Presenter Rachel Burden has announced that she is departing BBC Breakfast after 11 years ahead of major cuts at the morning news programme.
In a post shared on Instagram on Sunday (12 July), Burden explained that that morning’s episode of BBC Breakfast had been her last.
Her exit comes one month after it was announced that BBC Breakfast would no longer be broadcast on a Sunday as part of cost saving measures.
Burden, 51, accompanied the announcement with a series of behind-the-scenes pictures from set, next to which she wrote: “This is my last Sunday on the @bbcbreakfast sofa before the schedule changes in September – no complaints there, we have to cut our cloth.
“But having done this for 10+ years, just wanted to say a massive thanks to the team who’ve worked through their Saturday nights to put the programme together, my Breakfast buddies Roger [Johnson] and @benthompsontv (among other lovely fellas who I’ve shared the sofa with) and of course the divine @fieldsofpoppys who puts me together most weeks.”
She ended the post by thanking her followers for tuning in, before jokingly adding: “Here’s to a guaranteed Sunday lie-in.”
The daughter of a BBC journalist, Burden got her start in BBC local radio before joining Radio 5 Live in 2003. She began to host the station’s weekday breakfast show in 2011, which she still appears at the helm of, and joined BBC Breakfast as a relief presenter in 2015.
BBC Breakfast is hosted by a key presenting team of Sally Nugent, Jon Kay, Charlie Stayt and Naga Munchetty; Burden is among the stand-in presenters who also host the Sunday editions.
But from September, the Sunday show will no longer air as part of the new BBC director General Matt Brittin’s attempts to cut costs at the broadcaster.
Along with the news that BBC Breakfast will be replaced by the BBC News Channel on a Sunday, the BBC announced that it was cancelling six news shows on Channel 4, including Money Box Live and The World Tonight.
In an email to staff at the time, former Google executive Brittin, who took over from Tim Davie in May, said that the savings required by the corporation would require ”tough choices, careful work and won’t all be ready at once”.
