The Battle for Britain's Breakfast

Over 30 years ago, a battle began for the final frontier of British television.

Hello, good morning and welcome.

It was a battle fought by titans of broadcasting...

Breakfast Time. Britain's first ever regular early-morning television programme.

..supported by a loyal band of foot soldiers.

SHE LAUGHS Hello.

This epic contest for the hearts and minds of the bleary-eyed

British public was a war between two very different institutions.

The BBC was fiercely competitive.

It was a shambles. Absolute financial shambles.

Between 1983 and 1991, our TV screens

witnessed a war of the sofas that saw technological innovation...

Here is our clock.

That's the time and there it will stay.

-..sexual chemistry...

-Can you hear me?

Can't wait to see you in a survival suit.

..woollen sweaters...

I could have made a million selling jumpers.

-..astrology...

-Hello and how are you?

-..and a sarcastic rodent.

-Yeah!

Weapons deployed in an uncompromising conflict.

Auntie was behaving badly.

People would come in my office and cry.

I've never seen anything like it.

This is the story of the battle for Britain's breakfast.

# When two tribes go to war

# A point is all you can score

# When two tribes go to war

# A point is all you can score

# Working for the black gas... #

Into today's world of rolling news, endless channel choice

and 24-hour-a-day broadcasting,

it's hard to imagine a time where before lunch

the only visual offerings were the test card...

-HIGH PITCHED BEEP

-..and physics.

This is the only point for which we've shown both the routes.

What about the other ones?

Britain before breakfast television was a civilised place.

People had breakfast at breakfast time and read a newspaper.

There was a feeling if you wanted news in the morning

you should turn on Radio 4 and listen to the Today programme.

Television in the morning was outrageous.

It was just decadence beyond belief.

But breakfast in Britain was about to become

a very different place when in 1980,

the Independent Broadcasting Authority

offered up the franchise of a new station

that would broadcast on ITV -

a tantalising challenge that attracted David Frost...

Thank you very much indeed. Hello, good evening and welcome.

..who immediately recruited an elite unit of broadcasting behemoths.

King of the chat show Michael Parkinson...

After 11 years I've decided to get a proper job.

..ITN's Anna Ford...

It's the highest security lab in this country

working on genetic manipulation.

..the BBC's first ever news anchorwoman Angela Rippon...

Oil producing and exporting nations have begun a series of meetings

to decide the price of oil in 1978.

-..and grizzled news veteran Robert Kee.

-Good evening.

Completing the line-up as chairman

was former ambassador to Washington Peter Jay.

Their brave new venture was to be known as TV-am.

There's no doubt about who's walked off with the biggest prize.

TV-am have got the breakfast television contract

and they were all set to go on the air next January

but a cautious IBA has told them to wait until sometime in 1983.

It's, I think, the happiest day of my life

I can recall professionally, you know,

because this group came together,

excited by the challenge

of breakfast television

and to have the opportunity of doing it as well,

we hope we don't let the side down.

But the celebrations of this glitzy new enterprise

awoke a sleeping giant.

The BBC was fiercely competitive.

The BBC believed that it had the right to broadcast

to the British people and these upstarts in commercial television.

You know, if they got a toehold in the door well, fine,

but this is our terrain.

The BBC huffed and puffed until ITV said they were going to do it

and announced a start date and then the BBC was very much in the market.

There was no question that the BBC screens could be dark

when the ITV screens were lit up in the morning.

Of course, the moment when we announced we were going on air

the BBC said, "We will do it two weeks earlier."

I'd always known the BBC would do that

and if I'd been the BBC that's what I would have done.

The instruction was, get on the air first.

They weren't supposed to start before TV-am.

They snuck in.

Auntie was behaving badly. That was a really big surprise.

With the battle date set for early 1983,

both sides established breakfast base camps.

Egg Cup House was a fantastic statement

of the fact that TV-am was going to do things differently.

It was a beautiful space in which to work

because it was on a canal, it had a tremendous amount of natural light.

It was a big space, you know.

Inside it felt like an aircraft hangar.

So, that kind of open plan was very inspirational and very energising.

Lime Grove was a pretty grim building.

And we were in one of the grimmest rooms in that building.

Our production office was a grotty, dark, windowless little room

behind the Lime Grove canteen

with the permanent smell of stale chips and Irish stew.

But there was nothing stale

about the brave and bright new world of TV-am.

Central to the entire enterprise were the famous five

who were not just the public face,

they were also shareholders of the company.

-Good morning.

-Good morning.

-Good morning.

-Good morning.

Good morning, Britain.

We'll be live on the "ITV-1" button from February 1.

With all these very famous personalities,

there was a huge media appetite to come and interview them,

come and talk to them about what breakfast television would be like.

Frosty was being interviewed everywhere,

talking about sexual chemistry. This lit a light under the tabloids.

I think everybody thought, "How interesting.

"TV-am has the serious newsy people. What will the BBC do?"

Simple. The enlisted the safest hands in British broadcasting.

I was approaching my 50th birthday.

When I got wind of Ronald Neil starting this breakfast show,

I must say I badgered him for a month or two saying,

"Look, if you don't give me a job on this new programme I'll never speak to you again."

About three or four months before we actually launched,

I got a handwritten note from him which said,

"My dear Frank. Last time we had dinner.

"Can we now have lunch to talk about breakfast?"

And I've kept that little bit of paper.

I was delighted. Whoop-de-do! And I was on.

He had a huge amount of experience in presenting long, live programmes.

And I thought that experience was going to be crucial.

Joining Brigadier Bough were ITN reporter Selina Scott...

My name's Selina Scott and this, quite literally,

is the most northern point of Britain.

..and young newshound Nick Ross.

This programme is about creating baby girls and baby boys to order.

Winter 1983, and as a bleary-eyed British public

went about their morning business, in the bunkers of Egg Cup Towers

and Lime Grove, both production teams finalise their strategies

for the impending visual onslaught.

With the BBC going over the top first,

their rehearsals seemed to be going smoothly.

OK? Yeah.

-NICK ROSS:

-Frank Bough was hugely reassuring.

I'd never done anything like this before.

Frank had done a lot of sports programming.

And I remember about 30 seconds before we went on air

on the first day, you could hear the chatter upstairs.

There was nervousness. The crew were nervous.

We were nervous on the sofa and Frank went...

"Calm down, everyone.

"It's going to be great."

Well, I wasn't nervous.

I had long since in my career stopped being nervous

about being live on television.

Run VT.

-'This is BBC One. In a few moments, it'll be Breakfast Time.'

-Five, four, three, two, one, zero.

We're on the air, everyone.

We're on the air. Good luck.

And so, on the morning of 17th January 1983, BBC Breakfast Time

gently stormed the final frontier of British broadcasting.

It's 6:30, Monday January 17th, 1983.

You are watching the first edition of BBC Television's Breakfast Time,

Britain's first ever regular early-morning television programme.

A very good morning to you all.

It was a brand-new world that we were going into.

We didn't know whether it would work on air, whether it would fall apart,

and we didn't know whether the audience would like it or hate it.

It was very exciting. It really was. Because we'd been working at it for months.

And now I'd like you to meet the other faces

whom we hope will become regulars over your breakfast table.

An intrigued British public turned on in the millions,

witnessing the expected fare of news and sport...

I've never had it so early in my life, all this sport.

There's no answer to that, Frank, actually, is there?

There was an unexpectedly casual approach to weather.

Francis Wilson will be taking regular looks

through his Window On The Weather. Hello, good morning.

-Good morning.

-What's the view like this morning?

Well, it's rather gloomy, rather monotonous.

I decided we wanted our own weatherman because the Met Office

weather people were slightly grey, I thought.

We'll go on to the weather now. Francis.

Sun up, sky is blue, not a cloud to spoil the view...

If only that were true.

But such meteorological innovations were as nothing when, at 6:50am,

an unsuspecting public got their first glimpse of the Green Goddess.

One, two.

One, two.

One, two.

Anybody else like to join us?

Anybody standing around there? Come on in and join us!

Anybody over here? Come on, sir. Come and join us.

With Frank at the helm and Selina exuding a dreamy

early-morning charm, the British public expressed their approval.

I've actually just got one I want to say,

from Trevor Dixon from Penge,

or Penge-sur-mer in that part of the world.

He says, "A brilliant show but it's an unexpected choice of presenters."

Good. I tell you what, we would like to hear from you

if you think it's a complete waste of time as well.

Do ring us up. Take your time.

As the show got into its stride, so the novelty continued.

Mr Russell Grant will be with us as the resident astrologer,

meeting our guests and reading their signs.

This was innovation.

This was, you know, Auntie lifting up her skirts

and showing us a little bit of petticoat.

Or, in my case, a bit of an old mohair jumper.

The thing is, for all Virgos watching and yourself,

the next year is a very, very important year

but I want you to take it easy.

And so, as Britain acclimatised to such hearty breakfast fare,

a jubilant and relieved cast celebrated a smooth,

hitch-free first transmission.

Oh, my giddy aunt!

THEY LAUGH

The programme took over.

It just seemed to go really well and spontaneously,

when the red lights went off at the end of the first show,

we were all cheering.

We just knew we'd got this. We knew it had worked.

I watched Breakfast Time when it went on air and I thought, "Wow!

"That's really nice programming." They got it dead right.

It was a very ITV sort of programme on the BBC.

You've been watching the first edition

of BBC Television's Breakfast Time.

I hope you'll join us again from time to time.

God bless and good morning to you.

We came off the air and we'd survived.

There was quite a large party and quite a lot of sherry was taken.

For the last few months we've been thinking only of today, January 17th.

We have to now think of tomorrow and Wednesday and next week

and Easter and the summer and the winter and it goes on and on and on.

The BBC's opening salvo proved to be a hit

with a broad range of the Great British public.

Can I ask you what you think of the idea of breakfast television?

Marvellous. You can have a drink

and watch the television and go back to bed when it's finished.

-I thought it was good.

-What did you like about it?

Well, it tells you sports, tells you the latest news, weather.

So you can bring an umbrella out or what.

But also keeping a close eye on proceedings were the TV-am big guns,

knowing that in just two weeks' time,

they would enter the fray.

Breakfast Time got off to a very good start and quite clearly,

the BBC was regarded as a strong if not overly strong competitor

to this new, commercial child which TV-am was.

But I think TV-am, in the first instance,

had such a very, very strong team leading it

that there was a great deal of confidence.

We all knew that however good our programme was,

we were going to be trounced by TV-am.

I remember a journalist coming up to me and saying,

"Look, you're a very steady, reliable broadcaster but look at them!

"They've got David Frost, they've got Michael Parkinson,

"they've got Anna Ford, they've got Rippon, they've got Kee.

"They're going to bury you. Let's face it. They will bury you."

For two whole weeks,

Breakfast Time had sole occupancy of the battlefield,

where they had not only honed and refined their machine,

they had also acquired an audience.

While the public had shown there was an appetite for breakfast telly,

the famous five got ready to open fire.

It's good fun getting up this time of day, isn't it?

-AS DAVID FROST:

-Hello, good morning and welcome!

And so, after two years of preparation,

they were at last unleashed upon the world.

OK, gentlemen.

-Now, this time...

-20 seconds.

Sh, sh, sh. OK, guys.

In contrast to the BBC's modest opening, TV-am went big.

An opening befitting the famous five.

Hello, good morning and welcome to TV-am.

New studios, a new news service and a new national network.

We'd just like to say thanks very much for joining us

this morning on what's obviously a very, very important day for us

and we do hope that you are going to stay tuned to us

not just for this morning's programmes but every morning,

every day of the week at least for the next eight years.

Good morning, Britain.

Where the BBC presented an unashamedly magazine-driven format,

TV-am kicked off with a hard news agenda,

opening with the programme Daybreak.

Hello. Good morning if you've just joined us.

It's just after 6:00am on Tuesday, 1st February and this is Daybreak.

I turned on at 6am to watch TV-am and there was Robert Kee

as though he was presenting Panorama! At six in the morning!

The Soviet Union has not reacted yet to President Reagan's offer

to meet the Soviet leader, Mr Andropov, to sign an agreement

banning all medium-range land-based nuclear weapons.

However, after the unrelenting first hour of hard news,

at 7am the fun began with magazine show Good Morning Britain.

Good morning. Good morning.

Welcome to Good Morning Britain for the very first time.

First up, though, some more news.

It's just after seven o'clock here, of course.

It's just after ten o'clock in Moscow.

There's still no reaction from the Soviet Union

to President Reagan's offer to meet the Soviet leader, Mr Andropov.

Then the weather with ex-Navy Commander Philpott.

We're going to bring order to the weather today, David. Thank you.

In spite of which, it is going to be extremely windy over most of

the country and the wintry showers in the north are going to move southwards.

The show seemed to be all right,

although I certainly felt that it had been a bit heavy at times.

Did you think, in that earlier story,

that there is any hope in that Reagan initiative or more of the same?

I think it's frightfully difficult to work out.

I'll never forget that long interview - I think with Norman Tebbit.

Yes, after an hour of hard news, at 7:12am, to brighten up the day,

a short film about unemployment

followed by a 12-minute-long interview

with the man in charge of it.

There was no point, for example, going on in British Steel,

where it was taking 15 man hours per tonne of steel.

It's under ten now.

However, it wasn't all news. There were celebrity guests...

It's a great pleasure to have you here, sharing this one.

It's nice to be here on this relatively historic occasion.

-HE LAUGHS

-..heart-warming animal stories...

There's a very nice, mad story in the Mirror this morning,

about a family watching their pet budgerigar levering open

the bars of his cage with his beak and squeezing through.

Unfortunately, he died the next day.

Obviously, the effort from the daring escape affected his heart.

-Isn't that sad?

-..and a live-action comic strip.

Just imagine, ours is the only village in the country

where under a royal dispensation from Edward VII,

public executions are still officially allowed.

From the very beginning, there was this tremendous mix of genres

within the framework. So, for example, Through The Keyhole

was one of the first elements to be broadcast on TV-am.

This doesn't belong to a wimp at all, this room.

It's very much a room that someone who read James Bond

and took him seriously in the '60s would have.

So, there was always an intention to mix things up

yet to have a sort of serious and fairly robust approach

to news and current affairs.

And that seemed to work on day one.

We'd just like to thank you for joining us this morning

and if it's all right with you, we'd like to come again tomorrow.

-Good morning.

-Good morning.

Show over, the famous five cracked open the bubbles.

To our viewers. To our viewers.

On the day of the launch,

this is a bit like a Formula One victory parade, as it were.

There's a lot of excitement, there's a lot of self-congratulation,

there's a log of pretty girls and lights and champagne

and everybody is celebrating.

That's terrific. You've finally got on air.

This is the day we've been working to for two or three years

and things seem to be working.

A view echoed by Grub Street's finest the next morning.

With both sides having launched their assaults,

the press declared the victor.

I remember being very surprised at the press reception

of the first TV-am programme.

Because I thought it was rubbish.

I mean, I was so relieved when I saw it.

I thought, "They've just got this wrong."

But actually, the press gave them a pretty good write-up

and I thought, "Well, OK, fine. I've misjudged this."

I think one of the most surprising things about the launch

of breakfast television in this country was that the two stations

seemed to be doing exactly the opposite to what you expected.

You expect from the BBC a very serious, heavy programme

full of analysis et cetera, et cetera,

and you got fluffy jumpers, a stargazer and keep-fit classes.

And you expected from TV-am exactly that

and what you got was this rather ponderous, arrogant sort of -

and, I have to say, rather boring at times - programme.

I think people thought, "First day. Of course it's going to be serious.

"Second day they'll do that for the reviewers

"and then they'll become something else."

When they didn't, that surprised us all

and certainly surprised the tabloids,

who thought it was going to be jokey and sexy and like us.

And it wasn't.

Where once there had been nothing,

viewers of all ages were now confronted with a stark choice.

To wake up to the frothy Breakfast Time...

Question. How do you get a pint of milk through a letter box?

Clearly not in a bottle or indeed one of these plastic containers,

which is, of course, the other way of containing milk these days.

But if you do that, that, that and that and spread it,

then quite clearly, that would go through a letter box.

..or to pledge allegiance to the occasionally ponderous TV-am.

It was evidence of what a proletarian society Russia was

because he was the...

For him to become the boss of the party because he was the only

former KGB man who didn't go to Oxford or Cambridge.

-A sort of good thing. Anna.

-Thank you, David. You're so well educated.

Television is about the content.

You know, average presenters can make...

Can be fine if the content is good.

Very good presenters die if the content is rubbish and in this case,

the content was rubbish.

I don't know. The idea of donating your body to medical science...

-Have you thought of that?

-I don't know.

We had that line when we were doing that promotion

about Norman Tebbit had donated his body to medical science

but that medical science was contesting the will.

Perhaps they might do the same in my case. I don't know.

The real problem started when the BARB ratings came in.

By the end of the second week, it became clear that Breakfast Time

was wiping the floor with us for audience.

As the weeks and days went by and the famous five tried to struggle on,

our ratings went up and up and up and theirs went down and down

and down and that was a very, very happy time for Breakfast Time.

One of the things I've enjoyed this week is the fashion spot

-and speaking to people outside, they too.

-I love fashion.

-I thought it's brightened up our whole programme, Frank.

-It has.

What happened in the first weeks of battle

can only be described as a morning massacre.

Breakfast Time's dawn raids had seen them

completely overwhelm the forces of TV-am,

forcing the fledgling company into a hasty, disorganised retreat.

Very soon there was an element of fear and trepidation

within the building that ratings were bad

and therefore advertisers weren't exactly flocking in.

And therefore the money wasn't flocking in and there was a problem.

Advertising revenue had been projected to be

at least 18 million, 20 million, and it was actually 3 million.

The viewing audience had been projected to be

something like 6 million. It was 300,000.

Clearly, you know, for the shareholders

who had put a lot of money up,

to see ratings at that level was a worry.

The presenters were grossly overpaid by themselves, of course,

and costs were allowed to run away with themselves,

partly through managerial inexperience.

Peter Jay had many fine qualities

but being an executive was not one of them.

That took some time to dawn.

Up until the moment we went on air, there was great unity,

optimism and cohesion in the group.

And indeed, a few days before we went on air, the board,

on a motion proposed by Jonathan Aitken,

congratulated me on these achievements

and bringing the thing to this point of fruition.

Things changed after we went on air because the programmes were very bad.

The board of TV-am, the company behind ITV's breakfast programmes,

meet this morning amid pressure for changes at the top.

Some of the big shareholders are said to want the chairman

and chief executive, Peter Jay, to give up one of these positions.

"TV-am chief Jay is facing the axe."

That's on the front page of the Sun.

But no crowing from you.

I haven't said a word!

At a meeting in the City of London, instigated by two key investors -

cousins Jonathan and Timothy Aitken -

Peter Jay was being asked

to surrender his position and name Jonathan as his successor.

One of the stories in this morning's papers

is of course about intrigue at TV-am.

High dramas going on in the boardroom this morning.

We gather, apparently, that our chairman Peter Jay is going to be asked to resign.

We want to send him a message from everybody here this morning

simply saying, Peter, if you're watching, don't resign.

We like you very much and would much rather you stayed.

Despite presenter support,

in reality Jay was in a no-win situation.

He could stay and see investors pull the plug on the company

or leave and allow it a chance of survival.

I thought, "If Jonathan wants it that much - to be the top guy -

"that he is prepared to threaten the ruin of the company

"and all that we have worked to do,

"then it would be wholly irresponsible and wrong for me

"to fight him over this because what would we have

"but a sort of a playground squabble

"between two guys who wanted to be top chap?"

I hadn't the slightest wish to be top chap.

I didn't want to run a television company.

I was an emergency stand-in because I was the only person

on the board who had any previous television company experience.

Before news of any decision had filtered through,

Anna Ford and Angela Rippon took to the ramparts

to express their support for Peter Jay.

Little did they know they were marking their card

with the new regime.

We think the board is panicking and Peter is being made a scapegoat.

Peter has done magnificently with this company.

He's held it together under difficult times.

You referred to treachery earlier this morning in the interview.

-Yes, I did.

-Treachery by whom?

I can't say, I'm afraid, but I can say there have been

acts of enormous treachery behind the scenes.

It sounds as if this is the end of TV-am.

-Don't be silly!

-It's the beginning!

-THEY LAUGH

-Rubbish!

-Bye-bye!

Bye-bye!

I think Peter's departure was a shock because he was such

a significant figure, such a major and important figure.

But we soon got used to the revolving door.

Having ousted Peter Jay,

the Aitkens' plan was to relaunch the channel.

Their first move was to shunt the honeymooning David Frost

from the sofa, giving a battlefield promotion

for sports reporter Nick Owen.

But that was only the beginning of the changes,

as within a month, Jonathan's cousin Timothy was to take the reins.

I knew that Timothy, my cousin, was a rougher diamond than I was

and was likely to cut more sharply

and brutally than I ever would have done but he did the job.

We've got about 30 seconds left so we can both say goodbye

and all those people who've rung in all week and said,

"When are you going to get rid of Angela Rippon?"

Your dream has come true because I'm not going to be here next week.

But make the most of it cos I shall be back a week after.

But Angela was never to return to the field of battle.

I presented with Anna and Angela for a week each,

and then suddenly they were sacked.

It was so dramatic. I had no idea about...

I got a call from a friend of mine at ITN and he said,

"What's this about Anna and Angela being sacked?" I said, "What?"

Here were ITN telling me, and I was in the same booming building!

I've got nothing to say.

I've simply been given a letter saying I've been sacked

and I've given it to my lawyer so I can't say anything. He said, "Don't say anything."

I was called in and told I was sacked.

-What did they say to you?

-I can't tell you that.

-Were you given any kind of reason?

-No.

Unfortunately, both Angela Rippon and Anna Ford technically

breached their contracts by speaking out

at the time of Peter Jay's departure.

My problem was that I didn't have time to do anything

except reduce the costs in the company if it was going to survive.

It was not a personal...

..involvement on my part.

I didn't realise that Anna

and Angela would have taken this very wonderful

but very risky action in demonstrating

against the Aitken takeover,

which then very considerably damaged their careers.

And I regret bitterly for the rest of my life

that I didn't foresee that danger and didn't forestall it

by calling Anna and Angela and saying,

"Look, I have decided to stand down for these reasons."

For the famous five, the dream of breakfast telly domination lay in ruins.

I remember one moment we were standing on the third floor

of this building in Camden Town and there was a canal beneath us

and I was standing there, looking out the window.

I turned around and David was looking at me and he said,

"Who jumps first?" I think if we'd gone together it'd have been about right.

From the very beginning, the famous five had been headline news.

But even after their exit from the battlefield,

they were still able to hold the front page.

For those who haven't yet gone down to the newsagent's

and seen the papers, Anna Ford went up to her former boss

when she met him at a party for the first time since she was sacked

and threw a glass of wine in his face.

I was enjoying the cocktail party and then from some distance away,

some wine was thrown.

And it seemed at the time a rather trivial incident

but it was then written up two or three days later

in a hugely dramatic way.

The whole of the front page of the Daily Mail was,

"Anna's Grapes Of Wrath."

# I can feel it coming in the air tonight... #

I had my wine glass filled up and walked over

and threw it at him because that's how I was feeling.

And I don't regret it at all.

How many people have congratulated you on your actions over the years?

Quite a lot. Quite a lot.

Is it really vital to us

when civilisation's on the razor's edge that we know about Anna Ford?

She's everywhere.

-It's quite an amazing story!

-Is it?

Well, isn't it?

Even as a freelance,

I just felt that I was in the middle of this insanity.

And what was kind of destabilising, I guess,

is the fact that as someone who knew nothing about television,

I looked around me and there was absolute pandemonium.

And when I glanced at the people who should have known something about

television, I could see that they thought it was pandemonium as well.

As the ship was sinking at Camden Lock,

-the BBC wallowed in their surprising victory.

-Lovely. Will you excuse me?

-Certainly.

-I've got an engagement on the other side of the studio. Nice to meet you.

The fact is that we began to realise that we were going to bury them

and we did bury them.

Good morning. How are you?

'We obviously won the ratings battle'

and there was big explosions coming from the other side.

I mean, red wine was thrown.

Presenters disappeared into the far distance,

or the near distance, or were never seen again.

We were very chirpy and cheerful and, dare I say,

a little bit pleased with ourselves for the first six months because

we couldn't believe just how strong the audience was in our favour.

But, you know, you've got to be careful about that.

Anyway, I've now got to learn how to reverse.

-I think I'll just pull out and leave you to the weather.

-OK.

By mid-May, the battle for Britain's breakfast

had reduced TV-am to tatters.

Having lost two of their presenters and their general, who had

guided them from inception to the battlefield, all seemed lost.

In what had been nothing short of a breakfast blitzkrieg,

the BBC revelled in the 90% share of the audience.

As a last-ditch measure, TV-am appointed a new general

to lead the fight back - LWT producer Greg Dyke.

Well, the day I arrived...

I arrived on the Monday and that was the same day that

Timothy Aitken sacked Anna and Angela.

I went in, a happy bloke, smiling a lot...

People would come in my office and cry.

I've never come across anything like it.

People were literally crying around the office

because they'd worked themselves to death to get this thing on air,

it was then a disaster and of course, it was known as "ailing TV-am",

and my job was to pick it up and turn it around.

How do we get an audience for this thing and make some money?

From the beginning of Breakfast Time, the on-screen

relationship between Frank Bough and Selina Scott had blossomed.

Selina Scott, if you're smiling at me, I will never speak to you again! I did get one bubble.

-One bubble!

-One big bubble!

-I didn't see it.

I'll come over there and check later.

I said to Ron Neil, "Why have you put Selina and me together?"

He said, "With you and Selina, I regard you as beauty and the beast.

"She's so beautiful and you're so bloody ugly," he said. And that worked!

Quite simply, you are a beautiful woman. Everybody knows that.

You're making me blush, Frank! Honestly!

Over at TV-am, Field Marshal Dyke's first move was to find replacements

for the decommissioned big guns of Anna Ford and Angela Rippon.

Feet.

After your head, they're probably the most important part of your body.

But they're prone to all sorts of ailments and disorders

and we all know, when your feet hurt, life can be hell.

So you go to a chiropodist,

but what sort of treatment can you expect when you get there?

Greg Dyke called me and said,

"Tell me about this Anne Diamond." And I said how good she was

and how close we were

and what a great relationship we'd had on regional television.

And he said, "Can you arrange for me to meet her?"

They met in a pub that night and six weeks later, she was on the sofa.

Greg sat down and just explained to us his philosophy

and he said that he thought it was about a mission to entertain.

And he said, "This isn't going to be a champagne building any more,"

because that's what they used to do.

They'd spent a lot of money on champagne launches

and things like that. He said, "This is a beer-and-skittles company now.

"This is the sort of television we're going to produce.

"It's going to be fast and furious and, by the way,

"do you mind reading the bingo numbers out?"

Now, another lovely face. Annie with the bingo numbers.

It's about time I had a compliment! Right, it's bingo time.

For all you newspaper bingo addicts, we're going to give you the numbers

in today's Sun, Daily Star and Daily Mirror, so here goes.

And first of all, it's the Sun numbers.

The great advantage of having a television show where there's

nobody watching is you can try all sorts of things.

And some work and some don't. And if you think they work, keep them in. If they don't work, don't bother.

No-one's going to know cos there was no audience anyway.

We just started trying things.

It was pretty populist stuff. We had to get an audience quickly.

Now, for all Popeye fans,

we'll be joining the muscle-bound mariner in a few minutes, but first,

did you know that today is the start of National Brownie Tea Making Week?

With a new presenting team in place,

the axe next fell on the programme content.

Battlefield casualties included the hard news agenda and Robert Kee,

the comic strip soap opera The Secret Life of Melanie Parker,

and Commander Philpott, who was banished to the weekends.

Greg's recipe was to bring in just people who weren't stars.

All the people he brought in were sidekicks.

-You're taking this very seriously.

-I am indeed, Nick.

I've got a clipper board.

I said, "I don't need you to do sport. What do you know about?" He said, "I don't know."

I said, "What do you do with your time?" He said, "I watch telly." I said, "That's it!

"You're going to do television every week!"

Tonight, The Golden Girls. Actually, it's very funny. I like it.

Some of the ladies watching the programme, Greg discovered,

were a little bit overweight, so let's get Diana Dors in.

Let's lose weight with Double D Diana Dors!

Something for the dads there with Diana, something for the grandparents,

and something for the lady who wants to lose weight.

-Peggy, step forward.

-I think we should have a drum roll.

-She is beautiful, isn't she?

-Hello, Peggy.

-Hello.

You started at 11 stone 13.

-Yes, something like that. Nearly 12 stones.

-How do you feel now?

-Fantastic.

-Has it made any difference to your life?

-Oh, yeah.

-I've got a great sex life.

-A great sex life?

We've got to move on to the scales now.

I think it's a bit early in the morning for that.

I'm very pleased for you! I'm very pleased for everybody!

Wincey Willis was... We just liked her because of her name.

How can you have a weather person called Wincey Willis?!

Down in the south-western corner,

into the Channel Islands, one or two showers coming in, some heavy,

and one or two thundery showers about as well.

By midday today, temperatures scorching again.

Every presenter had to have some sort of strange trademark.

Ready? Here we go!

Bounce!

'She was my PA's fitness teacher, so I got her in'

and her name was Lizzie.

I said, "That's boring, isn't it? We'll call you Mad Lizzie. You go and do this," and she did that.

The recipes were done by a retired vicar called the Cooking Canon.

Who cares about figures? I don't! I'm working on mine - it's getting better every week.

There was a fishing correspondent called the Codfather.

Oh, my God!

Who loves skate and chips?

'Greg was devil may care. He just wanted to be Snap, Crackle and Pop.'

Can you spot the new look? Yes, you've got it. No woolly jumper.

Instead, a suit, a tie

and an altogether more sophisticated approach.

'It was done by the seat of the pants, day in, day out.'

Trying to get things that would work.

Competition time.

While the innovations of TV-am kept pouring in...

One slices a bagel in a transverse way to the axis.

..over at Breakfast Time,

it was very much a case of "carry on as you were".

But with one crucial difference - no Frank and no Selina.

-Beautifully dressed this morning.

-Thank you very much. Good morning.

While Selina is away on hols, Sue Cook is here with us again.

And with the BBC big guns on leave, for the first time,

TV-am sensed a chink in their opponents' armour.

# Get a great big blanket and a cool pair of shades... #

Having noticed that TV-am's viewing figures went up during half-term,

General Dyke literally fought the Battle of Breakfast

on the beaches, with new recruit Chris Tarrant.

Good morning. Are you all right?

CROWD: Yes!

'What we couldn't believe was that the first time'

we crossed live to Chris Tarrant on the beach in Blackpool,

which was like at about 6:20 in the morning...

Don't forget at 8:15, we shall be talking to Keith Harris and Orville.

We crossed there live and there was a big crowd there already.

So the audience was hungry for what we were trying to sell them.

Look at the state of this!

Chris Tarrant, the Lebanon, News At Ten.

What a sight! Still looking out for the ferret!

If this battle of the beach bulge was helping TV-am to find

an audience, one of its surviving presenters was helping to

lead the resurgence.

Ha-ha-ha!

Hello, good morning and welcome. Ha-ha-ha!

'Not only did I like Roland Rat,

I liked the guy behind Roland Rat,'

who said to me almost on the first day when we met in make-up,

I said, "Why does it work so well, Roland Rat?" He said,

"Because Roland Rat's heart and soul are there, in the palm of my hand."

I thought, "Here is a puppeteer who actually believes in it."

He was a strange man because he was the most boring man in the world

until he put his arm up this rat's arse, in which case he became funny.

Can you tell us exactly when we're going to see you again on this television programme?

All the time! Non-stop! Yeah!

'He was just so irreverent, so rude, so unusual in those days.'

Sort of quite arsey with people.

And very arrogant. Very cheeky.

And absolutely brilliant. Called me "Nic-oh-lars"!

-Morning, Nic-oh-lars!

-Good morning, Roland. What are you wearing this lot for?

He called John Stapleton "Staple Gun" the whole time he was on

and poor old John is trying to be a news presenter and having a

puppet calling you Staple Gun is not the best means of giving gravitas.

-Give it to old Staple Gun there.

-Thank you, Roland.

-Morning, John.

I'm most impressed. That's very kind. Good morning, Roland.

'Roland Rat... Yeah.'

As one wag said at the time, "I've heard of a rat deserting

"a sinking ship, I've never heard of a rat joining one."

And we'll come back after the break to meet our new presenter,

who is called Roland Rat, would you believe?

What we'll do to stem the ratings.

-What?

-Roland Rat.

-And that's going to be a presenter, is it?

Nick and I didn't have to feel threatened by Roland Rat

cos we'd all come in at the same time

and we were all just trying to build an audience.

I can see that the original famous five might have thought that

Roland Rat did not belong because he didn't belong in their master plan.

But the master plan had completely changed by the time I arrived

and Roland Rat was a very important part of it.

-I am a fan. I've got one of your T-shirts.

-Have you?

-Yeah.

Do you wear it all the time?

-Not quite all the time.

-Why haven't you got it on today?

-Well, you know.

She wanted to look smart.

I mean, that looks a right mess you got on there. What's that, then?

Some cheap thing, innit, eh?

'I like to think I did my bit.'

I like to think we all did our bit conveying a more sort of

serious news edge.

At the end of the day, we were probably saved by the rat.

HE LAUGHS

When you start from a base of nil, you move up.

Oh, we've hit 30,000 viewers.

50, 100, half a million, a million.

And I suddenly get a phone call from Clive Jones saying,

"We've overtaken the BBC."

With Frank and Selina

having been granted leave for the summer holidays,

TV-am's end-of-the-pier-show counteroffensive had

re-established them in the battle for breakfast.

TV-am started to recover.

They began to claw back the ratings and do rather better

and, well, it was a question of, will their station survive?

And it did survive.

The war for an audience for TV-am suddenly seemed winnable.

But it didn't have the certainty of the BBC's licence fee

and it was wracked by advertising disputes.

So many doubted its ability to last what would be a long campaign.

It was a shambles. Absolute financial shambles.

There were times when we didn't get paid

and Anne and I used to go to the accounts department or wherever

and say, "Our money hasn't gone in."

They'd say, "Sorry, it's the computers."

You'd have to go to the head of finance every month

and plead for your paycheque.

No-one was paid and they came up with the usual fib about it

being a computer problem, you know. Nonsense. Absolute nonsense.

They'd no money.

Nobody in television had ever come across this.

Television had always been well paid with lots of money flashing around.

Suddenly, there was a whole station that had no money at all.

So it was...different. As I say, I enjoyed it.

I thought it was very stimulating to see what you could do without money.

There was one day Anne and I were actually on air,

chatting away to camera, and I went into a film report or something.

The director came into our ears and said, "Don't be alarmed but you

"might find all the lights go out in a minute and the whole place comes to a standstill."

I said, "Why?" He said, "We haven't paid the electricity bill

"and they're in reception now, about to turn the power off."

And that was true.

And I think Greg came in and paid a whacking great cheque,

which later bounced, but it just staved off the problem immediately.

There was an advertising agency working for us who phoned me up

one day and said, "If we don't get paid...

"..we're not going to do any more work."

And I said, "I wouldn't do that."

They said, "Why?" I said, "There's two piles here.

"There is the ones who still work for us.

"They've got a chance of being paid.

"The other lot have got no chance at all."

And they carried on working and in the end they got paid.

While TV-am remained in the financial mire, the BBC,

despite losing some ratings,

still had cause to celebrate what had been a momentous year.

# Mornings used to be oh, so boring

# Nothing to do except stretching and yawning

# But then a year ago

# Came the birth of a brand-new show

# So happy birthday, Breakfast Time

# You're one year old and you're looking fine

# A new institution A small revolution

# Happy birthday, Breakfast Time. #

But as the BBC machine rumbled on relentlessly

despite the occasional mishap...

I had an encounter with the M4 this morning.

-I hope my wife's not up.

-What do you mean an encounter?

Well, there was nobody about but I hit a patch of ice

and I spent 200 yards trying to decide

whether the car was going into the central reservation or the ditch.

Oh, heavens.

..things were even more accident prone over on the other side.

TV-am kind of felt like being a citizen of a banana republic

at one stage because every time you

looked around there was someone new in the presidential palace.

With losses of over £1 million a month threatening TV-am

with financial oblivion, they turned to Australian tycoon Kerry Packer.

He, in turn, ensured that one of his own was there

to oversee the investment.

Step forward Bruce Gyngell.

Bruce was walking testosterone. Bruce was walking ambition.

Bruce was not a little wallaby, he was a kangaroo.

He leapt into our world, he led from the front,

he was wanting to achieve and he was wanting to...the opposition.

While Greg Dyke had turned round the viewing figures for TV-am,

Packer's appointment was charged

with making the operation financially viable.

Now, the first week he was there, he took me out for lunch.

We did numerology.

I didn't know what was but basically it's about coins and numbers

and all this. Cos he was a bit cranky.

And we did all this and he said,

"Boy, this tells me wonderful things. We're going to get along so well."

And I'd gone within a month.

You have two enormously successful TV guys

with two reasonably sized egos

and Greg did, I think, feel,

"They're kicking me out of my own house and home,"

but sensibly didn't think,

"Would this work? Wouldn't this work?" He just went.

Bruce thought about things so carefully.

It was always a philosophy for him.

He believed that if you were going to switch on

the breakfast television set,

it had to have this lovely, warm glow to it.

'So he made sure that the set was oranges and pinks

'and that my wardrobe had to be pink, frankly. Pink or red.'

Or maybe yellow and orange but never blue.

And he made it very clear to me that he would sack me if I wore blue.

He insisted, absolutely insisted, that we were bright.

He went into the make-up room and said, "These kids,

"they're looking pasty-faced. Brighter. More orange."

Bruce had this wonderful kind of

post-hippie guru type of aura about him.

You know, the whole thing, his whole belief in pink,

the way he had a trampoline in his office.

He used to bounce on the trampoline every morning

and make other people bounce on the trampoline

cos it got rid of stress levels.

There was a lot of sort of funny,

quite humorous goings-on.

He was the first man I ever met who saw me wearing one

of my ludicrous jumpers and said to me, meaning it, "I like your style."

With the colour contrast now turned up to 11,

TV-am continued to close the ratings gap.

Do you like it? It's fabulous, isn't it?

-I'm not going to say no, am I?

-No.

And while historians would declare

the years of 1984-86 as a golden age for breakfast television,

in reality, the battle was to become like trench warfare,

with neither side able to achieve dominance.

During this stalemate, viewers could turn on the TV

and be forgiven for thinking they were watching the same show.

-It really does look dreadful.

-Well, it looks dreadful, it does.

SHE STUTTERS AND CHUCKLES Hello.

And then shrugging up the shoulders to the ears.

Amid this deluge of daily features,

the stalemate continued through to the very fibre of each programme.

We had jumpers for every day of the year. There was an Easter jumper.

Not just one Easter jumper but a host of them with bunnies, Easter eggs.

Christmas jumpers, Valentine's Day jumper.

Whatever the time of year, whatever the season, there was a jumper.

I could've sold jumpers, you know.

I could have made a million selling jumpers.

BBC Wardrobe were looking everywhere for sweaters.

'The great British public started to knit for me.'

But not just sweaters. You would get willy warmers that were knitted.

It was perceived as a battle of the sofas

and of course that's what it was.

I mean, outrageously, I suppose, when we'd come in, we had said,

"Right, we're not going to do what the famous five initially did.

"We're going to out-sofa Breakfast Time."

They were doing us.

TV-am was doing us.

TV-am were BBC Breakfast Time.

They were doing us.

They were being us.

By 1986, with their constant bombardment of fun and frivolity,

TV-am were consistently achieving 60% of the breakfast audience.

In the face of this assault, the BBC retreated.

The BBC decided to relaunch Breakfast Time with a desk.

Good morning and a very warm welcome to BBC Breakfast Time.

It's Monday, November the 10th and today we start a new look

but I hope you'll find us as welcoming as ever.

It was a sort of round, curved wooden affair

with the hint of a pot plant.

Frank was there with his sports jacket on and his tie

and I had shoulder pads that almost filled the screen.

As you can see, we've got a splendid new desk here,

from which we'll be giving you all the news of the day

and comment on the important stories of the morning.

And very smart you look, too, in your jacket.

Somebody up above said,

"I think Breakfast Time should be a bit more cerebral than it is.

"You know, let's have a bit more news."

And in today's programme...

The teachers' dispute - is an end in sight?

And beating the terrorists -

can the Europeans come up with a common approach?

So, what happened was you got terrific success on your hands

and somebody comes and punches it.

A lot of people in the BBC are much more comfortable

if you're behind a desk and you've got a suit and tie on.

And that is not what I think breakfast television was ever about.

But it's a tendency in the BBC - just toughen it up, old boy.

It was I think what the BBC secretly wanted.

It bored the pants off the nation

but it was what the BBC hierarchy secretly wanted.

The general public, who had come to love the woolly jumper approach,

vented their fury.

I'm afraid it's not Breakfast Time. It's not.

The mood isn't the same. It's gone.

I felt, if I ate my breakfast while I was watching,

I'd end up in detention.

I'd like to see something that makes me feel relaxed and watching

Sally Magnusson and Frank Bough behind a desk

does not put me at ease.

You've got a great success on your hands,

like Ronald Neil produced for the BBC,

it seems to me a terrible thing to change, to want to change it.

But they did.

Bruce Gyngell said to us, "This is a gift." And it was, of course, a gift.

I can see why people at the BBC might have said,

"They've out-sofaed us so therefore

"we go back to what the BBC is good at and there will always be

"an audience for that."

But it was a gift to us and we ran and ran with it. Of course we did.

For the next 12 months, the morning breakfast battle

saw the bright-eyed and bushy tailed TV-am firmly

in the ascendancy, often hitting audience figures of 2.7 million -

double that of the BBC.

For one man who'd overseen the early BBC triumphs,

the breakfast war was over.

I just thought the management moved the goalposts a little early

after the first version.

I think it had a lot more life in it and could've been adapted.

But there you go. I mean, the BBC calls the shots

and they have the right to make the decision.

I decided I would leave and, indeed, of course,

I didn't leave the programme that I'd started.

It was an entirely different programme so the departure wasn't

particularly painful.

I had three heroes in broadcasting.

One was David Frost,

another was Michael Parkinson, who I ended up working with,

and a third was Frank Bough, who was on the other side.

I thought Frank Bough was the ultimate broadcaster. And still do.

Frank Bough's retirement from the battlefield saw the BBC become

even more entrenched behind their desks, enlisting such

hard-hitting journalists as Kirsty Wark and Jeremy Paxman.

Good morning. It's seven o'clock on Tuesday the 1st of November.

This is the BBC's Breakfast Time

and these are the main news stories overnight.

Meanwhile, TV-am continued as a lean, mean sunshine machine,

which, despite the departure of breakfast veteran Nick Owen,

was not only winning the ratings war,

with audiences of nearly 3 million, it was also properly making money.

But it then picked a fight with itself.

With most unions now on their knees,

Margaret Thatcher saw TV as the last bastion of restrictive practices

and, when the technical union ACTT called a strike,

Bruce Gyngell retaliated by locking them out.

Bruce had clearly pledged to himself and to Margaret Thatcher, I think,

that he would beat the unions even if it took locking them out and using

non-union labour to man the cameras and work all the gizmos and gadgets

that a television studio has and, ultimately, he kept his word.

He led from the front. He was in there behind the cameras.

You know, the management took over.

There we were, professional presenters sitting on the sofa

but behind that camera was a lady who, last week, was head of accounts

and behind the camera over there was somebody who was advertising manager.

And working all the buttons in the background was somebody else

who, you know, was a management figure.

We are prepared to keep manning the cameras

and operating the studios and VTs

until such time as they accept the ten-point plan we've put forward.

Start off on camera two.

The latest national and international news from Sam Hall in Washington

and Gordon Honeycombe here in London. Gordon.

Hello. I'm still here.

On to the newspapers this morning.

We did have Gordon Honeycombe a moment or so ago.

We thought it would damage the franchise but it didn't at all,

actually. It just shows what the audience want, doesn't it?

Thank you, David, and good morning.

The news headlines on Sunday, March the 20th.

The Army has named the two soldiers...

Even amid the chaos,

TV-am could do no wrong,

with audience figures during the strike actually going up.

For the BBC, languishing with 30% of the audience share,

the darkest hour was before and just after the dawn.

Where is this man, whatever his name is, who's talking about seals?

Where's Dr John Harwood? Quick, quick, quick, quick.

-Where is Dr Harwood, please?

-Somebody get him in there.

Is he here? Or is he in a studio somewhere?

Somebody talk to me, for Christ's sake!

With Breakfast Time having become

an uneasy mix of hard news and fluff,

in 1989, the BBC ditched the breakfast magazine show experiment

for some unrelenting hard news.

A very good morning to you and welcome from Jill and me.

The time is eight o'clock.

You're watching the first edition of the BBC's Breakfast News.

He'd triumphed in the ratings and defeated the union.

Now, counting Margaret Thatcher as a personal friend,

Bruce Gyngell's technicolor TV-am just had to secure the renewal

of the original franchise to ensure another glorious eight years.

The first seven years of TV-am were quite extraordinary.

From nothing, it went to something huge and, under Bruce Gyngell,

the rocket really took off

and I think Bruce thought that he was unbeatable.

He'd beaten the unions, he'd beaten the BBC, he was the golden boy.

And he assumed that he was going to have the franchise renewed.

Good evening. Mrs Thatcher has told TV-am

she's heartbroken that it will lose

its licence to broadcast breakfast television.

In 1990, the Conservative government had revised the rules

on bidding for independent television franchises.

Despite Gyngell turning TV-am into the very model of Thatcherism,

well, rules are rules.

"I'm only too painfully aware that I was responsible for the legislation.

"Yours sincerely, Margaret Thatcher."

And in the "all's fair in love and war" world of breakfast telly,

it was Sunrise Television, led by a TV-am exile, who took the spoils.

When we won it...

..there's always a degree of revenge is a dish best delivered cold.

And there's a few people in your life

you'd like to get your own back on and Bruce was one of them and we did.

The battle for Britain's breakfast of 1983-91

was a unique chapter in British broadcasting,

with the upstart commercial venture of TV-am giving the mighty BBC

a run for its money before fading from the battlefield.

We now have to say it finally. Thank you and goodbye.

ALL: Goodbye.

In this war of the sofas, there were many casualties but both

the victors and the losers had changed the TV landscape for ever.

If you look back now at Britain before breakfast television,

it was fairly stiff and starchy and formulaic.

Breakfast Time worked because you couldn't quite

predict as a viewer what you were going to see next.

SHE GIGGLES AND SHRIEKS

It was the unexpectedness of it, you know.

It made television more accessible to people.

It was cosy, it was chatty,

we invited viewers to give us their opinion.

"Nick is not boring," says Francis of London.

Thank you, Francis.

And they felt a part of it and I think that was a big, big difference it made.

You can have a really, really personal relationship with your audience.

Even more so now they can tweet and text in and things like that.

I think it's brilliant.

I think breakfast television has done us all a power of good.

I think, certainly, breakfast television did introduce

a much greater degree of informality to the media.

Was that a good thing or not? I don't know.

Ladies and gentlemen, live, all the way from George Square, Glasgow,

Mr Tony Ferrelli singing Memories

inside a washing machine.

# Memories

# Like the corners of my mind

# Misty, watercolour memories

# Of the way we were. #