BBC Breakfast and GMB are car crashes– only one thing will save morning TV

Morning TV doesn't exactly leave viewers spoiled for choice. It doesn't matter if you watch BBC Breakfast, Good Morning Britain or GB News Breakfast, you are confronted with shouty presenters, shoutier guests and nothing but gloom and doom. Even the "entertainment" news is full of more lies, deceit and cheating than a Jilly Cooper novel. I have to watch many of these shows as part of my job, and they are - quite frankly - depressing. However there is no alternative for viewers. Nothing to give them some cheer over their cornflakes or make them titter over their tea and toast. Not a glimmer of light relief in a dearth of gloomy, copycat shows.

It wasn't always like this. Perhaps I am looking through rose tinted glasses but breakfast TV seemed a lot more fun back in the day. A quick glance online for clips shows relaxed presenters sitting on sofa's instead of behind stuffy desks, talking rodents (Roland Rat on TV-am who became a bona fide breakout star), brightly attired fitness gurus like Mr Motivator putting viewers through their paces and proper celebrity guests, not reality stars, actually answering questions and chatting instead of just plugging products. And if that didn't wet your whistle there was always breakfast TV's anarchic little brother The Big Breakfast over on Channel 4 - which could do worse than make a comeback in these grim times.

The Big Breakfast was designed to be an alternative to the more serious breakfast programs of that era GMTV and BBC Breakfast and it was a perfect way to start your day.

Yes, they tackled serious news but they made it fun, because that was the focus of the show. It was like Saturday morning kids TV for grown ups.

Instead of stuffy presenters in shirts and ties or high necked frocks we had Denise Van Outen looking like she had just arrived from a nightclub and Johnny Vaughan looking as though he was going straight to the pub after work. Paula Yates was always dressed for a rock gig as she interviewed the great and good on a bed. Even Gabby Roslin showed a side of herself we never usually got to see.

There is a reason why at its height in 1993, it was the highest rated UK breakfast television programme, with around two million viewers per episode.

Yes, it suffered a decline thanks to presenter shakes ups, but when it was good it was great. Guests actually appeared to want to be on the show rather than being ordered to appear by their agent and there was something refreshing about the presenter's palpable excitment at an hour when most of us are struggling to keep our eyes open while we wait on the coffee to brew.

If I wanted hard and grim news first thing in the morning I would watch Sky News. While I appreciate there is a lot going on on the world, three different breakfast shows all telling us how awful the world is while presenters smugly try to skewer a politician feels uneccessary.

Big Breakfast did do a four episode revival in 2021 as a one off as part of their Black To Front season. However there appeared to be some light at the end of the tunnel when The Lancashire Telegraph reported a Channel 4 spokesperson said: "Although there are no shows planned for this year The Big Breakfast may well return in the future."

The future is now Channel 4! We have never needed light relief as much as we do now. We need to ease into our day before hearing what latest woe has befallen the world. Bring back The Big Breakfast!