Dutta linked them all like the Broom Cupboard - https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/bbcone/london/1994-10-17#at-9.05
This all carried on for an embarrassingly long time until, of all people, Polly Toynbee wrote a column in the Radio Times in early 1996 basically saying "BBC1 daytime is a load of crap, isn't it?", which for some reason became a national talking point for a week (Toynbee said she was even invited on Newsnight to discuss it with Anne Diamond) and everyone agreed and everything finally got axed, and then in the autumn there was a complete revamp where the idea of one big long programme covering the whole morning went for a burton and it was now just half hour and hour-long programmes like we have now. There was still quite a heavy Pebble Mill presence in the whole thing with The Really Useful Show live every morning, and quite a lot of programmes were made in Birmingham like Call My Bluff and Change That.
But of course Kilroy amazingly carried on until 2004, only ending when he had to, cough, go away, at which point the ratings went up. Who knows what might have happened had they got rid of him much earlier?
