Why does ITV Nightscreen still exist?

I was going to post this in Requests as this was going to be a simple question and answer thing, but I suppose it could end up being discussed further if anybody wants to.

For reasons I can't quite remember, I was still up and about the other night at around 3-4am. I had my own little system of working out how late I was staying up - BBC One handing over to the News Channel was the first sign that the night was setting in, Pages from Ceefax was the sign that maybe I should really consider going to bed, and ITV Nightscreen was "you're not getting to sleep tonight".

Nevertheless, if I ever find Nightscreen is on, I stick it on for a few moments just for the sake of it. But this time, something occurred to me... why does ITV Nightscreen still exist? People are still clearly working on it, because all the programme information is updated to include guests, time changes etc, but who is actually using Nightscreen as a way to gain information about what ITV is showing? You've got TV guides, EPGs, the internet... you've even got ITV's own marketing.

As crap as it was, the concept of nighttime programming still interests me, mainly because I was too young to ever experience it first hand. So in that sense I see a weird appeal in Nightscreen, as it's the only thing broadcast during the night that's exclusive to nighttime that isn't teleshopping or casino programmes. But I really can't work out the logic behind it still going on, let alone people working to update it on a daily basis.

So I ask... why does ITV Nightscreen still exist?

Bring back jobfinder I say

Cheaper than running repeats, and presumably the interest post 3am of Gambling has diminished that Jackpot247 isn't worth continuing. Insufficient Signed programming to fill the 0300-0600 slot completely too.

Useful buffer in the case of over-running sport. You'll find the window allotted to Nightscreen increases massively during the Euro's.

Certainly during the group stages of Euro 2012 when a match was suspended on Friday teatime due to weather for over an hour, ITV literally ran their entire evening schedule an hour later reducing Nightscreen to something like 10 minutes.

I would've thought they'd opt for some sort of Teleshopping nonsense that'd be more beneficial to them.

I'm pretty sure late night repeats can just as easily be dropped.


To answer the OP's question, I don't think Nightscreen is a sincere attempt at providing a service of any kind, it's simply a cheap filler. It's possible that it isn't even manually updated - it could just work off the feeds/files ITV provides to listings publications.

I'm not sure, but I think the ITV franchisees have been contractually bound to provide a 24 hour service since January 1st 1993, hence why they don't just close down.

It always surprises me that the various ITV channels (and STV) seem to each have separate Nightscreen feeds - when I've flicked around overnight they've all been on different pages and with different tracks playing. Intuitively I'd expect it to just be a single feed they can crash in to.

Hopefully nobody at ITV sees this and believes it's a request for yet another repeat slot for Jeremy Kyle.

I guess however much work is put into this it's cheaper than a barker with clips etc. The info is already producers for the website and I suspect ITV Nightscreen to an extent is automated.

To quote Applemask from ITV In The Face on the endless late night repeats of Jeremy Kyle, "If you're up that late and don't need to be, maybe that's what you deserve".

Stv has teleshopping at 00.30 most weekdays, with after midnight at 2am, it's like nightscreen but has news, wether and gossip along tv info, while repeating etc local shows in a box. Why this can't be extended to 6am with local ca 😉

I too find it odd that they don't use the time available for another repeat - surely that would provide some value to the few viewers who are still up. Nightscreen might be automated, but playing out back-to-back repeats with next to no adverts at 4am is probably a pretty automated affair too.

For anybody who is interested the equivalent which is broadcast on Das Erste (Germany) is Deutschlandbilder : a loop of images of landscapes and day-to-day life across Germany. Again, cheap filler, but they only tend to fill gaps of 10-20 minutes with it (sometimes more). See the videos here.

I'm sure I read on here that by playing separate feeds and tracks to the various regions, this qualifies as part of the quota of local content.

For a short while, Meridian had two services. There was ITV Nightscreen, and in the half hour slot before the ITN Early morning news at 05:30, Meridian Freescreen. The latter had local information, local videos, and local bands playing.