Bough Has Snuffed

[Jah Womble]

Legend that he undoubtedly is, I was always a wee bit baffled by Greaves’s secondary role as breakfast time TV critic.

(He was on the money there, though. I was snowed in for over a week in January 1987.)

[jwdd27]

Greaves would have been a cheap hire, and perfect for Greg Dyke's downmarket trajectory. He was also always good value and had the rare knack of being a character but knowing where the line was in terms of being too outrageous.

Reading up on these breakfast TV presenters, it's sobering to note that most of them finished their main gig when they were younger than my 48 years.

Frank Bough gives me hope however, that I've got another 7 years before a cocaine/sex dungeon scandal brings down the curtain on my career.
His wife was called Nesta. The only other person I know of with that name is Robert Nesta Marley.


My father briefly worked with Nick Owen at the Doncaster Evening Post in the early 70s, and speaks quite well of him. Nick used to attend all their reunions, even when he'd become a TV face.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

TV-am and BBC Breakfast launched only a couple of months after Channel 4, it did really all feel like a big step forward for UK TV at the time. And as mentioned before, TV-am and BBC Breakfast attracted some of the biggest names in broadcasting at the time, that's how big it all was (Esther Rantzen was also due to join the original launch group of TV-am but backed out when she had a baby). It took a few more years for late night TV to catch on though (in our backwater it wasn't really until maybe 1987 or 1988).

[Giggler]

Yes, he's not like the Nick Owen you remember, Satch. Avuncular is his middle name.

Mention of Mike Morris reminded me of this wonderful clip with Jimmy Greaves, from 1987.

I was more of a Breakfast Time man myself, so I would have missed this gem of a rant. Indeed, during the Great Storm of 1987 that Greaves references I distinctly remember watching Nicholas Witchell broadcasting the entire programme from the CBBC Broom Cupboard.

And here is the evidence:

Nick Owen seemed to be marketing himself as a stand-up comedian when he was a manager on Fantasy Football League. Admittedly about a quarter of a century ago now.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Greaves would have been a cheap hire, and perfect for Greg Dyke's downmarket trajectory. He was also always good value and had the rare knack of being a character but knowing where the line was in terms of being too outrageous.

Reading up on these breakfast TV presenters, it's sobering to note that most of them finished their main gig when they were younger than my 48 years.

Frank Bough gives me hope however, that I've got another 7 years before a cocaine/sex dungeon scandal brings down the curtain on my career.
His wife was called Nesta. The only other person I know of with that name is Robert Nesta Marley.


My father briefly worked with Nick Owen at the Doncaster Evening Post in the early 70s, and speaks quite well of him. Nick used to attend all their reunions, even when he'd become a TV face.

I remember when Frank and Nesta used to appear on that BBC holiday programme, mooching around some North African bazaar.

His intense search for camel riding crops suddenly made much more sense.

[Gangster Octopus]

I've never watched breakfast television.

[willie1foot]

I always thought Bough was pronounced like buff... maybe it was my untuned Scottish ear hearing it said by englishmen on the telly.

[Jah Womble]

TV-am and BBC Breakfast launched only a couple of months after Channel 4, it did really all feel like a big step forward for UK TV at the time. And as mentioned before, TV-am and BBC Breakfast attracted some of the biggest names in broadcasting at the time, that's how big it all was (Esther Rantzen was also due to join the original launch group of TV-am but backed out when she had a baby). It took a few more years for late night TV to catch on though (in our backwater it wasn't really until maybe 1987 or 1988).

I think Night Network began on ITV in 1986, but Music Box - the UK's MTV - had begun broadcasting 24 hours on cable (which admittedly hardly anyone had at that point) a year or so before.

[pebblethefish]

And boff was (probably still is) local kid slang for fart, .

At my school it was slang for sex ("I reckon Mr X is boffing the dinner ladies!"), so it may have caused some confusion if a boy from my school had met up with a girl from yours.

[My Name Is Ian]

On the night time thing, the IBA (the regulators) briefly floated the idea of a national night time franchise for ITV in the mid 1980s like breakfast TV before realising that no company would be able to stay afloat on audiences that were expected to be close to zero.

Yorkshire TV had a deal for a while to show Music Box through the night with Thorn EMI, who owned it, but it didn't last for long before they switched to a more varied schedule. I think it was the first regular 24 service on the television in this country.

[Benjm]

In the late '80s/early '90s Central's late night offering included a bunch of Alain Delon films that they repeated numerous times but presented under a different theme for each run out; Les Flics, the Continental season, the Alain Delon season, etc.

The two hours or so of Central Jobfinder teletext between the late night stuff finishing and breakfast telly starting were a hurdle to overcome in any all night session.

[Duncan Gardner]

At my school it was slang for sex ("I reckon Mr X is boffing the dinner ladies!"), so it may have caused some confusion if a boy from my school had met up with a girl from yours.

Oo-er. Worth following through, that one

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

I think Night Network began on ITV in 1986, but Music Box - the UK's MTV - had begun broadcasting 24 hours on cable (which admittedly hardly anyone had at that point) a year or so before.

We could only gaze in awe at the mention of Night Network in 'regional variations' in the paper. Up north we had Night Time, which came later and was driven by Granada. We got stuff like The Fugitive, The Time Tunnel, any old stuff they could get their hands on really.

[Jah Womble]

To be honest, a lot of that kind of stuff made up Night Network anyway.

When they weren't subjecting us to Blackie Lawless out of WASP manhandling Julia Fordham instead of reviewing the new videos.