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Memories of Regional Programmes

The pre-national days of ITV (February 2021)

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SP
Steve in Pudsey
Yorkshire had a habit of using the Calendar brand for all sorts of stuff.

Calendar Commentary was a political discussion show, Calendar Kids was seemingly their answer to Blue Peter and Calendar goes Pop presented by a young Richard Madeley. Calendar Carousel, Calendar People, Calendar Calling.....

Incidentally with the mention of Top Gear, that was originally a regional BBC Birmingham production. Keith Floyd's first series was regional too. Gardener's Direct Line from BBC Leeds got a daytime network commission.
CO
Coronavision
A fairly well known regional show that ended up being networked one region at a time was ATV's Tiswas.


Tiswas was only ever fully networked for about five weeks I believe.

Tyne Tees was the last company to end its regional Saturday morning show, in 1981, but then TSW went it's own way in 1982.
MA
Markymark
Yorkshire had a habit of using the Calendar brand for all sorts of stuff.

Calendar Commentary was a political discussion show, Calendar Kids was seemingly their answer to Blue Peter and Calendar goes Pop presented by a young Richard Madeley. Calendar Carousel, Calendar People, Calendar Calling.....

Incidentally with the mention of Top Gear, that was originally a regional BBC Birmingham production. Keith Floyd's first series was regional too. Gardener's Direct Line from BBC Leeds got a daytime network commission.


BBC Aberdeen's Beechgrove Garden is another example, (or has that always been Scotland only ?)
DE
deejay
One of my first bits of work experience was on regional game show Hit the Town for Central. I think this will have been 1993. It was a cross between a what’s on guide and a game show, I think I have described it on here before. The what’s on inserts were filmed during the week, single camera, and incorporated into a multi camera studio game show recorded with a live audience at the Nottingham studios on the Friday with a then almost totally unknown presenter Rory McGrath. I think the TX slot was Sunday afternoon. Great experience to see the process from press releases about up and coming gigs at the Wolverhampton Civic Hall, through the shoot, to finding an audience and some contestants, to the studio, through the edit and then to watch it go out - all in one week.
NG
noggin Founding member
Yorkshire had a habit of using the Calendar brand for all sorts of stuff.

Calendar Commentary was a political discussion show, Calendar Kids was seemingly their answer to Blue Peter and Calendar goes Pop presented by a young Richard Madeley. Calendar Carousel, Calendar People, Calendar Calling.....

Incidentally with the mention of Top Gear, that was originally a regional BBC Birmingham production. Keith Floyd's first series was regional too. Gardener's Direct Line from BBC Leeds got a daytime network commission.


BBC Aberdeen's Beechgrove Garden is another example, (or has that always been Scotland only ?)


Genome suggests it has had network outings.
JE
Jenny Founding member
BBC Aberdeen's Beechgrove Garden is another example, (or has that always been Scotland only ?)


I think it's always been regional, but sometimes repeated nationwide. Lately Beechgrove and Landward have been Sunday morning filler on BBC Two, though they're both off at the moment.
MA
Markymark
Yorkshire had a habit of using the Calendar brand for all sorts of stuff.

Calendar Commentary was a political discussion show, Calendar Kids was seemingly their answer to Blue Peter and Calendar goes Pop presented by a young Richard Madeley. Calendar Carousel, Calendar People, Calendar Calling.....

Incidentally with the mention of Top Gear, that was originally a regional BBC Birmingham production. Keith Floyd's first series was regional too. Gardener's Direct Line from BBC Leeds got a daytime network commission.


BBC Aberdeen's Beechgrove Garden is another example, (or has that always been Scotland only ?)


Genome suggests it has had network outings.


Dig out (no pun intended) the very first ep on You Tube, it's a fantastic relic and example of late 1970s 'lifestyle' TV. Presenters wearing jackets and ties while digging, the bloke from Aberdeen Council's planing and development department being a guest, and being asked to help out with the digging. All refreshingly simple, straightforward, and not padded out with time filling floss.
RO
robertclark125
Mum was a great fan of the American drama Falcon Crest, and she was always frustrated when she saw in the regional listing, that Grampian were showing the new series before stv!
OC
Otis Crump
I'm sure Granada ran something in the 5:10 slot in the mid nineties called The 051 Show. Live from the Albert Dock with a husband and wife duo who used to stand in for Richard and Judy, Alison Keenan and Stephen Rhodes.
SW
Steve Williams
Colm posted:
One of the nicer aspects of the 'Kelly' era is their frequent teaming-up with their Friday night opposition on BBC NI and RTÉ.


As we're talking about TV conventions in other countries it's interesting how Friday has always seemed to be a big night in both Ireland and Northern Ireland, I know the rest of the UK has things like Graham Norton and Jonathan Ross, but it's never been a national institution in the way The Late Late Show is.

I know Patrick Kielty had his own show on BBC NI for a bit, before he became famous in the rest of the UK, I remember reading it was very political and topical, and that on the night of the Canary Wharf bomb they completely rewrote the entire show in a few hours. I remember when Kielty made his first appearances on network TV it was with a very political and satirical act, but the UK's audience knowledge of Norther Irish politics was obviously limited. So outside of Northern Ireland nobody really saw that incarnation of him, and I know he's said that in Northern Ireland he's still more famous as a stand-up who happened to go into TV presenting, while in the rest of the UK he's very much a TV presenter first and foremost who sometimes does a bit of comedy.

The biggest regional programme on Yorkshire in the 90s/00s was "Tonight" which aired at 6:30pm and then less successfully at 5:30pm and then even less successfully at 1pm (as Live Lunch)

Basically like a regional combination of The One Show and This Morning - Big name studio guests, cookery, filmed inserts, with the films often being either series of items that would previously have been a half hour series in itself before the invention of Tonight, or reversions of stuff that previously aired as a separate show at 7:30pm


I remember in the mid-nineties, the ITC performance reviews of the regions really slating Tonight on both Yorkshire and the equivalent show of the same name on Tyne Tees, saying too much of it was too generic to be classed as regional and it was below the required quality standard on too many occasions. That was at the height of Bruce Gyngell's reign of terror at YTV where costs were being cut quite dramatically. I remember the ITC also took issue with too many regional shows being simulcast on both Yorkshire and Tyne Tees, saying the area was too big for these programmes to be classed as regional.

This reminds me of the assumption that many documentary makers have about the Sex Pistols incident on the Today programme on Thames - it's assumed it was on a national chat show rather than a London-only magazine. Shame that very little of Today seems to have survived, I'm fascinated by what guff they'd fill half an hour with in the days before London got proper regional news.


It's been mentioned before that it would have been amazing to think what the Pistols encounter would have been like if they were on one of the evenings when the show was presented by "that other rocker, and I'm saying nothing about him" Eamonn Andrews.

On one of the Not The Nine O'Clock News compilations, the mid-90s ones they always show now rather than the actual episodes, there's one sketch which is a 6 O'Clock Show parody with Pamela as Janet Street-Porter. I don't know how many people outside London in 1982 would have known about either the programme, or its presenter.

RDJ posted:
A few regional shows did end up being networked across the whole ITV network.


When ITV networked most of their football coverage in 2004, local coverage was reduced to a magazine show, in the same slot in all regions, and going under the brand of Soccer Night, which previously had been the name of Granada's midweek regional highlights show. Growing up in Granadaland, it seemed very odd to see the likes of Yorkshire Soccer Night and Meridian Soccer Night suddenly spring up. London Soccer Night seems a very glitzy name, though.

Mum was a great fan of the American drama Falcon Crest, and she was always frustrated when she saw in the regional listing, that Grampian were showing the new series before stv!


This reminds me of ALF getting on the cover of Look-In in 1988 to herald his new series, and opening up I was crestfallen to see it was in all regions apart from Granada.
BR
Brekkie
And of course regional live football was a thing as late as 2001/02 with the ill-fated ITV Digital deal, and in the early days of the Premier League with a few seasons of Division 1 games, though I think more so in the larger regions with other regions having the option to take them.
MK
Mr Kite
I'm sure Granada ran something in the 5:10 slot in the mid nineties called The 051 Show. Live from the Albert Dock with a husband and wife duo who used to stand in for Richard and Judy, Alison Keenan and Stephen Rhodes.


I have no memory of this. Was this in the This Morning studio immediately after the show moved to London? Was not Granada Tonight already an hour long at this point?

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