Election 1987 - BBC Parliament

Marking its 25th anniversary, a chance to relive the 1987 general election. David Dimbleby presents the BBC's 12-hour results coverage, featuring Peter Snow's computer battleground and interviews by Sir Robin Day, from Thursday 11 June 1987.


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BBC.CO.UK/PROGRAMMES
07-Jun-2012 @ 12:39

The year I was born!

Thanks for the heads-up!

Anything with Sir Robin Day in it is definitely worth a watch!

Do they usually cut out the news bulletins during these repeats? I hope they don't in this case as they were still using the awesome 'flying fish fingers' Nine O'Clock News theme at that time. Would love to hear it on telly again

It's such a shame that ITV don't re-broadcast their ITN election programmes on one of their digital channels. I'd love to see some of those - especially the 1992 election which had a really scary synth type theme: http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/mivana/m.php?p=itv_election1992&spl=1

Ooohh. Remember the Fish Fingers. And the intro:" The Nine Oclock News and Election Special, with Martyn Lewis and Jill Dando."

But, back to the election itself, I used to be amazed to see Robin Day grilling politicians. Although I was only a teenager at the time, the man amazed me. It must have been the bow tie.

Didn't they actually use the 'Flying Fish Fingers' music as the theme for the election programme itself that year?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SUBaeABhZ8&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Sadly not, Mr-Stabby. Rick Wakeman's Arthur was used for the election special, but election-branded Nine O'Clock News bulletins aired at the time, using the 'flying fish fingers' theme: http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/mivana/m.php?p=election87_bbcnews&spl=1 By God they don't make news themes like that any more

Last time they showed 1987, in 2005 (when it was on a Monday and I had to go home from work at lunchtime to change the tapes over), they obviously didn't include the Nine O'Clock News because, er, that was on an hour before the programme started. However, there is a news bulletin at around 10.45 with Martyn Lewis but there's no titles or anything and I think he does it from the One O'Clock News studio. They also cut out the hourly news bulletins during the Friday, we simply see Dimbleby announcing the news then it fades to black and it's five minutes later. This is presumably because the news in the evening was fed through the election studio and therefore recorded as part of the programme - there's a bit of a handover between Lewis and Dimbleby - while the daytime summaries, what with them having regional news, were contolled by presentation.

Since I've watched all of these elections, here's what we've normally got since 1970...

1970 - The twenty minute or so intro to the night at 10pm, but not the Alf Garnett special that followed - which doesn't exist in full now anyway - and I think there's something else because when it comes back it's after eleven. We've then got the lot until just after 4am then we miss out the breakfast bit and return at 9am. We see the news and weather during the Friday, with Kenneth Kendall and Graham Parker respectively, because they're in the election studio
Feb 1974 - The whole thing from 10am to 4am, although the first time they showed it we lost an hour or so around 1am. The breakfast bit is missed out again so it's 10am, and there are breaks for the news at lunchtime and 5.45 we don't see, but after the former we do get the weather with Barbara Edwards because she's in the studio and her charts are in front of Bob McKenzie's boards. The coverage carried on until 6.45 (it was supposed to finish at three!) and they say they're back at 9.25 but we don't get that.
Oct 1974 - 10am to 4am, and then it returns at 7.30 so we get half the breakfast bit. I think we get weather but not news.
1979 - Starts with the whole of the news with Richard Baker (at 9.30) and the weather with Ian McCaskill, which hands straight over to the election studio at 9.55. At 10.10 we don't get Mike Yarwood but they return at 10.55 and we get the whole of the breakfast bit including regular weather forecasts from Jack Scott, but they don't do the weather at lunchtime because of a cock-up and it never turns up
1983 - No news because it didn't start until 10.40. We miss out the breakfast bit and return at 10am, but we do get the news at 12.30 with Sandi Marshall who makes a right hash of it

And then from 1987 onwards we have hourly news bulletins which are always cut out, and we always lose the breakfast bit because it's now a separate programme. Was that interesting?

I digress, but what else was Sandi Marshall famous for, other than filling in on BBC News After Noon?

http://tvpresenters.thetvroomplus.com/images.php?id=1660

Thanks for your summary, above, Steve. I assume David Dimbleby is the lead in all of the years you mention above? In which year did Peter Snow make his swingometer debut on the election programme?

No, the presenters were Richard Dimbleby up to 1964, Cliff Michelmore in 1966 and 1970, the awful Alistair Burnet in both 1974 elections and than David Dimbleby since 1979. Michael Barratt took over at breakfast in 1970 and the 1974s, in 1979 David was still there but Sue Lawley joined him as well.

Peter Snow's first BBC election was in 1983 but he didn't have a Swingometer. Indeed in 1983 the technology didn't exist to project the graphics at a large scale so he sat at a desk with them all on a monitor behind him. In 1987 he stands up and they're on a large scale but there's still no Swingometer, that wasn't used again until 1992. And of course also in 1987, Robin Day goes off to Downing Street during the Friday morning so Jeremy Paxman sits in for him for an hour or so.

During 1983, News After Noon was presented by Richard Whitmore and a female presenter who would alternate each month, usually from the regional news with the likes of Noreen Bray, Judith Stamper, Fern Britton and Viv Creegor all taking a turn, and Anne Diamond did it for a few weeks as well. Sandi Marshall did the whole of June but I'm not sure where she came from. She's rubbish, anyway.