BBC News Virtual Studio

Business Breakfast actually commenced at the launch of BBC Breakfast News in October 1989. At 6.30am BBC Breakfast News would start, after a short news summary they handed over to what they originally called Breakfast Business from 6.35am - 6.55am which I felt was just about enough of financial business for the start of the day.

The January 1993 extension of Business Breakfast to a stand alone programme was possibly just too much serious tone of breakfast programme, especially at 6.00am.

And there is the very first edition of Business Breakfast with Paul Burden and Fiona Foster. Starts at 4.35.

Bit of a double-take there, I initially read that as the first Business Breakfast started at 4.35 - which seems far too early for Breakfast!

"Here is some very dry news. There'll be more dry news later, but first, even dryer news."

Surely the imagined audience for that incarnation of Breakfast News would have been listening to Today on Radio 4 instead?

Still, nice of the BBC to stump up for a local bulletin for North East Leeds (5:33).

IMO that button-up BBC Radio style of tv news presentation is a legacy that in some ways is still how the BBC tv news presenters anchor their broadcasts. (I call them anchor robots.) (Markedly different from say SkyNews back in the day) Also, IMO the use of live continuity is in some ways a holdover from the BBC's radio origins. IMO its unnecessary but it still persists on the BBC. You dont really see it widely done elsewhere.

It's done for lots of reasons; firstly this isn't some tiny little satellite channel showing the same pre-recorded programmes each day in the same slot, it's the national broadcaster responsible for reporting inter/national events. Unlike the US where there are affiliates who can manage dynamic changes to scheduling here the duty anno. will be the first voice telling us when something important has happened while the News Channel can ramp up resourcing.

If live events overrun it's good to have someone there and then to correct the schedule and explain why, same as a technical fault.

Maybe there is a place for pre-recorded/scheduled continuity (nearly all BBC English Regions are pre-recorded symbols with the odd exception for short notice changes, before this was standard practice only Network/SE and Midlands variants used a live continuity announcer). It wouldn't make sense to have 15 variations of BBC One producing live continuity for the same programmes (and to some extent the same could be said for the Nations, however their often varying schedules necessitate it).

I've found another Business Breakfast from 1993 when as mentioned above, it started at 6am and ran through to 7am. What I had totally forgotten is that it used the same theme tune as the main programme, only different visuals.

How on earth did that graphics's wording ever make it to air !!! ?

They decided to brand the NI breakfast bulletins (at least initially) as BBC Belfast rather than BBC Northern Ireland or Inside Ulster. Not sure what happened in Scotland or Wales.

It was very well received in Roundhay and Seacroft.

That, presumably, was the era when BBC Leeds and BBC Newcastle were using the BBC North East branding. I suspect that was more intended to make sense when the studio was used for DTL contributions into the main programme than for the local opt outs.

BBC Wales had almost identical Breakfast News branding to Look North Leeds. It was then quickly upgraded to fall into line with Wales Today but as BBC Wales News not too soon after. It did look terrible.