Producers give Channel 4 a gnomic V-sign over axing 'The Big Breakfast'

If Channel Four executives had been in any doubt about Planet 24's feelings over their axing of The Big Breakfast they would have been resolved shortly after 9am yesterday.

The Big Breakfast house's giant garden gnome was about to be made homeless and the producers had found a new one – smack outside the headquarters of the broadcaster that had decided, after nearly 10 years, that enough was enough. Their gnome had a significant addition: two giant polystyrene fingers, upraised in a contemptuous salute.

It was an entirely characteristic valedictory flourish for a programme that nine years ago sent a raucous wake-up call to traditional breakfast time broadcasting – dispensing with cosy sofa-based chat in favour of a primary-colour, primary-school Bacchanal. It rewrote the rules for the time-slot but it wasn't the case that there were no rules at all. There was a long list posted at the entrance to the purpose-built house from which 2,482 shows were broadcast: "No branded clothing", "No autographs" and "No hats, coats or bags" – the latter designed to convey the impression that it was always summer in 'Big Breakfast' land.

The no-autographs rule had fallen by the wayside yesterday, as crew members and former presenters signed each other's shooting scripts and beseeching fans hung over the picket fence that separated them from the close-down party at Planet 24's East End studio.

For Steve Lipscombe, a student, its dress-down informality had clearly worked: it was the "summery" atmosphere that he would miss, along with the programme's dogged horror of cosmetic perfection.

Halfway through the show Richard Bacon, last in a long line of presenters, read out a farewell message from Prince Charles, who praised the strand for its traditional British virtues. "I can't claim to have watched every show," he noted, just in case anyone out there assumed that the heir to the throne's day would be incomplete without a dose of Zig and Zag, the programme's resident hand-puppets.

Chris Evans was in a less diplomatic mood in his contribution from Los Angeles to a nostalgic montage from veterans of the programme's hyperactive aesthetic. "Why take it off?" he asked, praising the skills of the production team. "It's like saying to Man United, 'We're going to sell you off to different clubs'."

No one would comment, though, on the viewing figures for a programme that was once Premier League but had steadily slipped in viewers' affections. They preferred to recall the glory days and the star players – Evans, Johnny Vaughan, Denise Van Outen and Liza Tarbuck – performers whose taste for on-air catastrophe matched that of the producers.

In Stevenage, Keith Chegwin marked the show's passing with a mock burial, a time capsule which among other things contained a sample of his chest hair. And until those memories are unearthed one day, the hours between 7am and 9am are going to be a little more predictable and a lot less colourful.