I remember as a nine year old going to Jersey on holiday and finding that the islands had their own station. I didn't know Channel TV existed prior to that.
Flipping that around, what I always noticed on visiting the mainland was that other regions didn't have the softness which distinguished Channel TV from the other channels over here. You could always tell if you had it on 3 from that alone.
What exactly do you mean by 'softness'? The picture quality or the station's style?
When I visited Jersey as a six-year-old, the only thing I remember was seeing 'BBC1 South West' symbols rather than 'BBC1 North East'.
The only other taste of out-of-area TV I saw as a child was YTV in Scarborough. The lack of IVC surprised me, as well as no female announcer (this was long before Maggie Mash arrived). At first I thought they had only one announcer, as the RP-esque voices of Redvers Kyle, Paul Lally and John Crosse did sound remarkably similar.
In the early years, or even decades, of ITV, the schedules were very different indeed in each ITV region, even in peak hours. Border TV, for instance, ran its own local version of "Mr and Mrs" at 8.30 p.m. on a Friday in the early 70s. Even where different regions were screening the same series like "The Saint", it could be a totally different episode in each region. In terms of children's programming each regional station went its own way a lot of the time too. STV might have "Skippy" when Border were screening "Flipper" and Granada had "The Forest Rangers". In fact, arguably, networked programmes were the exception rather than the norm.
I've probably said this before, but the highlight of our holiday to Ayr in 1990 was being able to read the Border edition of TV Times at Tebay services.
Ha. I remember in the 70s, going on holiday to The Lake District, and my father buying his daily copy
of the Telegraph. Because it was the Manchester printed edition, the TV page featured Granada as the main ITV listing, with all the northern, Scottish, and Ulster listings as variations. This was a source of great excitement for me !! (As was seeing Granada, and Stuart Hall on the local Beeb (The 70s really were that drab !)
Flipping that around, what I always noticed on visiting the mainland was that other regions didn't have the softness which distinguished Channel TV from the other channels over here. You could always tell if you had it on 3 from that alone.
What exactly do you mean by 'softness'? The picture quality or the station's style?
Picture quality.
Though I do now have an image of a salty old fisherman with pipe and slippers delivering Channel News from an armchair by a fire with a shaggy dog at his feet, giving a cheery wink as he says à bêtôt.
In the early years, or even decades, of ITV, the schedules were very different indeed in each ITV region, even in peak hours...
In fact, arguably, networked programmes were the exception rather than the norm.
Hence Bruce Forsyth making a (literal) song and dance about 'bringing the network together on a Saturday night'
As the ITV network grew in the late 50s and early 60s, many of the smaller stations were 'affiliated' to one of the majors in order to benefit from joint advertising sales; programme purchases and technical help. As a consequence, whichever of the big boys you were affiliated to tended to dictate how your schedule looked, especially at weekends when ABC had one pattern and ATV a completely different one (each scheduled their own productions in the best slots and avoided buying from the other unless absolutely necessary). This even led to quite different Saturday afternoon sports schedules, and the "network" presentation - titled "Let's Go!" - would put up a bunch of different menus at the start which probably confused the hell out of many viewers.
My own memories of 'regional TV' go back to the day we 'got' ITV, which must have been in early 1961 after a lifetime of watching nothing but the BBC on my Granny's single-channel Ecko set. Where we lives on the Ayrshire coast, it was always a toss-up as to which provided the better signal and I remember at first the riggers set up our Band III antenna horizontally polarised and pointed across the sea, resulting in my first sighting of ITV being Test Card 'C' with the legend 'Black Mountain' on it. (Long before Strabane went on air) But after some discussion, the riggers swung the aerial, switched it to vertical and offered the test card with the words 'Black Hill'. Subsequently, I would make every possible effort to watch Ulster on channel 9 whenever there was the slightest lift. As far as BBC went, as well as Kirk o'Shotts we also had a rather dim but consistent signal from Sandale which let me see the programmes that Scotland opted out of. I was always a bit puzzled that Divis on channel 1 (also dim but also very grainy) seemed to always go with a North of England opt out (other than local news) until many decades later I discovered that the feed for Divis was a rebroadcast of Sandale! The biggest excitements I can recall were a particularly spectacular life some time in 1965 when suddenly ATV (from Lichfield on channel eight) appeared with excellent quality, coupled with not Ulster but Granada on channel nine; and an even more spectacular one in 1968 when Westward suddenly popped up on channel 12 with sufficient quality for me to watch Gus Honeybun! Those were the days..... (sinks into a morass of monochrome nostalgia)
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My first impression was a feeling of shock when I, as someone used to Tyne Tees went to the YTV region, and was disappointed to see effectively just BBC with adverts.
This was the early 1980s when Tyne Tees basically ran over a minute of live continuity of various types at almost every break, and not many promos. It was quite the shock to see a couple of seconds either side of the break, coupled with several promos one after another. It didn't seem right somehow.
I had been used to going over to Northern Ireland a few times a year and their presentation style was basically an even more laid-back version of Tyne Tees's, so I fully expected YTV to be the same.
Later in the late 1980s (living on a hill) I was able to receive TTT, HTV, Granada, YTV and Anglia from an aerial in the loft, with varying levels of clarity (Granada was the weakest). It was at that point that I started to notice that TTT was a little, let's say slack with the technical aspect, as all those clunks and noisy tape machines (background hum/hiss) etc weren't present on the other stations. It was all very professional and slick elsewhere.
I also remember that on entering Granadaland, the service station you passed used to have Granada logos proudly displayed on the footbridge almost as if it was welcoming you to the region. I had it in my mind then that Granada service stations only existed in the North West.
There was a garage not far from where I lived on the North Wales/Cheshire border called Border Service Stations, and I was convinced a) it was owned by Border TV and b) you could get Border there. I was a great kid.
I was always interested in the regional adverts in the other ITV regions. I already mentioned the Dickens DIY adverts from 1991 and 1992 in Tyne Tees. There were also the bank adverts, as we had different banks north of the border. Of course, some adverts were the same as in STV land. I remember in particular one for Wrangler jeans, and upon seeing it a few times, mum decided to get me a pair whilst we were on holiday! Not bad for a 13 year old kid!
I also remember that on entering Granadaland, the service station you passed used to have Granada logos proudly displayed on the footbridge almost as if it was welcoming you to the region. I had it in my mind then that Granada service stations only existed in the North West.
There was a Granada Cinema in Chichester (West Sussex), I remember seeing the Bond film, Live and Let Die there in 1973. Also of course, Granada TV rental shops, again nationwide. And no, the tellies were always delivered tuned with ITV on button on 3, and not 1 as some might think !
Living in Tyne Tees land we were accustomed, right from the 70s, to weekday start-ups featuring a short Bible reading programme (The Good Word) and a news summary read by the duty CA before handing over to schools programmes or school holiday alternatives. It is surprising how many of the bigger stations (eg Thames and YTV) had nothing at all between the AA/start-up tune and the networked schools standby. Perhaps even the AA was pre-recorded in such cases. It was as late as the mid 80s (well into the TVam era) before many other stations started introducing news bulletins etc at startup.
One could argue that there wasn't much of a target audience for news at 9.25 when there was nothing before it but a testcard (or IBA EA on Tuesdays) and schools broadcasts afterwards. Maybe retirees, the unemployed/housewives, and square-eyes geeky kids like me!
Until the advent of Channel 4, the east side of Dundee could get STV as well as Grampian. According to my friend who lived in Monifieth, just outside of Dundee, they could also get Border too!
