Waking up to Television 

7 June 2018 tbs.pm/66358

 

From Television & Radio 1983, published by the Independent Broadcasting Authority in December 1982

Early in 1983 breakfast-time television comes to the UK with tv-am, daily from 6-9.15 a.m. From Monday to Friday there will be two main programmes each day. News will be gathered by tv-am News, a wholly-owned subsidiary company.

A team of young presenters will start off the weekday mornings at 6 a.m. with a brisk 45-minute programme of news, weather, and public service bulletins in Daybreak; items of special interest to agricultural workers and business people will be included. At about 6.45 there will be a short programme devoted to children between the ages of 5 and 8.

Following this at 7 a.m. will be Good Morning Britain, presented by two of the five senior presenters: Anna Ford, David Frost, Robert Kee, Michael Parkinson and Angela Rippon. This magazine programme, which will run until 9.15 a.m., will be a fast-moving blend of news and interviews, with features on a wide range of topics including sport, consumer issues, competitions, and a fiction item corresponding to the popular cartoon strips found in the daily papers. The overall presentation will be informal and conversational.

Many viewers will only be able to stay with the programme for a short period and, to cater for their needs. Good Morning Britain will be produced in half-hour sections, each of which will contain bulletins of news and weather along with the development of important news items and some of the special features. In order not to lose the interest of viewers who are able to watch the whole programme, these features will appear only once in the programme.

In the last half-hour or so there will be an increasing number of items of particular interest to women, who are likely to form the majority of viewers at that time.

Regional interests are not being overlooked. Operational centres are being set up initially in Manchester, Glasgow and Cardiff to provide regular spots of local news, weather, traffic, sport and debates from the Midlands and the North, Scotland, and Wales and the West, respectively, along with London and the South-East. Other centres will be developed – Birmingham and Belfast coming next on the list.

At the weekend the programmes will reflect the change of pace and contain more feature material than during the week.

On Saturdays the programmes will include sports previews, information on leisure activities, and shopping advice. There will be sections for children on leisure activities, popular music, sports and sports information.

Sunday mornings will feature topical religious subjects. There will also be a digest of the Sunday papers, features on the Arts, a sports review and round-up, and items for children including general knowledge and science.

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