During the broom cupboard years Philip Schofield or whoever would say bye to viewers in northern Ireland because their local bulletin was starting where for the rest of the country CBBC continued. Why was this?
I remember that farewell as a child. The reason was that "Inside Ulster" was their local news programme from 1984-1996 and it aired from 5.35pm until 6.00pm. This was the time slot where Neighbours aired in the rest of the UK. They wanted to start the programme fast, and to try and get a full 25 minute programme slot. UTV was very competitive, with their "Six Tonight" one hour news slot from 6-7pm on Ulster Television at the time. UTV used to beat the BBC every night.
Neighbours would air at 6.30pm, and would be followed by another Inside Ulster update at 6.55pm.
In February 1996, Inside Ulster was axed, and a new programme Newsline 6.30 was created. Their launch was an awful start, for some reason the BBC dumped the usual newsreaders Sean Rafferty, Connor Bradford, Seamus McKee and Wendy Austin, and brought in two reporters - Yvette Shapiro and Jim Dougal. Within weeks the ratings got worse than before, and the older team were reinstated.
As Denton says, this isn’t quite right.
Inside Ulster initially launched at 6.30 in September 1984 on the same day as the Six O’Clock News. But it bombed in the ratings - em, no pun intended - and, in early 1985, moved to 5.40, preceded by Today’s Sport, which was later, and briefly, retitled to something like ”Sportswide,” before Inside Ulster took over the full 5.35-6 slot. This was long before Neighbours even started, so either the 5.35 network programme - such as Fax or Masterteam - or some local thing was shown at 6.35.
Seamus McKee and Wendy Austin never returned to Newsline, but Conor Bradford did, along with Rose Neill.
