ITV Schools on Channel 4 1987-1993

Yes, Channel 4 played out schools programmes and presentation from Autumn 1987. The roto and clock were devised partly by Central as they had been in control of schools presentation in the ITV years.

The programmes were made by the ITV companies but Channel 4 held the tapes and played everything out. Ted May from Central recorded most of the publication announcements but these were also sent to Channel 4 for playout.

Scotland, UTV and S4C followed the same schedule as England, except for regional variations, hence junctions were sometimes longer, particularly in Wales, as some of their BBC Wales productions lasted only 11 or 12 minutes, as opposed to the 15 or 20 minute network programme being replaced. There were no cases when a programme in Scotland, NI or Wales replaced a blank screen in England.

S4C had its own copy of the roto and clock, with S4C branding replacing Channel 4's. They opted out of every junction from 1987 to 1992. The version of the roto with rotating S4Cs was only shown before Welsh-language programmes, many of which weren't produced by ITV.

Incidentally, during the 1992-93 school year, S4C no longer inserted their own branded junctions and used the Channel 4 feed at all times apart from regional variations.

The example of a long junction in the English regions was probably when 26-minute Starting Out films were given a 30-minute slot, and were followed by a five-minute junction (which effectively became 9 minutes).

OH - and whoever mentioned alternative tracks such as Ticket to Freedom and Animations being used as well as The Journey/Just a Minute isn't quite right. These tracks, amongst others, were used to bridge a gap between 9.25 and 9.28 after Channel 4's breakfast programme ended and before schools programmes started. These tracks were from C4's own catalogue and just happened to be played over a still or later a moving roto which was used to fill the time. At 9.28 these tracks and filler-caption faded down and schools began properly with 'The Journey' fanfare.

Think of it this way - 9.28 to just before 12.00 was 'ITV Schools' time, anything just before or after that was still 'Channel 4' time - hence there was a very definite attempt to show that handover, with opening and closing fanfares to ITV Schools and another 'start up' on C4 just before noon. Similar in a way to the Thames/LWT split at 5.15 on Fridays - 'ITV Schools on 4' was a different service to 'Channel 4'.

I guess though it is a service ITV needed to make sure remained with C4 from 1993. Perhaps that is why the 1989 logo wasn't incorporated, keeping it at arms length.

P.S. Did C4 carry any non-school variations in the 80s and early 90s. I guess political vroadcasts might be something that differed in Scotland and NI.

. . and there is the fab 1980s 'BBC Cymru' ribbon ident at the end


http://i67.tinypic.com/2ujp9b6.png

. . . which harked back to the Teledu Cymru logo of the 1960s



. . . and people complain about the 'jarring' at the end of the 1982 TSW ident.

Granada took over the selling and playout of ads on Border from 1993 - this arrangement seemed to suit Border. Granada only played out the ads though - other than some shared regional programmes, Border continued to play out everything else such as trailers, IVC and OOV presentation, and receive the programmes themselves clean fed from Carlton, YTV etc. So a typical junction would be, for example, Emmerdale from Leeds, a trail and announcement from Carlisle, ads from Manchester, back to Carlisle for some IVC, then Mr Bean from Carlton. Complicated, but as I said, it worked for them.

In the late 90s it became more complicated, with the NTC taking over transmission at the weekend only (including ads I assume), but Carlisle continuing on their own (with Granada/NTC playing out the ads) through the week. They didn't move completely to NTC/Leeds until about 2002.

I remember hearing that some political programmes went out on Channel 4 in Scotland after closedown. There was no reason logistically that they couldn't have opted out somewhere else in the schedule, but C4 or the IBA wouldn't allow it.

Other than during ITV Schools, I'm not aware of any other regional opts on Channel 4. The technology was there to do it, but no agreement was in place to do so.

Party Political Broadcasts?

I've seen clips of Thames and LWT opting out of Channel 4 to cross promote regional programmes, not sure if any other regions did that

To put it simply, the IBA was the Broadcaster , the ITV companies were 'programme contractors'

C4 was a wholly owned subsidiary of the IBA I think. Pre 1993 the ITV companies paid a levy to fund C4. In return they sold, and retained the money from the ad breaks on their patches.

Post 1993, C4 sold and played out its own advertising, all from London, to six 'macro' regions

LEMNUS

London
East and South (Anglia, TVS, HTV, Westcountry, CI regions)
Midlands (Central)
North (Granada, YTV, Tyne Tees, English part of Border)
Ulster
Scotland (STV, Grampian, and Scottish part of Border)

If there were any opt outs post 1993, then Scotland and Ulster would have been very easy

The LEMNUS regions still exist to this day on C4's SD (non +1) platforms

I bet that would have been more complicated during weekends when Border and Grampian shared promos etc .

It was but did it become a public corporation when the IBA was abolished or was it owned by the ITC for a while?

C4 did also show ITV Schools programmes in June 1987 (before the big move) because of ITV showing General Election etc..

True, Ben - and on those occasions regional variations were shown to the whole network, from 12.01 - the only time viewers outside of Northern Ireland saw Swings and Roundabouts, for example.

Inspector, I've only seen examples of Thames and LWT opting out of C4 continuity to trail the upcoming programme on ITV (their announcers also voiced some ads 'live' on C4). Technically, all regions could have done this, but most didn't.

ETA: PPBs on 4 were always national, I believe. I stand to be corrected though.

The English part of Border also gets the Scottish ads under LEMNUS. It's a bit odd seeing a Scottish Government 'advert' when you're sat in the South Lakes.