Almost half of BBC Breakfast staff have decided to move from London to Salford when the flagship show transfers next year.
A total of 46 per cent of those currently employed on the early morning programme will work from its new home at MediaCity.
That includes main co-host Bill Turnbull, 55, and Susanna Reid, 40, who usually presents on Fridays and at weekends.
But Turnbull’s screen partner Sian Williams, 46, and sports presenter Chris Hollins, 40, have confirmed they will quit when the show moves to Salford Quays.
Williams said it had been "an enormous pleasure" to present the show for the past 10 years.
She added: "Sadly, family reasons mean I can't move to Salford with the programme next year. My son will be in the middle of A- level exams, another will have just started school and our family also needs to be close to elderly parents in the South East.
"I've been very privileged to spend the past decade on the sofa as the viewers' representative, asking the questions they want answered, whether it's to the Prime Minister or a Hollywood film star, and I'm looking forward to using those skills in fresh challenges elsewhere in the BBC."
Turnbull said the move would be a "challenge" but added: "I am confident the programme can be as successful in its new home as it has been for the past few years in Television Centre."
Hollins said he had "reluctantly" said no for family reasons.
Reid, whose long term partner is Cheshire-born BBC sports reporter Dominic Cotton, is now being lined up for a main weekday role on the show.
BBC1 Breakfast editor Alison Ford said: “It is great news that lots of the team will be coming to Salford with the programme next year.
“We always knew there would be those who wouldn’t be able to make the move for domestic reasons but we’ll have a really strong line-up of producers and presenters working together in MediaCity.
“We’re enjoying huge success at the moment and I’m confident that’s going to continue for years to come.”
The BBC released the figures just hours after the midnight deadline last night for Breakfast staff to make their decisions. It brings the combined total confirmed as moving from London to the new BBC North HQ to 55 per cent - higher than most experts predicted.
The BBC said that Sian Williams and Chris Hollins would continue to be involved with the show, which attracts seven million viewers a day, "for the foreseeable future".
BBC News director Helen Boaden said: "The move of Breakfast is another important step in marking the BBC's commitment to expand its presence beyond London.
"I am delighted that so many staff have decided to make the journey with a programme that is one of the great success stories of the past 10 years. I am sure it will go from strength to strength in its new home."
The BBC said a quarter of staff (25%) in its Marketing and Audiences department and a third (33%) of staff from BBC Connect and Create who were approached to move have also agreed to do so.
A BBC spokesman explained: “Sian Williams and Chris Hollins have decided for personal reasons not to make the move, though both will continue to be involved in the programme for the foreseeable future.”
Breakfast, which broadcasts over three hours of live TV every day from 6am, will be the first BBC Network news programme produced and screened from outside London.
It is the UK’s most watched morning show, seen by around seven million viewers every day and some 12 million across the entire week.
Breakfast joins others, including Radio FiveLive, BBC Sport and BBC Children’s, in the move, which also embraces existing BBC staff in Manchester.
The BBC said the £877m project “remains on time and in budget” with first staff due to move from London in May and everyone on site by April 2012.
There will be a total of 2300 BBC posts based in MediaCity with around 1500 relocating from either London or Manchester.
“The BBC’s move to Salford Quays presents a unique and exciting employment opportunity for the BBC and the north of England,” said BBC North Director Peter Salmon.
“Alongside the BBC staff moving to our new base at MediaCityUK, we will be employing hundreds of people new to the organisation, bringing their own experiences, creativity and fresh ideas that will enrich the output we make from Salford Quays and broadcast to the whole of the UK.”
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Good news. Instead of all our taxes, profits, subscriptions being spend down South, now some of it will be spent up North to create jobs for Northeners. Bog off London!
Susan Reid is way better than Sian anyway. What about Jane Hill? Now there is someone who gives a serious tone to news coverage
Move to Manchester just in time to cover the olympics? Maybe waiting until after that event could have been sensible?
54% would rather give up working for the BBC than leave perhaps the greatest city on earth, who could blame them?.
I have just been put through to the next stage for recruitment at media city, once it is up and running it will be a fantastic advert for Manchester ( salford)
Turnbull said the move would be a "challenge" but added: "I am confident the programme can be as successful in its new home as it has been for the past few years in Television Centre."
That won't be hard will it? It's a little watched programme, and the only people who do watch it probably have no work to go to and are starting a day's worth of uncritical junk TV viewing about car boot sales and decorating houses.
It's a sad reflection on the current state of Manchester that a public sector organisation relocating a few of its least important jobs to the city seems to be a source of pride.
Relocating government jobs to depressed areas is not usually seen as such.
That is an awful lot; considering how good London is, compared
Sack the ones that will not move: that is what would happen in the real world. The licence fee which we are all forced to pay protects the BBC and it is time it was abolished.
54% would rather say in the sunny south and who can blame them, they must have heard of the Chapel Street mayhem
I bet they thought it were Salford in Bedfordshire, there is such a place, very rural indeed, nice, quiet, peaceful, constable country (the artist) farmland, near the M1.
All they are doing is reading the news they could commute lots of people do, they are on so much they can afford to give up if they wish the rest of us would have to go like it or not ! Manchester is fantastic have they ever been ? so much better than London.
E by gum what will they think of our cloth caps, whippet racing, pigeon fancying, clog fighting and a city where men are men and so are most of the women. When down to London once and the traffic was all motorised and not a horse and cart to be seen at all. Everybody spoke a different language and not one person spoke English. Went to see Buckingham palace you know that place where the queen lives. They tell me I am one of her subjects and she is the defender of the faith, what a fantastic job she is doing. There again I am not sure which faith she is defending? She has a couple of rum lads I believe and the eldest has married Audrey off corri and the other has been visiting a mate in the USA but had a row over some girl or other and he is not going again. Anyway got to go as wife is stuck in the outside loo and bloody taterash is boiling over.
So Fergie has no excuse not to speak with the Beeb then!
They'll be a lot richer in manchester. But there is not as much interesting stuff to spend money on.
the BBC need to be less rigid in what is made and where. For example, drama outside London is done in Cardiff and Bristol which made it rather strange the BBC Wales made Life on Mars in Manchester when it could quite as easily been BBC North West.
Most of it is for the great unemployed anyway! Their biggest competitor is some being called Kyle as Sky News is too repetitive! No doubt the usual house auctions and antiques programmes will continue! Imagine someone with not two coins to rub together,enjoying watching someone struggling to buy a property worth three quarters of a million quid in Dorset? Opium for the masses(or misses)? Let's face it,between seven am and seven pm there is very little worth watching on BBC1 apart from childrens stuff! Mind you,ITV is no better!
Does this mean I might be bumping into Susanna Reid in The Old Monkey some time soon ?
“The BBC’s move to Salford Quays presents a unique and exciting employment opportunity for the BBC and the north of England,” said BBC North Director Peter Salmon.
Who isn't actually moving up north himself....
Chris Hollins is full of his own importance anyway.Won't be missed.
Hopefully we'll get some decent restaurants opening and STAYING open since Londoners don't just want to dine on Nandos and mediocre Italians!
..Its a slightly different spin to what the free Metro reported today :- 'Salford move is off, say TV stars'....less then half the team behind the successful BBC breakfast show will move to Salford....
Seems like a case of the glass is half full, or half empty depending on your point of view.
Why not use local talent "Its better anyway",We have some of the best TV talent in the country...
Who'd choose to live in Mancheste ?Some of these BBC types are tough enough though.They spend a lot of time in places like Beiruit ! Seriously, you can spend days wandering around the rolling home counties without a care in the world(Cheshire doesn't compare to Surrey), but Manchester is grim and the surrounded areas all disected by major roads and motorways. London,for its many faults also offers more culture and variety than Manchester. The only time our city centre seems nice is when the European markets are on.