Breakfast television (
UK,
Canada,
Australia,
New Zealand) or
morning show (
U.S.) is a type of
news and entertainment television program, broadcast
live in the morning (typically between 6:00am and 10:00am). Often hosted by a small 'team' of male and female hosts, morning shows typically
target the combined
demographic of people getting ready for work, and stay-at-home adults and parents.
Breakfast television programs normally feature regular news briefs and information reports on
business and the
stock market, and weather and travel (traffic in North American usage)—particularly in the 'early half', when the bulk of the
workforce demographic is still home. Later in the program, programming will shift to more
homemaker-oriented entertainment programming, to reflect a dominantly female demographic. The time in between information segments is normally filled with discussions of major news stories, reviews of the day's papers, and '
entertainment news'—news regarding media celebrities. Morning show hosts are typically regarded as
media personalities, and are likewise often regarded as celebrities.
History
The world's first breakfast television programme was ''
Today'' on the
US network
NBC which began broadcasting on
January 14,
1952. Many other channels around the world followed NBC's lead.
In the
UK, after a six-week trial-run on the regional ITV station
Yorkshire Television, the
Independent Broadcasting Authority considered breakfast television so important that it created an entire franchise for it, the only national ITV franchise. This franchise was awarded to ''
TV-am''. However, delays to ''
TV-am'''s launch meant that the
BBC were able to launch their own programme, ''
Breakfast Time'' on
January 17 1983. ''TV-am'', with ''
Daybreak'' and ''
Good Morning Britain'' being its flagship programmes, launched just two weeks later on
February 1 1983. ''TV-am'' found it hard to survive at first, due to a reliance on advertising income from a timeslot where people were not accustomed to watching television. However, it eventually flourished, only to lose its licence, from
1993 onwards, to
GMTV who outbid them.
Today, breakfast television is an established part of many people's lives and a popular way to start the day.