Template:Infobox ITV franchisee TV-am was a breakfast television station that broadcast to the United Kingdom from 1 February 1983 to 31 December 1992. It made history by being the first national operator of an ITV franchise at breakfast-time, and was broadcast every weekday from 6am to 9.25am.

It was nearly the first breakfast-time television service in the UK - but the BBC pre-empted it by launching Breakfast Time on BBC1, on January 17, 1983, several months before TV-am was scheduled to start. In response, the IBA allowed TV-am to start early on February 1 that same year.

TV-am was spearheaded by 'The Famous Five' who were not only lined up as presenters on the station, but also had a stake in the business - Michael Parkinson, David Frost (1983-1992), Angela Rippon (1983), Anna Ford (1983) and Robert Kee. TV-am's headquarters and studios were at 'Breakfast Television Centre', Hawley Crescent, Camden, London. Designed by Terry Farrell and converted from a former Henleys garage, the building included a number of large plastic egg-cups on its roof. These are still present on the building today, despite now being home to MTV's European operations. The "TVam" logos, on the front of the building, are now obscured but still partially visible.

Programmes originally ran from 6:00-9:15am, with Daybreak and Good Morning Britain filling weekday mornings, followed by engineering announcements before the start of the regional ITV franchises at 9.25. It was not until later that the IBA extended its hours to 9:25 to allow continuous programming, and not until some years after that the ITV stations extended their hours to 6am to provide 24-hour television. (The engineering announcements were later moved to Channel 4, and cancelled when the IBA was replaced by the ITC.)

While the BBC's Breakfast Time was a huge success, TV-am's early ratings were profoundly disappointing. Its high-minded and somewhat starchy approach (best demonstrated by the famous mission to explain epoused at IBA-organised public meetings before its launch) sat uneasily at that time of day, and was easily upstaged by the rival's sure-footed and accessible magazine style which effortlessly mixed heavy news and light-hearted features (famously moving cabinet ministers, after a serious interview to help with a cookery demonstration). TV-am's chief executive Peter Jay quit, while presenters Anna Ford (who famously poured a glass of red wine over the head of Tv-am executive Jonathan Aitken during a heated argument at a restuarant) and Angela Rippon were sacked. Their replacements were Anne Diamond (1983-1992) and Nick Owen (1983-1986). A new producer, Greg Dyke, was brought in, and slowly ratings improved. To save money, the show spent the summer on the road, in a show coming from various seaside resorts and presented by Chris Tarrant. A notable gimmick introduced in this time was the puppet, Roland Rat; this attracted large audiences of youngsters, but pushed up overall viewing figures.

The low audiences brought financial problems. The company was 15 minutes away from having its power supply cut off, when a representative of London Electricity arrived during a press conference with a warrant to disconnect the supply for non-payment; elsewhere, a local newsagent stopped supplying the station with newspapers, for the same reason.

As comedic as these were, the cost-cutting was brought sharply into focus in the Brighton hotel bombing in 1984. The night before the terrorist attack on the British Cabinet, Tv-am sent the production team home, as they could not afford to pay for hotel rooms. When the blast occurred in the early hours, the BBC and ITN were there immediately; when Tv-am came on-air at 6.00am, its reporting was limited to a caption of reporter John Stapleton while he reported over the phone. Meanwhile, the BBC were showing graphic coverage of the attack. Previous conflicts with ITN meant that they would not share footage with Tv-am.

The whole affair earned Tv-am a severe rebuke from the Independent Broadcasting Authority, who told the company to invest and improve their news coverage, or they would lose their licence.

In 1984, the Australian business tycoon Kerry Packer took a substantial minority interest in the company and in May appointed his own Chief Executive, Bruce Gyngell, who had run Australian networks and previously worked in the UK for ATV in the 1970s, and would go on to run Yorkshire Television. Greg Dyke had moved on by this time but Gyngell pursued the same lightweight, populist approach that Dyke had forged to save the station's bacon; a model parodied later in a Guardian newspaper headline as 'Snap, Crackle and Pap'.

In an echo of the changes which had occurred in newspapers, Gyngell was determined to make use of technical developments in television in order to reduce staff and save money. He believed that the ease of use of modern video recording and other broadcasting equipment meant that staffing levels could be reduced; film crews made smaller; and technical personnel virtually eliminated. This brought him into conflict with the broadcasting trade unions, but gained him support from Margaret Thatcher and her government.

In 1987, technical staff at the station went on strike. TV-am called their bluff and locked out the strikers, but stayed on air using non-technical staff to broadcast a skeleton service including (among other things) episodes of the American series Flipper, Batman and Happy Days. Although shambolic at times, this schedule turned out on occasions to be more popular than their pre-strike programming (although not what they'd be allowed to broadcast under any other circumstances). Eventually, Gyngell's patience wore thin and all the striking technicians were fired. In the years that followed, the station gradually found its feet again, and by the early 1990s, operating with a significantly reduced staff, it was the world's most profitable TV station, in terms of turnover.

In 1990, changes in the law meant that ITV franchises were no longer allocated on merit or potential but rather through a blind auction; however, nobody had any idea of how much the 'going rate' for the bids would be. TV-am bid £14.3m, but were outbid by another consortium, Sunrise Television, which had put down £36.4m.

Margaret Thatcher, whose government had introduced this reform (but who had by then been replaced as Prime Minister by John Major), famously wrote to TV-am's boss, Bruce Gyngell, apologising for being partly responsible for the loss of its licence.

TV-am broadcast its last show on December 31, 1992, and was replaced by GMTV on January 1, 1993. While TV-am had used an expensive, custom-built studio complex, GMTV hired studio space from London Weekend Television.

"TV-am", the TV-am logo and fifteen registered trade marks are now owned by Ian White. The archive of TV-am programmes made between 1983 and 1992, are now owned and managed by 'Moving Image Communications Limited', based in the Maidstone Studios in Kent.

• After Nine
• Anne Diamond on Sunday
• Daybreak
• Even on Sunday
• First Report
• Frost on Sunday
• Good Morning Britain
• Hey, Hey, It's Saturday!
• Michaela
• Wacaday
• Wide Awake Club
• TV-Mayham

• Anne Diamond, 1983-90, Good Morning Britain (Anne Diamond on Sundays)
• Maya Even - began her television career at TV-am in 1987, first as a researcher in the political unit and then as a producer and reporter from 1989, mainly from Westminster. In 1990 she took over from Richard Keys as regular host of the early show and began deputising for Lorraine Kelly on "Good Morning Britain". She also fronted the revamped "First Report" and covered for David Frost with "Even on Sunday", which ranged across politics, the arts and sport
• Anna Ford, 1983, Good Morning Britain
• David Frost, 1983-92, Good Morning Britain (Frost on Sundays}
• Angela Rippon, 1983, Daybreak, Good Morning Britain
• Kathy Tayler, 1989-92, Good Morning Britain, After Nine
• Mike Moris, 1983-92 ;Good Morning Britain; ;Sport;
• Richard Keys, 1984-90 ;Good Morning Britain; ;Sport; ;The Morning programme

• The two themes used by TV-am from the beginning are "Daybreak" (composed by David Dundas) and "Good Morning Britain" (composed by Jeff Wayne).
• Two skydivers, pigeons in Trafalgar Square, HMS Hermes (R12)and its crew and 6,000 people on Bristol Downs featured in the opening titles of Good Morning Britain.

• TV-am.org.uk - the official company website
• www.tv-am.net - the TV-am Television Archives (1983-92).
• TV-am at TV Ark