Just a month after Five Live's 20th birthday, the show that started it all - Morning Reports - is finished. In March 1994, Jane Garvey, Marcus Buckland and Adrian Chiles came on air at 0500 with half an hour of news, followed by Adrian and Mickey Clarke with Wake Up To Money.
It's arrival was influential - Radio 4 brought the Today programme forward to 0600 in 1998, with the network now starting broadcasting at 5.20am. It required a presenter to come in the night before, to "knock off" a few pre-records, because getting "live contributions" at 0500 was hard - many generously-salaried correspondents then railed against 6.30am appearances on Today, and still do.
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Mike Young and Andy Barwell
host the final Morning Reports
Photo: Dan Maudsley |
From Monday, you will get a news summary at 0500, followed by an extended Wake Up To Money. Taken with the cuts to "Up All Night", the move leaves Radio 5 Live with fewer resources to respond to big stories 24 hours a day - an essential part of its brief. And compared with other "cultural" budget lines, the saving is, shamefully, peanuts.
Gordon Brown once told a newspaper interviewer that he began his day with Morning Reports. A sad day for those of us who produced (and occasionally presented) it.
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