BBC Breakfast and GMB are Car Crashes – Only One Thing Will Save Morning TV

There’s a peculiar kind of suffering reserved for those of us who, by choice or by the cruel necessity of employment, find ourselves glued to morning television. The alarm blares, the kettle boils, and as you shuffle, bleary-eyed, towards the living room, you’re met not with a gentle easing into the day, but with a barrage of doom, gloom, and the kind of forced jollity that makes you long for the sweet release of the snooze button. BBC Breakfast, Good Morning Britain, GB News Breakfast – take your pick. The faces may change, the logos may shimmer in different shades of red, blue, or yellow, but the formula remains depressingly familiar: shouty presenters, even shoutier guests, and a conveyor belt of stories designed to make you regret ever leaving your bed.

It’s a parade of misery, served up with a side of sanctimony and a garnish of fake laughter. There’s no escape. Even the “entertainment” news – that last bastion of escapism – is little more than a parade of scandal and betrayal, the kind of thing that would make Jilly Cooper blush. It’s as if the entire industry has decided, en masse, that what the British public craves at 7am is a reminder that the world is teetering on the edge of disaster, and that the only thing standing between us and total collapse is a presenter in a tight-fitting suit, grilling a junior minister about potholes.

And yet, we keep watching. Not out of love, but out of habit. There is no alternative. Flick from BBC to ITV to GB News and you’re met with the same grim tableau: a studio bathed in cold, soulless light, presenters perched behind desks like judges at a particularly joyless talent show, and a never-ending stream of politicians, pundits, and “experts” all vying to outdo one another in the art of the soundbite. It’s a joyless, relentless onslaught, and it makes you wonder: when did breakfast TV become so utterly, irredeemably miserable?

It wasn’t always like this. There was a time – and yes, perhaps I am looking through rose-tinted glasses, but indulge me – when breakfast television was a riot of colour, chaos, and genuine fun. A quick trawl through YouTube’s archives will show you what I mean: presenters lounging on sofas instead of bracing themselves behind bulletproof desks, talking rodents (Roland Rat, anyone?) cracking jokes and charming children and adults alike, fitness gurus in neon lycra leading the nation in a collective, caffeine-fuelled stretch. There were proper celebrity guests, too – not reality stars shilling protein powder, but bona fide household names, willing to sit and chat, to laugh and, dare I say it, to entertain.

And then there was The Big Breakfast. Oh, The Big Breakfast. Channel 4’s anarchic, joyous, utterly bonkers answer to the staid seriousness of GMTV and BBC Breakfast. It was, for a glorious stretch of the 1990s, the only way to start your day. If breakfast TV today is a cold shower, The Big Breakfast was a shot of tequila chased with a Red Bull. It was unfiltered, unapologetic, and – crucially – it was fun.

The secret, I think, was that The Big Breakfast never took itself too seriously. Yes, there was news, but it was delivered with a wink and a nudge, the kind of irreverence that reminded you that, actually, it’s fine to ease into the day without plunging headfirst into existential despair. The presenters were a revelation: Denise Van Outen, looking like she’d just rolled in from a night out; Johnny Vaughan, with the air of a man who might, at any moment, decide to sack it all off and head to the pub; Paula Yates, conducting interviews from a bed with the kind of playful insouciance that would give today’s compliance officers a coronary. Even Gabby Roslin, usually the model of professionalism, seemed to shed her inhibitions and join in the mayhem.

There was a sense of genuine excitement, of unpredictability. You never quite knew what was going to happen next, and neither, it seemed, did the presenters. Guests actually wanted to be there – not because their publicist had forced them, but because it was fun, because it was different, because it was The Big Breakfast. At its peak in 1993, the show pulled in two million viewers a day, making it the highest-rated breakfast programme in the country. It was appointment viewing, the kind of thing you talked about at school, at work, at the bus stop. It was a cultural event.

Of course, nothing lasts forever. Presenter shake-ups, shifting tastes, and the relentless march of time eventually took their toll. The Big Breakfast faded from our screens, replaced by a succession of increasingly bland, increasingly interchangeable morning shows. But the memory lingers, and with it, the nagging sense that we’ve lost something vital, something precious.

Because here’s the thing: Britain doesn’t need another hour of politicians sparring with presenters over the latest government cock-up. We don’t need more “debates” about culture wars, or more manufactured outrage over whatever non-issue is trending on Twitter. What we need – what we crave, even if we’re too embarrassed to admit it – is a bit of light relief. A reason to smile before we face the day. A show that doesn’t just acknowledge the madness of the world, but embraces it, celebrates it, and gives us permission to laugh at it.

The Big Breakfast understood this. It was, in many ways, the spiritual successor to Saturday morning kids’ TV – a place where adults could rediscover the joy of silliness, where the news was important but never overwhelming, where the only agenda was to entertain. It was a show that understood the power of laughter, the importance of starting the day with a grin rather than a grimace.

And the appetite is still there. When Channel 4 revived The Big Breakfast for a four-episode run in 2021, as part of their Black To Front season, the response was overwhelming. People wanted more. They were desperate for it. There was even a glimmer of hope when a Channel 4 spokesperson hinted that, while there were no immediate plans, The Big Breakfast “may well return in the future.” Well, the future is now. If ever there was a time for a comeback, it’s today.

Because let’s be honest: morning TV is a car crash. BBC Breakfast, with its endless parade of politicians and pundits, is a masterclass in monotony. Good Morning Britain, once the enfant terrible of breakfast television, has descended into a shouting match, a place where nuance goes to die and the only thing louder than the guests is the sound of viewers switching off. GB News Breakfast is, if anything, even worse – a joyless echo chamber, more interested in scoring points than in informing or entertaining.

It’s not just me who thinks so. Ask anyone – your mum, your postman, the woman at the bus stop – and they’ll tell you the same thing: morning TV is broken. It’s lost its way. It’s forgotten that the job isn’t just to inform, but to uplift, to amuse, to make us feel that, just maybe, today won’t be so bad after all.

The solution is staring us in the face. Bring back The Big Breakfast. Not as a nostalgia trip, not as a one-off, but as a permanent fixture. Give us chaos, give us colour, give us presenters who look like they’re genuinely happy to be there. Let’s have news, yes, but let’s have it delivered with a smile, with a sense of perspective. Let’s have games, competitions, celebrity guests who actually want to chat, not just flog their latest project. Let’s have music, laughter, unpredictability. Let’s have fun.

Imagine it: you wake up, bleary-eyed, dreading the day ahead. You switch on the TV, and instead of being met with a panel of solemn faces dissecting the latest government scandal, you’re greeted by a burst of colour, a burst of energy, a presenter dancing around the studio in a ridiculous costume. The news comes on, but it’s delivered with a wink, a joke, a reminder that, yes, the world is a mess, but it’s not all bad. There are games, there are laughs, there are moments of genuine warmth. You finish your tea, you head out the door, and you feel – just for a moment – that maybe, just maybe, you can face whatever the day throws at you.

Is it really so much to ask? Is it really so radical, so dangerous, to suggest that we might want to start our day with a smile instead of a sigh? The Big Breakfast proved it can be done. It showed us that there’s an appetite for something different, something better. All it takes is a bit of courage, a bit of imagination, and a willingness to break the mould.

Channel 4, the ball is in your court. Do the right thing. Bring back The Big Breakfast, and save us all from another morning of misery. Britain deserves better. We deserve better. And if you don’t believe me, just ask anyone who’s ever tried to eat cornflakes while watching a government minister dodge questions about the NHS. We need laughter. We need chaos. We need The Big Breakfast.

Because right now, morning TV is a car crash. And the only thing that can save it is a return to the glorious, riotous, life-affirming mayhem of The Big Breakfast. Let’s make mornings fun again. Let’s give Britain something to smile about. After all, isn’t that what breakfast is supposed to be about?