20th years since NAT was first dumped

I thought it was 6pm to 11pm so I stand corrected.

I remember that Premiership edition. There wasn't the usual opening titles (the only time surely?), after the sponsor tag it faded into the studio and Des said something along the lines of "we normally start the programme with 'Beautiful Day'...". Then they went straight into the day's big game which was Leeds vs Manchester United.

I'm sure that would be the case - either that or it was a typo and the announcer read it out in the confusion. They spelt Denis Norden's name wrong on it too. As I said earlier in the thread, at that stage ITV were running massively late every night anyway.



Indeed, Des saying "we thought in the circumstances it wasn't appropriate", and at the end it cut straight from Des saying goodnight to a static "Carlton/ISN Production" slide. I remember they didn't have the whizzy graphics flying onto the screen either, just a static set.

Remarkable to see how little coverage, relatively, it got on ITV that night - it carried on until 7.50, then there was Stars In Their Eyes, the scheduled bulletin - in its planned duration - then Denis Norden as scheduled (the ultimate in disposable telly that could go in any slot), then another half hour in place of After They Were Famous which was only there as a filler anyway, then The Premiership as scheduled. So between 7.50 and 11.50 there was less than an hour of news, which seemed remarkable given that I'd read all those pieces about how there'd be several days of national mourning and telly would only show ballet and military music and so on.

In fact it's remarkable how little coverage there was all round, every channel was back showing normal programmes by 9.30.

Radio was different. It was subtle, toned down music right through to the following day's breakfast shows.

The Premiership was, I remember, a bang on 22:34 clock start.

Yep - I remember turning on Radio 1 and Vicky Marsden had been called in and did a shift for god knows how long playing low key reflective music instead of the usual Saturday night dance output.

ITV had paid millions for the rights, and no matter what, they would show it. Commercial advantage comes first. They don't have the luxury of the BBC who can jettison programming or move it to BBC 2 when they wish, with no worry about commercials at all.

Obviously they would have shown it - but ITV certainly weren't averse to punting it in a late slot, midweek ones regularly shuffled past midnight - so it was odd that they kept it pretty much on time, despite the fact the Queen Mother had just died.



I remember Paul Gambaccini was on Radio 2, replacing his normal show with suitably subdued music, and that it was being simulcast on 6 Music as well.

it was a big mistake to change the time of the late news from 10pm to 11pm. 11pm is far too late for people who have an early start the next morning. Personally I prefer News At Ten Mon-Thurs with the news at either 1030pm or 11pm on Fridays. It gives the chance to show a 2 hour drama from 8.30pm or 9pm on a Friday and fill a slot, even if its a repeat.

11pm is the norm for late news in the US. Even in Ireland, their independent network TV3 now called Virgin Media One have aired and continue to air their late news programming at 11.00pm.


Maybe in the 1970s and 80s people preferred their late news earlier, but now in 2019, it seems 11.00pm is fine.

Worth pointing out that what now airs on Virgin Media One at 11:00pm, The Tonight Show, is a panel discussion show and not a straight news bulletin of the type that originally aired in the slot up to 2007. Nowadays, Virgin Media News’ last full length bulletin is the “News on Two” at, well, 10:00pm.

The post-10pm TV market now is very different to what it was in 1999. Indeed on the main channels it pretty much doesn't exist, yet in 1999 you had C4 very strong at 10pm, where most their dramas played out, C5 had just launched with uninterupted 9pm movies being a key selling point, and BBC1 still had their news at 9pm so had drama and comedy at 9.30pm, and usually something after too. Back then 11pm for a late night news bulletin made a lot of sense, as did freeing up the 10pm hour on ITV. In practice though it just didn't work.

Today is very different but IMO it's more about the content around at 10pm rather than what time the news is on. C4 now has run of the mill documentaries, C5 is on benefits, the digital channels aren't as active at 10pm as they once were and BBC1 has the news. Therefore unless you're watching ITV there isn't much to hold you around until 11pm.

Blimey, I had no idea that the state of Channel 5 Broadcasting Ltd's budget/finances had gotten *that* bad...