The Big Breakfast


The Big Breakfast is a British breakfast light entertainment television programme that was broadcast on Channel 4 from 1992 to 2002, and as a revival from 2021 to 2022. The show had various presenters, starting with Chris Evans and Gaby Roslin at launch with the revival episodes presented by Mo Gilligan and AJ Odudu.
The programme was distinctive for broadcasting live from a real house, commonly referred to as "The Big Breakfast House", or more simply, "The House", located on Fish Island, in Bow in east London. The original house on Fish Island in Bow has since been sold.
The show was a mix of news, weather, interviews, audience phone-ins and general features, with a light tone which was in competition with the maturer GMTV and BBC Breakfast programmes.

History

The Big Breakfast was launched on 28 September 1992 to replace The Channel Four Daily, which was Channel 4's unsuccessful first foray into the breakfast television market. The Daily, which had focused on current affairs and news bulletins alongside bitesized magazine shows, a quiz show segment and a daily cartoon slot, had failed to attract enough viewers so Channel 4 opted to change direction and work towards a lighter style concentrating mainly on entertainment and humour with news bulletins restricted to brief summaries every 20 minutes.
The first two presenters were Chris Evans and Gaby Roslin. At its height in 1993, viewing figures reached around two million per edition, and it was the highest rated UK breakfast television programme. Along with Evans and Roslin, Bob Geldof presented a short-lived political interview slot. His wife Paula Yates interviewed people whilst lying on a bed, and the puppet characters Zig and Zag created morning mayhem in the bathroom with Evans in a slot called 'The Crunch'.
As part of his contract with The Big Breakfast, Evans was committed to developing a new show for Channel 4. Don't Forget Your Toothbrush began in early 1994, and Evans cut his involvement with The Big Breakfast to three days a week, Tuesday to Thursday. Neighbours actor Mark Little replaced Evans on Mondays and Fridays. When Evans left the show later that year, Little continued Thursdays, and Fridays while Paul Ross took over Mondays to Wednesdays. Richard Orford replaced Ross around Easter 1995 but was quickly dropped and exchanged with Down Your Doorstep presenter Keith Chegwin. In July 1995, the show reverted to using just one male presenter throughout the week. Chegwin would cover for Little when he was on tour as a comedian or on holiday. Roslin would be covered by Australian singer/actress Dannii Minogue when she was on breaks from the show.
Roslin continued full-time until she made way for Zoe Ball in 1996. Audience figures dropped a little after Evans left, and a little further after Roslin departed. Mark Little left the programme in July 1996, following press reports that he and Ball had fallen out. Little was replaced by Keith Chegwin, who himself exited the programme in August 1996, just ahead of a relaunch. To stem the sliding viewing figures, the Big Breakfast house was refurbished at a cost of £2 million. New presenters Rick Adams and Sharron Davies were brought in but viewing figures fell dramatically. Davies left the programme in early 1997, to be replaced by Denise van Outen. Van Outen had initially been brought in as part of the September 1996 relaunch as a weather presenter, before being given a role based at the house as the phone room presenter and holiday relief for Davies. In June 1997, Johnny Vaughan covered for Adams for a fortnight alongside Van Outen, the pair forging a successful on-screen partnership. Adams left the programme shortly afterwards and, in September 1997, the Vaughan and Van Outen partnership was made permanent. Audience figures stabilised and the duo fronted the programme together until Van Outen's departure on 1 January 1999. Kelly Brook was installed as Vaughan's new co-presenter despite an internet campaign for the role to be awarded to Liza Tarbuck, who had successfully covered for Van Outen in the summer of 1998. However, Brook struggled in the role and left the programme in early summer 1999. Liza Tarbuck, having again covered the co-presenter role alongside Vaughan prior to Brook's departure, was made permanent at the end of August 1999. She left the following summer and, following Vaughan's annual one-month summer break, Denise van Outen returned to co-host in September 2000 for Vaughan's final four months on the programme. Vaughan and Van Outen's final Big Breakfast was on 12 January 2001.

Demise

The programme relaunched with a new logo and updated theme on 22 January 2001. The house had also been redecorated in more muted colours, echoing the ill-fated 1996 revamp. The programme moved to a lineup of three main presenters: Paul Tonkinson, Amanda Byram and Donna Air. However, Tonkinson was dropped from the programme at the end of March 2001 and Air left not long after. The programme reverted to two main presenters once more, with Byram and Richard Bacon. The living room, which had been repainted a dark red as part of the revamp, was changed to a bright yellow and pink design, while the main presenter chairs were also reinstalled in front of the living room's French windows. They replaced the bright-green sofa which had also been brought in as part of the revamp. The new logo was replaced with one more closely resembling the traditional Big Breakfast logo, albeit utilising a slightly different font. Mike McClean was given a role on the programme, as Down Your Doorstep presenter and cover for Bacon, most regularly on Fridays when Bacon would reprise his former Down Your Doorstep role alongside Johnny Vegas. During this time, a pilot episode was filmed on a Saturday with Chris Moyles and Dominic Byrne, with Andy Goldstein doing links from Los Angeles. This pilot episode was shown to bosses at Channel 4, after which Moyles was offered the role but declined.

Cancellation

In December 2001, it was announced that The Big Breakfast was to be axed the following March. In the programme's final months, former cover presenter Lisa Rogers was given a role as an extra presenter while Zig and Zag returned for the final six weeks in their former slot, The Crunch, for which a new bathroom set was installed in the house. The final Big Breakfast aired on 29 March 2002 and included a retrospective that included contributions from Evans, Roslin, Vaughan and Van Outen. Both Evans and Vaughan declared the cancelling of the show a bad idea, but the show ended with a tribute from the Prince of Wales before the last ever Friday song. When the show finished, the house reverted to a private residence, now known as The Cottage. After renovation following a fire, it has also been used for a few television shows, including the one-off special edition of The Big Breakfast, which aired in 2021.
In total, 2,481 episodes were broadcast during the original run. Episodes were broadcast every weekday morning from 28 September 1992 to 29 March 2002, with exception of 12–14 September 2001, when it was replaced with news coverage of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States of America, for a total of 2,477. In addition to this, four extra episodes were broadcast on Christmas Day 1994 and Christmas Eve 1995, and the evenings of New Year's Eve 1992 and 1999.

Innovations

, Keith Chegwin, Paul Ross, Richard Orford, Richard Bacon and Mike McClean were "down your doorstep" outside broadcasters, often turning up live and unannounced at an unsuspecting viewer's house, while rooms within the lock keepers' houses featured the puppets Zig and Zag and video games guru Ben the Boffin.
The show's style, with hand-held cameras moving around all of the set, meant that many of the crew members could be seen on screen.

Reboot

In 2021, the show was rebooted and brought back by Channel 4 and hosted by the presenter, AJ Odudu and comedian Mo Gilligan having hosted a one off special for Channel 4's Black To Front. After one series, which consisted of four episodes, the reboot show was cancelled.
The Lancashire Telegraph reported that a Channel 4 spokesperson said: “Although there are no shows planned for this year The Big Breakfast may well return in the future.”

Presenters

AJ Odudu2021–2022
Mo Gilligan2021–2022
Amanda Byram2001–2002
Paul Tonkinson2001–2002
Mike McClean2000–2002
Donna Air2000–2002
Lisa Rogers2000–2002
Liza Tarbuck1999–2000
Richard Bacon1999–2002
Kelly Brook1999
Denise van Outen1997–2001
Johnny Vaughan1997–2001
Sharron Davies1996–1997
Rick Adams1996–1997
Zoe Ball1996
Keith Chegwin1995–1996
Mark Little1994–1996
Paul Ross1994–1995
Gaby Roslin1992–1996
Chris Evans1992–1994

Co-presenters

Newsreaders

Spin-offs and related programming

''The Big Breakfast'' and ''The Bigger Breakfast''

Between 1997 and 2000, during most nationally recognised UK school holiday periods, The Big Breakfast would run beyond its typical 9am finish to provide continuity into and out of unrelated shows aimed primarily towards children. This would last throughout the morning, usually until around midday. Although typically presented to the viewer as simply a programme on Channel 4, most of The Bigger Breakfast is perhaps better classified as an informal style of in-vision continuity.
The strand also acted as an umbrella brand for the programming which it linked to, by use of Big Breakfast style break-bumpers and Digital On-Screen Graphics. The expanded format always featured the regular content of The Big Breakfast from 7am to 9am. The first run of The Bigger Breakfast during the summer of 1997 was titled as such all the way from its 7am start, presented throughout by Richard Orford and Denise van Outen. Future editions would see slight separations made from the 7am to 9am content, by way of this portion of the show being branded and scheduled as The Big Breakfast, with all content after 9am taking on the expanded Bigger Breakfast name. After a while, a further distinction was made by using a different set of presenters from that of The Big Breakfast. Presenters of The Bigger Breakfast included Josie D'Arby, Ben Shephard, Melanie Sykes and Dermot O'Leary.
Programming was primarily composed of reruns of Channel 4 shows and US imports. The line-up changed frequently. The list below is of some of series featured on The Big Breakfast and the Bigger Breakfast over the years:
  • Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog
  • Babylon 5
  • Batman
  • Bewitched
  • Biker Mice from Mars
  • Boy Meets World
  • Bug Juice
  • California Dreams
  • CatDog
  • City Guys
  • The Crystal Maze
  • Dennis
  • Earthworm Jim
  • Eerie Indiana
  • Fantastic Four
  • Inspector Gadget
  • Hang Time
  • Hangin' with Mr. Cooper
  • Johnny Bravo
  • Madison
  • Moesha
  • The Monkees
  • Mr. Bogus
  • Planet Pop
  • Pugwall's Summer
  • Renford Rejects
  • Rocko's Modern Life
  • Sam & Max
  • Saved by the Bell
  • Sister Sister
  • Sonic the Hedgehog
  • The Secret World of Alex Mack
The Bigger Breakfast was discontinued after Christmas holidays in 2000. The block of programming provided within The Bigger Breakfast was retained, with Channel 4's youth strand T4 taking over the continuity role.