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First there was the BBC's Breakfast Time show which
launched at the start of 1983, and much to TV-AM's dismay
(they were due on air shortly) it was not the serious news
programme some thought it might have been, but was a direct
competitor which helped to hit TV-AM's initial viewing
figures badly. Later on Breakfast Time was scrapped and
replaced with a more serious Breakfast News format. The
Breakfast Time intro can be found as a Quicktime movie in
Richard Bell's TV Zone (see the Resources and Links
section).
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TV-AM followed swiftly afterwards, launched with a
barrage of publicity on 1st February 1983. It featured a
mixture of familiar and unfamiliar presenters (David Frost
being the key figure) and had a 'bright and breezy' approach
to waking the nation up in the morning. Expectations were
set high for the new service, but in reality there were
several unanswered questions; most notably just how many
people in the UK were prepared to watch television instead
of listening to the radio at that time of day.
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The show's title 'Good Morning Britain' deliberately
echoed the similar US programme 'Good Morning America', and
the British show had much in common with its American
counterpart, such as the use of an on-screen clock, and the
use of a caption to tell viewers what was to follow the
commercial break.
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After the commercial break had finished, this caption was
shown, which also features the on-screen clock (showing ten
past nine, in the bottom-right hand corner). By April
TV-AM's future looked bleak - viewing figures had plummeted
to about 100,000, partly courtesy of Breakfast Time (anyone
remember Russell Grant's horoscopes?) So Greg Dyke was
brought in from London Weekend Television to try and improve
things - David Frost was replaced by Nick Owen and TV-AM
went downmarket, successfully reversing the drop.
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At the time there was a craze among tabloid newspapers
for running bingo competitions, so a bright idea was to tell
the viewers what the day's numbers were so they didn't have
to buy the newspaper. Occassionally the numbers were
misread, though the mistakes were corrected ! Nick Owen had
to dress up in a beefeater's outfit and blow a trumpet to
introduce this part of the programme !
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Roland Rat was also introduced as part of the April
shake-up; its creator (Anne Wood) was (much later)
responsible for creating the Teletubbies... The character
proved to be very popular; rat mania even spawned two
UK Top 40 records in 1983/4 - Rat Rapping and Love Me
Tender. Anne Diamond also had to work alongside 'Roland Rat
Superstar' (as he was also modestly known as) which must
have been a tough act to keep up with !
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The weather forecast was presented by Commander Philpott,
whose style was certainly different from the competition -
come to think of it anything else past or present ! 'Stiff
upper lip British' was perhaps the best way to describe
the Commander's technique.
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This caption was shown at the end of the programme,
with one egg cup added to the picture for each year since
1983 (1984 = two egg cups displayed, etc.), though in
later years only a few of the cups actually appeared in the
caption. TV-AM was a programme contractor in its own right,
and was independent of the other companies that formed the
ITV network.
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ITN provided the news for the service for many years, but
later on the news was provided by Rupert Murdoch's Sky News
until TV-AM's demise at the end of 1992.
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TV-AM were among the losers when the ITV broadcasting
franchises were reviewed in 1991, so from the 1st January
1993 TV-AM was replaced by GMTV. This picture was the very
last to be transmitted by TV-AM; the colour of the main
scene was faded moments before the picture faded abruptly.
An era had come to an end. You can see this historic moment
in a RealVideo clip in the Links and Resources section.
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