I was looking around for some information as i do, and I come across something very very weird. One day back in 1983 there was an opt out for some ITV companies in the middle of CITV, while other broadcast stuck with the original cartoon.
Two Q:
* Has it every happened else where, certain ITV compaines were not happy with certain programmes on CITV and opted out?
* As seen below: WHY on this occasion didn't all the ALL the itv companies sing from the same hym street? Cartoon in Q is He-Man, and the reason would be pretty clear,BUT was linked to selling toys but was it?
I did check other papers and there the same: as below.
Great find. I'd suggest that He-Man was the replacement as Central, who ran CITV, took the same as London.
1983 was near the beginning of CITV, could it be a rights issue, where some regions had already shown the Spider Woman programme so substituted He-Man?
I'm sure the link to this opt out is where you see Derek Griffiths announcing that coming next is a surprise.
In 33 years I'll be in Corrie- suprise!
:-(
A former member
Ep "Pyramids of Terror" was the very first episode, and was First broadcast on 10 January 1983. So it deffo wasn't a rights issues. it would have been interesting to see other opt outs. I just wonder what caused the split and why, also who played it out?
Children's ITV wasn't totally live and networked until 1987 and the history suggests the service, after its Watched It! era but before the 1987 relaunch, behaved in the same way as the schools programming - Central played the presentation link and the programme came from the contractor in question.
Of course that doesn't explain everything and I dare say there is/was nothing to stop somebody opting out if they really wanted to - it's documented in the early 1990s for example that Thames opted out of network CITV for a local cartoon on Friday afternoons prior to the transmitter switch from Thames to LWT.
I'm sure the programmes were still played from the originating company well intot he 90s! Albeit fed to central, who then fed it to the entwork I'm sure there were breakdowns during the 90s because of failures from originating companies.
:-(
A former member
At least Thames only did that for 4 months, TSW did that for about two years until there were forced to do so. ( the last CITV link was dropped so there get more adverts in and the that rabbit with the birthday. Yet Grampian had a birthday slot at that time and never had to dropped the last CITV link of the day.
In all my time of looking of stuff I have never come across opt outs on CITV, I do wonder if there really were others.
I'm sure the link to this opt out is where you see Derek Griffiths announcing that coming next is a surprise.
Possibly, though they were supposedly used when they didn't know what the programme was going to be when they recorded the links.
I'd have thought they'd record some 'surprise' generic links as standbys too, to cover last minute changes.
If the listings are correct and there was a different programme in London to elsewhere there's no reason the presenter couldn't do a link just for Thames to playout. I'd have thought the bigger logistical issue with such an opt out is matching the timings
The Greg Taylor link I posted suggests it wasn't until 1998 (and the then relaunch of the service) Central had control over the whole output including playout, which makes it plausible programmes were coming from here, there and everywhere up until that late, which is quite surprising really by that point.
