Were they really going to the different regions? If so, they kind of ruined the regionality of it by having an identical setup in each one. Mulhern probably did it for Central because CITV broadcast from there at the time.
They brought them all to London I seem to remember reading - if you look at the first few you can see the monitor sits in the exact same position despite being "several hundred miles apart" - so chances are two set ups and presenter changes alternating between each.
I assumed the whole thing was an ITV event but it continued online after they dropped it in 2005 and it went on until 2012. Any idea which company organised that, the article is vague?
It was actually organised by The Tip Sheet, a industry publication run by J*n*th*n K*ng (I had a job interview for it in 2000, and thank God I never got it), and I think they'd run it in their pages beforehand. The publication continued after King had to, cough, go away, run by his brother.
I remember the year after it ended, ITV did a show called 2005 Greatest Hits, which was a Pops-style music show, and the producer was quoted in the Radio Times saying "We've dropped Record of the Year because we want to celebrate all kinds of music", which seemed an alarmingly principled stance for ITV, giving up thousands of pounds in phone-in revenue in favour of The Kaiser Chiefs and Franz Ferdinand on primetime ITV.
I remember one of the last Record of the Years had a Price-Drop.tv presenter dressed up to the nines read out the Scottish results whilst she was mysteriously presenting live on Price-Drop at the same time. Presumably this was another one of the many ITV premium phone line shows that bent the rules to the point of illegality but I don't remember there being anything specifically mentioned about the Record of the Year being falsely awarded like Ant and Dec winning the British Comedy Award over Catherine Tate. I suppose Price-Drop could have been pre-recorded but I doubt it!
There were occasions where Bid/Price was pre-recorded, but of course that's how Bid did it in the early days anyway. Would quite often record a block and then repeat it the next day and the only part of the output that was live was the graphics on the repeat. (the clue that this block was going to be repeated was when the presenter didn't reference any of the contents of the graphics, or spoke generally, aka "this item is worth three times the arrow price" or similar).
And of course when Speed Auction came along it was pre-recorded for most of the day until it became a Bid/Price clone in new packaging. That being said, on at least one occasion a presenter was apparently live on both Bid and Price at the same time..
I have been asking about this for years. I would love to see a full episode of Network 7 again - the program which single-handedly got me into presentation, fonts, designs, and so on.
And then two come along at once!!!
So good to see them again. Now if there could be a few full episodes from Series 1 - the more daring, innovative series.
And of course when Speed Auction came along it was pre-recorded for most of the day until it became a Bid/Price clone in new packaging. That being said, on at least one occasion a presenter was apparently live on both Bid and Price at the same time..
Speed Auction even resorted to pre-recording auctions while live! The presenter would come on at 4pm as usual, introduce themselves tell us what us what's coming up and while doing auctions for those products, they would never mention the phone number, current bid in the auction or bidders, just how much time was on the clock. After the auction it was "up next it's this, that" ect and repeat in the next auction.
Perhaps not unusual it was in widescreen - it was made in 2000, and there was a lot of widescreen around at the time, perhaps more so on the BBC than other places. I don't think Sky Analogue would have done 16:9, perhaps 14:9 the same as terrestrial?
So that was the second of what would turn out to be three goes Sky had at the Blockbusters format over the years. Their first attempt in 1994 was to all intents and purposes a continuation of the ITV series, then they had this half-arsed attempt in 2000, and then had had another go in 2012 on Challenge with Simon Mayo. None of them lasted more than one series.
Tom Scott did appear on this Tarbuck incarnation of Blockbusters (did 5 Gold Runs apparently) and wrote some contestant diaries about his experiences, although he's since gone to some extremes to expunge them from the internet, including exclusion from the wayback machine and his own website.
Sky One did not transmit in 16:9 at this time, I think it took until 2002 or 2003 before it happened. I believe the only Sky channels in 16:9 were the Sports channels (digital only and when the event was in 16:9) and Premier Widescreen. But I get that you’d think at this time they’d have recorded it in 16:9.
