Morning entertainment show The Big Breakfast was the Channel Four version of breakfast TV with more of an emphasis on the silly, with fun elements, silly game show send ups and the like. The show replaced the staid and under performing Channel 4 Daily which had an emphasis on news.
Initial hosts were Chris Evans and Gaby Roslin other hosts have included Mark Little, Zoe Ball, Sharon Davies, Denise Van Outen, Johnny Vaughan, Kelly Brook, Liza Tarbuck. During the school holidays the show stayed on the air until midday under the title The Bigger Breakfast with most often Josie D’Arby and Ben Shepherd presenting the links between the normal children’s shows. On Friday 31 December 1999 starting at 12.35am there was a through the night Millennium special.
During the early Evans-Roslin years TBB was the highest rating breakfast show but by the mid-90’s had slipped considerably. The arrival of Johnny Vaughn and Denise Van Outen helped restore the heights of the glory years somewhat but both were clearly destined for bigger things.
One of the most notorious segments was Paula Yates interviewing celebrities form the comfort of her “boudoir”, most famously interviewing Australian rock star Michael Hutchence and then promptly beginning an affair with him (although the pair had first met in 1985 on Channel 4 music show The Tube and many believe their affair was already well under way) that led to the end of her marriage to English rock icon Bob Geldof. Hutchence later died in an Australian hotel either deliberately or by misadventure Yates herself died in 2000 from a heroin overdose.
The shows 2000th episode was broadcast on Wednesday 24 May 2000. After a run of nearly 10 years, the Big Breakfast came to an end on 29 March 2002. It’s final presenters were Richard Bacon and Amanda Byram. It’s timeslot was replaced by RISE which started on 29 April 2002.
production details
Channel 4-Planet 24 / 2482x120m-e / Broadcast 28 September 1992 – 29 March 2002 weekdays 7.00am
