As we know, Night and Day ran three days a week with an omnibus (with added rude bits) after ten o'clock on Thursday, but they dropped the teatime showing after six months and then only did the omnibus, which got later and later and later, so by the end it was going out around 1am, surely the most expensive programme ever transmitted at that time.
I'm sure after a while they cut down the length of the omnibus too, from 90 minutes to an hour, which would have extended the length of time until the show ended. I think the show ended production well over a year before the final episode aired I seem to remember!
On the subject of Night And Day, I wrote a sizeable amount of the Wikipedia article cited in this thread.
The first few episodes, certainly the first three 'daytime' ones, were credited as a Granada Production for LWT with the Granada G arrow endcap. At some point after that all episodes were credited as an LWT production, carrying the purple LWT endcap. Indeed even back in 2001, after the series' first episode, it was commented on this forum (
http://www.tvforum.co.uk/tvhome/granada-production-lwt-35070/) about the odd way the series was credited. Early press releases for Night And Day in early August 2000 used its pre-production title of Trafalgar Road, citing it had been commissioned by ITV Network Centre from United Productions. I assume that post the commission, when the production side of UNM was bought by Granada later that month, the internal politics then meant LWT become the named producer?
All episodes, broadcast in the UK and internationally carried the smokey effect
ECP style, even those airing after the Oct 2002 ITV1 rebrand and the introduction of centrally aligned text and full screen endcaps.
Episodes were 19 min long, three times a week (Tues-Thurs) at 5.05pm, then combined together in a 60 mins slot on a Thursday evening airing after News at Ten, approximately at 10.30pm. When it became obvious the series was flopping, the daytime episodes were axed in March 2002 after daytime episode number 80 and the omnibus floated between starting at 11.30 and midnight before settling for the majority of 2002 at 00.30am. The series seemed to be written in three 80 episode blocks, where at the end of each block there would be a 'fantasy' episode, either time stopping still or a parallel universe episode, so the final daytime episodes shown was one of these which perhaps may have made a casual viewer think that had been a final episode.
Towards the end of 2002 episodes began airing some weeks at 1am, and in early 2003 as late as 2am, I think as a result of the increasing Gulf War coverage, but also by then it was clear that ITV just wanted rid of it - episodes often started 10-15mins later than scheduled. A know a fair few times episodes were preceded by the generic ITV1 hearts overnight ident when the regions had 'went to bed'. Episodes still had internal breaks, but these were filled only by promos or PIFs.
Episodes had been recorded way in advance of the series ending. I was told that the show wrapped filming in around May 2002, the day before the Soap Awards of that year but I've no creditable source for that. I'm not sure why this was. There certainly was some form of delay in airing because storylines did not match the season in which they aired. For example summer holidays occurred months away from the 'real' summer. The exception to this is the 2001 christmas week episodes which did have a Christmas theme to them as part of flashbacks, so clearly that was planned and not written in a way that made sense, so who knows what the production issues were.
One final odd thing about the series was about how it ended. Sometime in May 2003 a few TV guides, certainly the TV Times, ran features on how it had been a flop, in discussion also with the imminent demise of Brookside and Crossroads mk3. These articles all made a highlight of that week being the final episode of Night And Day, yet in actual fact, about five or six episodes were still to air through to 6 June 2003 when the series fully wrapped up and concluded all storylines at episode 238/239/240 (omnibus number 80). A big irony is that Night And Day actually outlived Crossroads, which itself had been removed from the daytime schedules in 2002, retooled, relaunched and axed again all the time whilst Night And Day played out continuously in the early hours of the morning each Friday.
Its very odd how so few episodes of Night And Day have ever been seen since 2003. Youtube has a few up, but for a series that aired not that long ago it has virtually vanished, and almost certainly will never be repeated unless London Live are up for paying the rights fees for all the music used throughout. I guess it came just at the wrong time, with the death of VCR and the slow uptake of DVD recording, video capture and torrenting.
A big diversion from the thread topic, but thats TVF
