My God...what a trip down memory lane for me. I was the Producer at Breakfast Time in Lime Grove who devised these opening titles. Many early morning shoots to produce this one....had totally fogotten how good they were (they don't make them like that any more) Those were the early days of exciting tv formats. I then went on to help produce Kilroy which was also an exciting new tv format. What fun. Helen Cramer (ex Producer Breakfast Time/News/Kilroy) 1982 - 1994
I was obsessed with these titles as a kid and often recorded them on our Betamax machine. I went on to design tv graphics and titles, now I direct tv ads. All thanks to that spinning spider :-]
What classy opening titles and fantastic theme music, this comes from an era when BBC programmes were interesting and informative. Now most of them are dumbed down and patronising.
A lot of imagination went into these opening titles. Great shots of the UK waking up married together with a brilliant theme. Just 4 months later it all went serious.
Just after the announcer says "A very good morning to you from BBC1", you can hear a womans voice in the background say "5" and you can just here her counting down to the start of the titles.
Clive Evans yeah I’m not sure who invented it BBC’s Breakfast Time or ITV’s TVAM? Goodness knows Channel 4’s THE BIG BREAKFAST 🥞 🍳 didn’t . They just pinched the idea off of its competitors... 😂
If i ever got to watch this in the morning it was either because i had got up far too early or I had stayed up all night. Either way it was pretty unusual for a kid growing up in the 1980's. I liked that format for the BBC so much better than how it is now , with the focus being so firmly on NEWS and less of a magazine show. They should do it in this style again and leave the News focus to the rolling news chanels.
I'll second that. Listen to the BBC now in the morning (especially Five Live & R4) and all you want to do is go back to bed because of the all the early morning negativity.
Much prefer it when BBC Breakfast Time was like this; today it is so PC, so dumbed down, telling you how to live your life. Too much negativity that forces me to turn off these days.
Unusall though for BBC Breakfast time to start at 6.50am as opposed to it"s normal start up time of 6.30am was it due to an industrail dispute with the techinnician"s union BETCCU? 50 year old disabled carrer. GOD BLESS!
Actually BBC Breakfast Time moved to the later time of 6.50am not because of unions but because the BBC were introducing a new look to BBC1 on Monday 18th February 1985. The move to 6.50am came on Monday 18th February 1985, the day that the BBC introduced a new globe ident and a new early evening line-up which included Wogan and the Eastenders. The programme would air from 6.50-9.20am instead of 6.30-9.00am. TVAM also changed its broadcasting hours in January 1985 to 6.15am-9.25am. This move saw BBC Breakfast Time lose viewers at 6.30am, and so the BBC decided to move the programme 20 minutes later to try and gain more viewers. This was the beginning of the end for the relaxed Breakfast Time, as TVAM copied its successful format and by November 1986 the programme reverted to a hard news format. This was probably a last throw of the dice to regain viewers.
John King Yes,quite right John. As somone who is now 50 years of age,I should have remembered this at the time. This was the day when Micheal Grade [Now Sir Micheal] started his new schedulde the DOG [Digitial on Screen Graphic] Globe, Wogan,Nighbours,Eastenders and a new programme at 5.35pm every day. When there were just 4 channels broadcasting 12 hours a day. [When the unions didn"t go on strike] How did TV am go so wrong in the beginning? Was it the IBA"s fault for at least NOT GIVING the TV am News service to ITN? As TV am"s lack of coverage of the Brighton Bombing proved. Also BBC Breakfast Time was without doubt the start of populist programming on the BBC. On TV at least. John may I ask is there a FULL VIDEO of the first [2 and a half hour] edition of BBC Breakfast Time on the net? ? 17th January 1983. I hope to hear from you soon. Disabled UK Carrer. GOD BLESS!
I assume they were limited to 2.5 hours but had started to lose viewers to TVAM after 9am, so the change allowed them to stay on until 9.20am. When Breakfast Time started Schools programmes sometimes started at 9am, but they moved to BBC2 in Autumn 1983.
