All I know is that Channel 4 Night Time started in Spring 1987, it was usually broadcast from Thursday to Saturday nights, not sure what time it started, but it usually ended at 3.00am.
One small fact is that C4 NT lead to a 24 hour ITV, simply because as you may know ITV used to play out the Commercials for Channel 4 in those days, so it meant that the ITV companies had to pay for their workers to be there until 3.00am, at this point some ITV stations decided to carry on until 3.00am or so themselves to make use of the staff they were paying for, until the whole ITV Network went 24 hours from September 1988.
Initially I think 'Night Time' only ran on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. A regular programme was 'After Dark', an ad-lib debate programme which was basically four or so people sitting around a table (usually smoking) and talking about 'issues of the day'.
I found this show a handy alternative to counting sheep when I couldn't get to sleep.
A regular programme was 'After Dark', an ad-lib debate programme which was basically four or so people sitting around a table (usually smoking) and talking about 'issues of the day'.
Didn't Oliver Reed kiss a feminist on there, she had long grey hair?
A regular programme was 'After Dark', an ad-lib debate programme which was basically four or so people sitting around a table (usually smoking) and talking about 'issues of the day'.
Didn't Oliver Reed kiss a feminist on there, she had long grey hair?
Yeah, and I think it was the show Tracey Emin walked out with a broken finger on.
One small fact is that C4 NT lead to a 24 hour ITV, simply because as you may know ITV used to play out the Commercials for Channel 4 in those days, so it meant that the ITV companies had to pay for their workers to be there until 3.00am, at this point some ITV stations decided to carry on until 3.00am or so themselves to make use of the staff they were paying for, until the whole ITV Network went 24 hours from September 1988.
Not sure the two were related. Many smaller ITV companies weren't happy about having to pay TAs until 3am just to run commercials on C4 and it might have even been a union issue at the time.
ITV's first overnight service began with Yorkshire in 1986, pre-dating the C4 late nights. Again the smaller companies such as TSW and Border didn't see the point in night-time broadcasting and only IBA compulsion forced them to do so, some two years later.