SW
Yes, and that was before the days of Network Production Centres when more or less any region could get programmes on the network. In those days there were opt-out slots on BBC1 which weren't just news but all kinds of things - Gardeners Direct Line was one of those, as you say, while Keith Floyd made his first shows through BBC Plymouth. Some of these programmes would get picked up by the network and the regions would carry on making them.
Sometimes there was rather a tenuous connection, though, basically based around where the producer was based. Barney Colehan, the producer of It's A Knockout and The Good Old Days, worked out of BBC Leeds but both those series were officially BBC Manchester productions. In some of the BBC Yearbooks they talk about Pebble Mill contributing to Match of the Day, but that was because one of their regular directors John McGonagle had an office at Pebble Mill and when he covered a match he used one of their crews. When he retired, that was it. Even BBC Elstree had a programme-making department for a bit.
When the BBC1 opt-outs ended in the mid-eighties, there was less requirement to produce every type of programme in the regions. But of course you could still make shows out of Leeds or Plymouth now, as an independent producer. Indeed you could argue the regions were basically the equivalent of the modern day indie in a way.
It was originally a regional programme on Friday nights iirc then got picked up by network. Presumably from a corner of the Look North studio.
Yes, and that was before the days of Network Production Centres when more or less any region could get programmes on the network. In those days there were opt-out slots on BBC1 which weren't just news but all kinds of things - Gardeners Direct Line was one of those, as you say, while Keith Floyd made his first shows through BBC Plymouth. Some of these programmes would get picked up by the network and the regions would carry on making them.
Sometimes there was rather a tenuous connection, though, basically based around where the producer was based. Barney Colehan, the producer of It's A Knockout and The Good Old Days, worked out of BBC Leeds but both those series were officially BBC Manchester productions. In some of the BBC Yearbooks they talk about Pebble Mill contributing to Match of the Day, but that was because one of their regular directors John McGonagle had an office at Pebble Mill and when he covered a match he used one of their crews. When he retired, that was it. Even BBC Elstree had a programme-making department for a bit.
When the BBC1 opt-outs ended in the mid-eighties, there was less requirement to produce every type of programme in the regions. But of course you could still make shows out of Leeds or Plymouth now, as an independent producer. Indeed you could argue the regions were basically the equivalent of the modern day indie in a way.