What was your favorite regional ITV station growing up?

If one region (usually a Big Five region) purchased an import it then blocked the BBC acquiring it and back in the 80s both ITV and BBC didn’t fight each other over imports as the likely result of a bidding war would mean both paying higher prices. So if YTV had bought Prisoner, the others could also buy it, and would be likely to if it was successful on the first region. TYD screened in all regions except STV who didn’t need it as they produced slot more local content. Westcountry, Channel, UTV and YTV didn’t show the full series however.
In 1985 Thames poached Dallas from the BBC but other regions including Granada and YTV weren’t happy and didn’t want Dallas and also feared future bidding wars over imports. Eventually Thames gave in and relinquished the rights without ever having screened any episodes but still lost money on what they had paid.
Done imports were networked but very few were. Murder She Wrote was regional with at one point in 1989 13 different episodes being aired across the UK at 8.15pm on Saturdays. By 1993 some episodes were networked on Sunday evenings and others left to the regions. I think better episodes (whoever deemed them to be) were networked and the more inferior eps left to be regional at that point.
I remember CHiPs being way ahead on YTZv compared to TTT but the opposite was the case with Who’s The Boss?.
I also think that the rights for old Grundy soaps such as TYD Prisoner etc were far more flexible as to the length of time the rights lasted. There was probably nothing allowing exclusivity to any one network as it had never been a problem in the past until C5 bought their rights. For the last few ITV regions still screening after May 1997, it was their own fault that they had taken too long to drag out a programme designed to be screened at two a week. UTV, Meridian and Carlton would have all finished sooner if they hadn’t remained at one a week for years. Westcountry would have also finished sooner had TSW not been as sparse with their screenings between 1887 and mid 1992.

I wondered that with Prisoner as well. Normally when a tv station starts are rerun of old episodes of a soap e.g. when UK GOLD reran Neighbours whilst later episodes were on the BBC, I assumed there would be something in the contract saying there would be a reasonable gap between airings. When Channel 5 started Prisoner in 1997 even though a handful of regions were still airing Prisoner there was a big gap which soon narrowed especially in the case of Meridian. When Channel 5 started they were showing episodes TVS showed over 11 years before but in 2 years the gap narrowed to less than a year. Must have been the fastest catch up ever. I wonder if there was something which said Channel 5 could not overtake an ITV region that was still showing Prisoner, it would have been very odd if Meridian were showing episodes as part of the shows original run after they had aired as a repeat run on Channel 5. I wonder if that is partly why Channel 5 dropped it to 2 episodes as they were in danger of overtaking Meridian.

I believe each region had to buy the rights for each soap they aired but the cost would vary depending on the population of the region?? There must have been some cooperation and agreements between the regions however as even before 1993 a few regions had Thames provide Sons and Daughters for them for its entire run and also Thames provided Home and Away and Richmond Hill to all regions semi networked. And when Shortland Street was shown on HTV the same edited versions of the show were shown as Central had shown years before. Same with ACP when Carlton took over they edited the closing credits and most regions had the same edited closing titles which implied they were the Carlton edited episodes.

My main ITV regions were a mix of Anglia, Central, Meridian and Carlton growing up. We had Anglia at home - and my grandparents had Central/Meridian/Carlton with LWT at weekends.

I was late 80's - early 90's kid so the regional stuff was starting to become less prominent over time. But there was always something a bit comforting about the 1988-1997 Anglia Flag ident. But not sure if that's nostalgia or something, it still reminds me of fond memories waiting for CITV to start or something on daytime. That and Birthday Club with BC the tiger

Meridian and Carlton always felt...more cold or impersonal? Despite lots of colour splashes, they didn't feel as comfy in presentation as Anglia did.

I remember enjoying London Weekend too, mostly because in 1997(ish?) they got a very fancy set and they would almost always have some interesting features

The Sullivans was also networked initially but gradually the regions went their own way with only TTT, UTV abs Border sticking with Thames until the end.
A region would pay a fee depending on their region size and some regions would buy in bulk whereas UTV and TSW only bought Prisoner in blocks of 13 for quite some time.
Having Thames provide TTT and Anglia with S&D simply made it easier for the other two. They could rely on those slots being filled by the Thames provided programme and wouldn’t need to play it themselves or monitor it for any compliance issues. The downsides are that they would have to stick to the Thames S&D schedule even if they sometimes would have preferred to show something more timely regionally relevant. TTT could drop TYD for Roses Cricket one week every summer.YTV could drop their ACP and S&D too for the same thing but TTT couldn’t drop S&D. Thames once had a regional Telethon programme in a Wednesday around 1985 causing Anglia and TTT to have to find something else for that slot. TTT used an episode of US comedy Benson whereas Anglia screened an extra TYD.
Granada provided Border with TYD from start to finish. On the odd rare Wednesday, Border would screen TYD ahead of Granada by an hour to accommodate live Scottish Questions from Westminster between 3-4pm once a month in the late 80s early 90s when cameras were allowed in. I’m assuming Granada probably played the episode to Border earlier in the day on those occasions so that Border could screen it at their preferred earlier time not wanting to fall behind the Granada schedule.

When the franchises were reawarded then in 1993 did most of the newbies pick up from where their predecessor left off, and I guess they'd have picked up the rights from their predecessor rather than from the region who bought in the rights.

All new franchisees continued from where the predecessors had left off.
Meridian had the same pace with everything as TVS had had.
Carlton dropped GP completely, dropped TYD until Blockbusters episodes ran out in June then TYD reappeared daily. They reduced Prisoner to one a week on Tuesdays losing the Thursday episode. ACP remained at five halves a week.
Westcountry continued with everything as TSW had. Although TSW only increased all their soaps to much more frequent airings in 1992 as they couldn’t be bothered making and paying for any more regional programmes as they’d lost their franchise. So the cheapness of the Aussie imports were convenient for their dying days. Westcountry dropped TYD in late 1995 - I think the ITC had requested it be discontinued. They were the only region still screening it by then.

Well it had ended a decade beforehand. Maybe its an age thing but a series from the early 80s felt alot more dated in the early 90s than a series from the 2010s feels now.

TSW were also famous for their Hone and Away repeat being at 3.25pm when all others used 5.10 /6.00 / 6.35pm. After they completed S&D in autumn 1989 H&A was moved to 3.25 from 5.10. At one point from early 1991 they had the first showing at 1.20pm with the repeated at 3.25pm. Crazy scheduling. 5.10 and 6.30 were used for locally made shows and the odd show which others screened in the afternoons such as High Road.
By 1992 Prisoner was on 2 or 3 times a week, H&A repeat moved to 6.35pm, Blockbusters daily at 5.10pm and TYD daily at 3.25pm. ACP and The Sullivans also increased at 1.50 and 2.20 respectively.
Had TSW retained their franchise I would expect less TYD would have been screened overall. ACP and Prisoner would have taken longer to complete and The Sullivans would have likely been dropped having screened less episodes. H&A would have probably remained in the mid afternoon too.

Definitely agree on the dated appearance. Being low budget and having been on TSW/Westcountry for over a decade and being the only one still showing it, I expect the ITC probably said it’s not good enough quality and that there are more modern similar imports of better quality available to the regions like Shortland Street and Blue Heelers as well as making better progress with ACP -all easy options to do to ditch TYD.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f8PRXTbVAfc
Carlton’s end credits to the last Blockbusters with an announcement about TYD’s return.
A poor act for a supposedly new channel dragging back a soap they’d initially discontinued from Thames and being stick with 1981 episodes.
Central had just started Shortland Street several weeks before. They could have gone for that instead.

ACP A Country Practice
SS Shortland Street
TYD The Young Doctors
CL Carson’s Law
BH Blue Heelers
S&D Sons and Daughters
YTV Yorkshire Television
TTT Tyne Tees Television
STV Scottish Television
TSW Television South West
TVS Television South
UTV Ulster Television
ITC Independent Television Commission

Can I politely ask that posters refrain from abbreviating the titles of literally everything? Makes it really hard to understand what is being discussed.

I don't think Sons and Daughters or A Country Practice seem any more dated than an episode of Home and Away or Neighbours from the late 80s/early 90s really. The Young Doctors did seem dated but that was shown 1976-83 I believe so by the time most Independent Television regions started it has already finished. Same with Prisoner Cell Block H , only Yorkshire Television and Television South showed it before it came to an end in 1986.

Most regions apart from Granada Television and Border Television seemed to favour Sons and Daughters over The Young Doctors possibly as Sons and Daughters was (in my opinion) the better of the two soaps.

POST edited to remove all abbreviations.