TV-am

   TV-am was an ambitious television start-up, the first television company to offer programmes in the mornings. It drew widespread scepticism for the hype surrounding its launch. It recruited highprofile media figures including David Frost and Anna Ford (who were nicknamed ‘dinosaurs’) and predicted ITV-style success. In 1983, Ford threw a glass of wine over the Conservative politician Jonathan Aitken because she felt he had ‘betrayed’ her colleagues at the station. The programmes were innovative and ambitious (Ulrika Jonsson was a weather girl), but TV-am never achieved the ratings it set out to gain and eventually lost its franchise.

   See also: breakfast television; daytime television; Granada; Mersey Television; Thames TV

   MIKE STORRY