For decades, politicians feared that breakfast TV would turn Brits into zombies – or that broadcasting might decimate the workforce. This is the story of our long journey to 24-hour television
Forty years ago, the battle of early morning broadcasting came to a head. ITV lost, debuting its first ever breakfast show, Good Morning Britain, on 1 February 1983 – a full 14 days after the launch of the BBC’s Breakfast Time. But this was just a mere skirmish in a much bigger war – one that stretched from the 1950s until almost the 21st century. The battleground? How much TV should be allowed in Britain.
The conflict was fought between broadcasters, who wanted to make maximum use of a new medium, and politicians and moralists who feared that more TV would zombify the population and leave workplaces and schools empty as people stayed at home to slump in front of sets. For many decades, religious leaders argued that the box was effectively a tool of Satan.
