26th Anniversary of the biggest shake up in ITV

apropos my above post, I think it is the case that the Independent at its launch was going to have a much more original design, maybe analogous to how it looked in its later years in print - Andreas Whittam Smith was very unsure and others made the decision for him that it should look much more like the Times. That's the story I've heard, anyway.

Interesting - I guess it was easier for a much more established paper like The Guardian to have a radical revamp like they did a couple of years after the Indy’s launch. Having both a radically new design to go with a brand new paper may have put off readers of the other broadsheets with their traditional layouts.

Has anyone else noticed there someone wanted to move news at ten to 10.30pm. Also did anyone else read the programmes descriptions from 31 dec 92

So were Grampian and Scottish showing separate programmes for midnight and then showing each other’s programme afterwards?

Yes, there been doing that since 1985? before that there would repeat each other programmes the following day around lunchtime. I believe in 94 there did a joint programme.

Did any transmitters change from one franchise region to another? I'm not meaning the creation of new sub regions, like Meridian creating the new Berks sub region, but things like in 1980, when the Bluebell Hill transmitter was moved from London to the South and South East.

No, I don't think any did. A few relays in the Westcountry region were reassigned to different main stations
to tidy up coverage for the four sub regions that WC launched, and Meridian commissioned three relays to
restore the south sub region for folk who suddenly found themselves watching the new Thames Valley sub region.

I think the only reassignment of ITV regions after 1982, was in 2009 when the Isle of Man was moved from Border to Granada ?

Don't forget Berwick switched to tt at the same. I'm also sure south Oxfordshire switched to meridian.

Oh yes, you're right. That reminds me, also at DSO in the Granada and YTV regions, some relays
that were split between BB and ITV regions near the Lancs/Yorks border were unified (which was the reason why Berwick moved from Border to TTT too)

I think also the Lincoln relay moved from Central East to YTV, (to match the BBC's arrangement) ?

Ulster also didn't show Thames's final programme, I notice.

And there must have been a reason for displaying the then Network 2's schedule *above* that of RTE1.



Andrew Harvey in the BBC newsroom on the screen to Richard Dunn's right. Had the honour of presenting the last BBC TV bulletin of '92.

Just thought I'd point that out.

Widescreen was late coming to ITV, and was piece meal. I remember Meridian's output on DTT initially being nothing more than a soggy image derived from the analogue PAL output (same for C4 on D-Sat until Easter 1999, though DTT was component sourced from day 1)

Some network programmes on Meridian were 16:9 and component derived, but they were messily patched over
from PAL, (and back again) during the credits. Can't remember what happened about the ad breaks on those shows ? I don't think either LNN or Meridian (who at that time played out Anglia and HTV West) had proper 16:9/component playout until well into 1999 ?

Didn't Granada have a "Widescreen Experience" earlier in the 90s? Or was that literally just showing stuff in letterbox?