1983: Making BREAKFAST TIME | Pebble Mill at One | Making of... | BBC Archive
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- Donny Macleod presents a special edition of Pebble Mill At One, focusing on the launch of BBC Breakfast Time.
Donny goes behind the scenes of Britain's first ever regular breakfast television show, where journalists, production staff, engineers and presenters are all hard at work ahead of the first live broadcast on January 17th. Breakfast television marks the BBC's biggest operational shake-up since the launch of BBC Two in 1964. Breakfast Time Editor Ron Neil explains the logistics of putting the show together, Tam Fry demonstrates some of the new computer technology involved, Debbie Rix discusses how she became the first breakfast television newsreader role, and presenter Frank Bough chats about unusual working hours.
Originally broadcast 14 January 1983.
You can listen to news of UK breakfast television being given the green light by the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) on 28 December 1980 in the BBC Sounds archive series, On This Day - www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0d...
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RIP Donny Macleod! He died one year later, presenting this wonderful program on 6th September 1984, from a heart attack in 1984, aged 52, after a short struggle with bowel cancer! What a great presenter and person!
He was a great guy
Was going to say the same thing - what a great presenter Donnie was, if I heard someone presenting like that nowadays, 40 years on, it wouldn't be at all out of place.
The smoking in the newsroom! Definitely something you do not see anymore!
When you need reminding 1983 is 40 years ago…wow 😮
Yes indeed too it is-and sort of yikes indeed with it too somehow of course anyway!
I think it's fascinating just how forward-thinking this style of programming was. Everything about the workflow was modern or had some innovation, and the concept itself broke the mould of having programmes being 'events', instead proving that television could provide a live stream of information that could be dipped in and out of as the morning progressed.
I think we now know how Frank Bough was able to appear so wide awake and fresh faced at the time of the day - SNIFF.
Another thumbs up for uploading in 50p. Was nice to see the VT segments with their 50 fields intact.
come again, son?
Oh a cigarette at your work desk. Brings back memories!
Fascinating look at the making of one of BBC Television's popular shows of the mid 1980's.
Donny Macleod was great. Pebble Mill At One was a great magazine program. I used to watch it together with my Dad during school lunch breaks.
Please put up more Donny!
Splendid combovers from Donny and Frank.
Frank won it that year.
It was either combovers or outright wigs by many on British television back in the day.
@@4seeableTV And now it's all hair transplants and Turkey Teeth.
Donny McLeod - the mainstay of Pebble Mill at One. He was my company on my afternoons off school poorly, sipping lucozade and being fed orangy junior aspirin…
i never missed 1 day of school
He died so young .. I think his son is still a continuity announcer at ch4
Indeed. Mr &Mrs and Crown Court on ITV.
I remember watching 👀 Pebble Mill at 1 as a child at my Nan’s 👵 house waiting for my Uncle Colin to come home from work to have his dinner and go back to work again.
Good old Col’
Used to watch Pebble Mill when I was off school sick😉 as a kid.
Superb, what great times and happy memories. Thank you for this beautiful archive footage.
And I remember that morning of the first edition of "Breakfast Time" like it was yesterday
me too
You can watch the whole thing on CZcams. Just uploaded.
Love the combovers , don’t see that much now 😢
Smoking in the office- one of those things that reminds you, however much nostalgia you have for the past, there are things about it that mean it wasn't always better.
Donny presented during the classic Pebble Mill years, with Bob Langley and lovely Marian Foster.😀
Don't forget the witty David Seymour who completed the Big Four. 😄
Back then I went to wild parties with Duran Duran and Motorhead but I wasted my time, I could have just gone to the ones that Frank Bough attended.
Lemmy and Frank Bough were born just a few miles apart. Imagine - one became a famously debauched figure notorious for depraved sex and rampant drug taking. And the other became the lead singer of Motorhead.
@@matthewlawrenson3628 lol
I know one of the people who worked with Frank. He was unflappable and would prank the other presenters by cracking X-rated jokes seconds before going live
I was 19 when I started as a TRO at Lime Grove, fantastic experience for the 4 1/2 years I was there.
@@dogbreaththe3rd851 God that takes me back. Yes - I only left because I didn't get SRO
The BBC was the first in Europe to broadcast a breakfast format.
iirc, they rushed like hell to bring Breakfast Time to air to beat TV-AM to the punch, as TV-AM had announced first. Now you've explained they were the first in Europe, I can see why they were so anxious to be the first to broadcast.
Glad Frank didn’t blow his lines there.
🤣
I remember the morning at TV Centre where we struggled to get on air. There was overnight work on the BBC1 TX signal and it was unusable. The national fibre optic transmitters to the regions would not lock to it so all transmitters stayed off.
We eventually got a working signal to Crystal Palace and the country then went into RBS (rebroadcast standby) where as a backup a transmitter also had TV aerial looking at the nearest transmitter/ relay and then transmitted that.
Pretty much by the time the signal got to John O’Groats this way the picture was pretty dodgy
That RBS was really used for a time? I thought it was a emergency thing and never really used in practivce. Thx!
I would love to see a comparison between the programming and broadcasting technology they showed here in 83' and how it evolved over the years to present day. Could make for an interesting documentary!
well, i'm falling asleep at the mere thought of it, so maybe not.
pretty kick-ass channel man, ı love it and particularly all those :Rock 'N' Roll shows
40th Anniversary Since 1983.
Donny McLeod the consummate professional. Poor guy only had a year left in him.
I’m in the process of applying for BBC media apprenticeships and for all it’s faults, the BBC is a pioneering wonderful institution.
“Newspapers have nothing to worry about”
Some really great comb-overs in this vid. Respect!
I,remember this starting.
David Icke walks into the room at 11:17. He was the sports presenter.
I remember the Olympic were the very first early morning broadcasts, then breakfast time. It was so exciting to see TV before school. Not only did it feel different and kind of magical, it spoke of a wonderful age of technology and opportunity to come.
Frank Bough hoovering up!
Scarily, Frank Bough was younger than I am now in this video, despite looking at least 10 years older.
Me too. Very scary! I was 16 in 1983 and Frank was the same age as my dad, who I thought was ancient!!!
People back in the 80s did look a lot older than the same aged people today. Must be a combination of styles and diets.
That will be the cocaine and champagne that did that!
Interesting bit at the end - I guess that was a rehearsal, not a real opening?
0:34 and he said that “there was not a typewriter to be seen”…
"Frank, how are you managing to be bright eyed and bushy tailed at 4:00 in the morning?" 😏
Answer - half a pound of cocaine and three hookers seems to help him
3:50 seems like an early Wikipedia 🧐
The thumbnail pic of Selina Scott is somewhat stimulating.
Every red-blooded male fantasied about her in the 80s (I know I did!) Queen of the ‘Recently rogered’ look.
Ah Selina Scott, Queen of the ‘recently rogered’ look.
Watching as I saw some of the 40th anniversary coverage with Debbie Rix, I knew immediately who it was when she was addressed as 'Debbie' on BBC Breakfast today, I don't think there were other Debbie's on the first edition, there was a Debbie Thrower on other BBC programmes at the time
I fell in love with the gorgeous Debbie Rix.
@@michaeldoig9881 She went on to 'Game for a Laugh' possibly as Sarah Kennedy moved from that to BBC for 'Sixty Minutes' but 'Game for a Laugh' downsized to 'Beadles About' with just one presenter. Debbie reminded me of Sheila Fearn, at least her speech style
And i recall a Debbie Greenwood sometime later.
@@Ridersonthestorm8899 Vaguely I was remembering a conversation in the late 1980s I had as if there was more than one 'Debbie' on Breakfast and I forgot, there was Debbie Greenwood who came to it after Selina Scott moved to 'The Clothes Show'
@@deldirk7123 So true my friend, we were spoilt for Debbies back then lol😀
Apparently Debbie of the Greenwood variety married Paul Coia who presented Pebble Mill in the later years.😀
Hello good morning salam dari sahabat indo sukses selalu.....
Ciggy and get ready
Selina Scott and Frank Bonk.
It was way better than now it comes from up north😂
Randomly paused at 4:48 😛
"Frank, how are you managing to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 25 to 5 in the morning?"
I really can't imagine. Well, he wasn't going to tell the TRUTH, was he?
Haha you beat me to it
@@sitaylor1788 He's off with his travel time to work too. It's only about 20 minutes drive from Soho to Shepherd's Bush.
Donny knew in asking him that question 😂.
The whole concept of breakfast tv must be bemusing to kids now. It was wonderful back then. Waking up in the school
Holidays and there being someone there, and then they laid Timmy mallet on us. Maybe the green goddess and Russell grant made up for that
Timmy Mallet was brilliant! I vaguely remember watching the BBC one a bit, but Timmy Mallet and Wacaday/Wide Awake was the big draw for me. I have fond memories of being dropped off at my grandparent's to watch cartoons when I was too young to be at home alone, and Mum and Dad were both working. I am a bit too young to remember the earliest years of BBC breakfast, I would have seen the later half of the 80s.
@@danyoutube7491Timmy recently did a fantastic cycling tour of Britain which altered my impression of him entirely. It was quite wonderful.
How did frank manage to get up so early?
Frank had a busy life. He more than likely never went to bed.
Ha Ol Frank and his coke habit and wasn’t it spanking or something dominatrix? Ah the innocent days.
@@hawsrulebegin7768 All work and no play! ;-)
Is it just me or is everything low quality garbage these days?
When I watch this great archive piece I can't help but think this way.
Yorkshire television did it first long before the BBC & TV am.
The video is on CZcams. The presenter, Bob Warman, only retired in 2022.
@@stephenc6648 Thanks didn't remember Bob doing that, always had him down as an ATV/Central man. Remember Richard Whiteley doing it but then he did everything at YTV 😂
And Tyne-Tees at the same time!
I remember the day Breakfast Time began. I was 6 years old and it was a freezing cold morning; a school day. My Mum has always been an early riser and she was up for the very beginning of the programme. I don't know if Ceefax AM always preceeded it or not?
Check the script & by the time it's been repeated every 10 minutes for 3 hours we'll have nailed it 👍
Is that Theresa May near the start.
Debbie Rox, now there’s a glamour presenter from the past
When the BBC used to be a public broadcaster that could hold its head high full of investigative journalists, compared to todays mindless reporters repeating noise without a once of fact to back its point of view. I.e it was on Reuters it must be true, if not let’s just make it up anyway…
It was always a zionists led project. Its just become more extreme as has zio*sm. They can get away with more extremes now i.e men becoming women, race issues, its just a different age now, hence why extreme narratives are acceptable.
You older guys really should have done more to oust them from industry in the first place.
Yes a bbc now full of ex Tory MPs and Murdoch drones.
The thing with BBC News now is that they seem to tell you the same story all too often. I find that after an hour or so it is all repeated, so much so that I turn off, although of course you can turn to another channel if you want too.
@@brucedanton3669 that’s because of rolling coverage maybe ?
@@tonyatkinson2210 Yes you are right there too really of course for sure I guess.
FunFact : The richest guy at that time , doesnt have iphone 😎
I saw the woman in the thumbnail and clicked it but who is the woman? Selina Scott?
Yes.
Listen to clackerty clack of those beefy mechanical keyboards!. Shame about the VDU's🧐
Hewlett Packards. Very good for 1983.
Up to 4 minute segments. Four times the length of young peoples concentration span today!
All speak with clipped upper middle class accents. You just don't hear that anymore.
Ron Neil speaks with a 'Kelvinside' accent, similar to Ken Bruce's, which is still common in Scotland.
@@nkt1 I heard a couple of mid Irish Sea accents as well.
The BBC was on point with the initial format. People wanted to wake up to the news (local, national, and global) in five minutes, the local weather, the local traffic, and then be given feuilleton-style light entertainment. And that should be the morning right before fighting your way to get to work or to make sure the kids will be at school on time.
TV-am was nowhere near ready even at this very point. And even if they had managed themselves much better than they had, the format that David Frost had developed consisted of too much news and current affairs (which elicits paranoia in people who have just only now woken up) and far too little light entertainment (which eases people from stupor to wakefulness and relaxes people if for a brief moment). Eventually they got the memo too, and even managed to beat the BBC at its own game - whether for better or for worse. I am happy, though, that the powers that be in whichever institution was responsible for allowing breakfast TV to even happen, did allow breakfast TV to happen... if only so much later than the rest of the world outside of Europe 😅
Tam Fry, who later became the official spokesman of the National Obesity Forum-rather ironic surname...
That made me laugh.
I love how the BBC treated this as if it was all new to the world, where in the USA, they looked at you and laughed, as breakfast television was the norm there since 1952 when the NBC Today show launched, and by the late 1950s television at breakfast time was the norm.
Notice how they engage with the interviewees for quite a few minutes. They couldn't do that now - people don't have the attention span.
Cigarettes ✅
Ashtray✅
Let’s go.
Not a type writer to be seen or heard, literally one 20s before 😅
0:34
Bet Frank wanted to Bough Selina.
Cracker
Look at that awful gray velour sweater Bough is wearing.
Don't worry, he would slip into more exciting gear whenever possible.
Even then the BBC was staffed by weirdos with comb overs and over staffed with oddballs making extra work out of things. I've put this on a computer so it must be important...
You should probably stop, you’ve already ground that axe down to the handle.
Yes Frank " just how are you managing to look so fresh faced and alive at twenty to five in the morning?"....🤔🫣😉🥳
why on earth no interview with sexy Selena?