TV-am was a breakfast television station that broadcast to the United Kingdom from 1983 to 1992. It made history by being the first national operator of an ITV franchise at breakfast-time, and was broadcast every weekday from 6am to 9.25am.

It was nearly the first breakfast-time television service in the UK - but the BBC pre-empted it by launching Breakfast Time on BBC1, on January 17, 1983, several months before TV-am was scheduled to start. In response, the IBA allowed TV-am to start early on February 1 that same year.

TV-am was spearheaded by 'The Big Five' who were not only lined up as presenters on the station, but also had a stake in the business - Michael Parkinson, David Frost (1983-1992), Angela Rippon (1983), Anna Ford (1983) and Robert Kee. TV-am's headquarters and studios were at 'Breakfast Television Centre', Hawley Crescent, Camden, London. Designed by Terry Farrell and converted from a former Henleys garage, the building included a number of large plastic egg-cups on its roof. These are still present on the building today, despite now being home to MTV's European operations. The "TVam" logos, on the front of the building, are now obscured but still partially visible.

Programmes originally ran from 6:00-9:15am, with Daybreak and Good Morning Britain filling weekday mornings, followed by engineering announcements before the start of the regional ITV franchises at 9.25. It was not until later that the IBA extended its hours to 9:25 to allow continuous programming, and not until some years after that the ITV stations extended their hours to 6am to provide 24-hour television. (The engineering announcements were later moved to Channel 4, and cancelled when the IBA was replaced by the ITC.)

Early ratings were disappointing, and chief executive Peter Jay quit, while presenters Anna Ford and Angela Rippon were sacked. Their replacements were Anne Diamond (1983-1992) and Nick Owen (1983-1986). Its producer, Greg Dyke, was brought in, and slowly ratings improved. A notable gimmick introduced in this time was the puppet, Roland Rat.

In 1987, technical staff at the station went on strike. TV-am called their bluff and locked out the strikers, but stayed on air using non-technical staff to broadcast a skeleton service including (among other things) episodes of the American series Flipper, Batman and Happy Days. Although shambolic at times, this schedule turned out on occasions to be more popular than their pre-strike programming (although not what they'd be allowed to broadcast under any other circumstances). Eventually, the patience of TV-am's Chief Executive, Bruce Gyngell, wore thin, and all the striking technicians were fired. In the years that followed, the station gradually found its feet again, and by the early 1990s it was the world's most profitable TV station, in terms of its turnover.

The ITV franchises were allocated in a different way, at the next renewal in 1991. Rather than awarding franchises based on merit of programming, cash bidding was introduced. However, nobody had much idea of how much the 'going rate' for the bids would be. TV-am bid £14.3m, but were outbid by another consortium, which had put down £36.4m.

Margaret Thatcher, whose government had introduced this reform (but who had by then been replaced as Prime Minister by John Major), famously wrote to TV-am's boss Bruce Gyngell, apologising for being partly responsible for the loss of their license.

TV-am broadcast its last show on December 31, 1992, and was replaced by GMTV on January 1, 1993. While TV-am had used an expensive, custom-built studio complex, GMTV hired studio space from London Weekend Television.

"TV-am", the TV-am logo and fifteen registered trade marks are now owned by Ian White. The archive of TV-am programmes made between 1983 and 1992 are now owned and managed by 'Moving Image Communications Limited', based in the Maidstone Studios in Kent.

Programmes

• After Nine
• Daybreak
• Good Morning Britain
• Hey, Hey, It's Saturday!
• Michaela
• Wacaday
• Wide Awake Club
• TV-Mayham

Trivia

• The two themes used by TV-am from the beginning are "Daybreak" (composed by David Dundas) and "Good Morning Britain" (composed by Jeff Wayne).

External links

• TV-am website
• TV-am Archives (1983-1992) at Moving Image Communications Ltd
• TV-am at TV Ark

ITV franchisees

TV-am