Battle of Northern ITV V Southern ITV

Did Cannon and Ball actually appear on the show, I seen conflicting reports.

This is another point when Micheal grade was around there never seen to be a battle for middle class viewer and it really wasn't until Birt come along in 82 when this happen, but at that time it wasnt like it was lots of money around.

According to their own account, their sketches were not included, (but do survive on tape).


Skip to 6:10

Slightly off-topic, but it's funny how Channel 4 aired that documentary on the death of Saturday night TV and then Channel 5 aired a documentary about 'The Curse of Noel Edmonds'… and then shortly afterwards they both had a revival!

I remember watching The Death of Saturday Night TV a while back. I'm surprised how derogatory it all was. I don't recall there being a period where Saturday night TV was "dead" (I'd argue there's a quality drought at the moment but that's about it).

It did feel like it was dying out in the early 2000s, similar to all the "sitcoms are dead" stories around the turn of the millennium.

I remember Who Killed Saturday Night TV, summer 2004 I think - at the time the BBC's biggest offering was Johnny & Denise's Passport to Paradise, and ITV's was a Knockout clone called Simply the Best - neither getting particularly good viewing figures that summer, and viewing figures all round had already fallen fairly rapidly since the beginning of the decade.

Strictly had already launched a couple months earlier but didn't seem like a long-running Saturday night hit in the making, and The X Factor seemed just a continuation from Pop Idol at the time that didn't start forming its own identity until the late noughties.

As a matter of interest, how exactly did the BBC nations time shift programmes in this way, before they had the digital means to do so?



I think this used to happen at 7pm on a Friday, if the 'network' programme started at 7pm or even a minute or so before 7. LWT didn't go live until 7pm sharp, and would have a minute or so of trailers/welcome announcement, so ran the 7pm show a bit behind everyone else.

Maybe there were sent the tapes? STV or HTV got sent the tapes for Crossroads, I wonder played out Emmerdale farm for the areas who hated it. There must have been alot of tapes sitting in ITV offices,

Im sure back in the day most opt out on BBC were local slots, but Scotland did move shows around, like Monty pythons flying circus.

By recording the programme from 'network' on VT, and replaying. Not a problem if the time-shift was after the network showing had finished, but rather trickier if it hadn't finished before the local start time. S4C of course were incredibly busy doing time-shifts from C4 for 30 years until DSO

They might have been sent tapes in some situations ?

Wasnt there a spare line for sending stuff done the lines? which meant you never had to send tapes?

I thought all lines were rented on anhoc basis from GPO/BT? Or do you mean they had fittings/capacity for an extra line for such things?

I remember seeing mentioned somewhere that the Big 5 would have enough outgoing lines to reach the entire network but the others would have to piggy back to reach all the other contractors?

There were core lines, all rented from the GPO/BT, and extras that were called 'protection circuits' that could be rented ad-hoc on the understanding that they might suddenly get reallocated if a core BBC, ITV, or C4 circuit died.

Interchange was busiest with the ITV network, and GPO/BT did the switching on instruction from ITV/IBA.
The Beeb did their own switching, at their comms centres ( TVC, BH, Pebble Mill, Oxford Road, Bristol, Cardiff, Belfast, Glasgow ?)

Lets take Emmerdale farm as perfect example of this Its around 1984/85

Most companies have it at 7pm on Tues and Thursday, and YTV are pushing it, thus the other are just picking up the feed.

Anglia, Grampian Scottish and TSW all have it at 5.15, Mon and Tuesday: I take it one of them had to play it out on a rented core line? and the other would just pick up the feed?