BBC HomeExplore the BBC
This page was last updated in July 2004We've left it here for reference.More information

7 February 2011
Accessibility help
Text only
Cult Television

BBC Homepage
Entertainment

Contact Us

Like this page?
Send it to a friend!

 
Cult | News | I Love | 15 April 2004

Breakfast bloodbaths

New book about the messy history of Breakfast TV.

Chunky sweaters, Roland Rat, Denise and Johnny - a book has now been devoted to the true history of these early rising icons.

In Morning Glory, Ian Jones covers everything from Frank Bough to Rise, and proves that it really is possible to believe six impossible things before breakfast.

He's interviewed the key players - speaking to Saint Greg Dyke and calling Nick Ross - and presents what the press release calls "a story unique in broadcasting for its high-profile triumphs and disasters, raging egos and scandalous bust-ups."

If you thought the biggest breakfast bust-up was a sacked Anna Ford throwing wine at Jonathan Aitken, then you're in for a surprise. It was famously a time of big egos and tiny budgets - as the press discovered when a photoshoot for TV-AM was interrupted by a man from the electricity board nipping in to cut off the power.

According to Jones, "the most surprising thing I discovered while writing the book was the sheer amount of grudges and feuds nursed by people who cut all ties with breakfast telly ten, even twenty years ago. It's a subject that inspires the very extremes of love and hate amongst those from both in front and behind the camera - there's no room, it seems, for compromise."

We asked the author what most alarmed him. "I'd nominate either The Big Breakfast's enduring fondness for axing presenters literally overnight and then ruthlessly forbidding all further mention of them on air (Mark Little, Sharron Davies, Rick Adams and Paul Tonkinson to name but a few)," he said, "Or the manner in which Breakfast Time was put through the mincer in 1986 to make it more news-worthy and in a stroke lost its evocative mix of sofas, coffee pots, a laidback air and Frank Bough's sweaters."

This is an eye-opening account of just how nasty (and fascinating) TV can be before dawn.



World of Cult web guide:

Kenneth Williams speaks
Catch up on BBC TV and Radio. Watch and listen now.

BBC 6 MusicAncient HistoryThe Archers


About the BBC | Help | Terms of Use | Privacy & Cookies Policy