The Fight for Saturday Night

Out of all the replies your is the best, from an independent view points, saying that PJ never wanted BGT, he never created TV BURP since that happened in 2001 nor did he move it into Saturday teatime that happen two years before he come along.




This is were the fine line needs to be made, Paul Jackson, the producer and director: This section is not up for discussing and never was, I never made any untowards comments about this work, with The Ronnies, the young ones, girls on top Cannon and ball and of course Red Dwarf. etc He know how to take content and put it out in a nice package.

What I'm on on about is the other role he went on to, ie in control of; creating of context, etc which is a different kettle of fish from execution of content, I will not apologise for my view on point on this topic. Mr Jackson was director of programmes at Carlton Television for, so nearly all content over that first year had to be past off by him, The content was heavily criticised, you cant whitewash this. I can go on if wish.

Just because you awesome at one thing, does not mean it translate into another department.

Saturday Roadshow, had nearly all the features of House party, When it comes to the The Gen Game, it would have helped prove the point its a great show and you can have a number of different hosts, and it come back and still managed to get some where.

Thanks for recommending this, great watch. Very interesting to see the "off air recordings" used, especially for Blind Date. Can anyone here explain the definition of these and why they're kept though? Handy for occasions like this of course but just wondering how common they are or if it's luck of the draw - VT ops leaving the tapes running even maybe by accident? I've seen a few over the years but the previous ones seemed to be more accident and whereas some ad breaks would be full studio sound and vision, some would be just vision or sound but most would be the VT clocks as transmitted to the broadcaster. A vague, geeky question I know. Basically I'd like to know if every live show going would be set up like this in terms of off air records. Are they basically one of the B or C rolls? That's another one I've been interested in, may make a thread about it all actually.

Great watch - could easily have got a three of four part series out of that by going through the decades, though it is something TV seems to revisit quite often.

Noels House Party is pretty lucky it's last couple of years didn't ruin it's legacy - seeing bits of that again just reminds me how great TV entertainment actually was in the 90s.

Im pretty sure that Roadshow was live, at least there were viewers playing games on the phone, but whether they phoned in I cant remember.

It was pretty low profile but then I don't remember House Party being a big launch. In our house I remember not really realising that it was a new show until it started.


I cant remember what the status of that episode is. Its certainly not locked away totally.

Many years ago I borrowed the viewing copy of a Late Late from a colleague and only at the end did I realise that it was the last episode. It was an odd enough watch before I became aware of that

There are a few episodes on youtube




Nearly all of the house party content did start on Roadshow, like NTV, wait till I get you home, etc

Saturday Roadshow was definitely live, and was fairly successful as it lasted three series. Many of the key features of NHP originated on the Roadshow such as the Gotchas, Wait Till I Get You Home and the gunge tank.

Not entirely sure what you are asking. By their very nature "Off-air" recordings are recorded "off-air" i.e. by a recorder tuned to the broadcast that is going to people's homes. They are just the same as a domestic recording. They were usually booked in central areas so that there were guaranteed VHS recordings and you didn't have to pay to have lots of VHS recorders in your studio or at your OB, nor pay for an expensive dub from the master. In the case of a commercial broadcast, the off-airs would have the ad breaks intact just as the viewer would have seen them at home.

You'd usually make just a couple of VHS recordings in the studio or OB (often at least one with time code) These would not be off-airs as they were directly fed from the studio or OB source direct. On commercial shows these would have the output of the studio, so you'd see the VT clock or however the next part was due to start on the recording during the advert breaks on a live show.

There would often also be VHS dubs made of the insert rolls if time to allow for viewing prior to transmission without using a broadcast VTR. Again these are not "off-airs". These may be called A and B rolls - but on many shows you would use clones of the same roll for A & B rolls (rather than editing separate rolls) for both security and flexibility. These days you usually play inserts from EVS, Airspeed or K2, so don't have to worry about creating insert rolls (thank goodness) and have the flexibility of playing any insert from any line/channel in many cases (thank goodness)

The reason off-airs (from VHS, YouTube etc.) are used on programmes like the BBC Four one are because the programme makers will be using the "Fair Dealing" law in many cases. This allows you to use clips without permission and without payment as long as you abide by a number of rules. You have to attribute the artistic work (usually with a caption), you have to use the clip for the purposes of criticism, review or reporting current events, and you can only use the minimum length needed to make your point. (Your criticism or review should last at least as long as the clip too) If you are using fair dealing, you obviously can't ring up a broadcaster and ask for a copy of their shows for the purposes of fair dealing, so you usually source this content via third parties if you don't have a copy already.

The broadcast quality archive copy of a live show is usually called (at least in the BBC) a PasB (Programme as Broadcast) It is usually made in the studio or OB truck if at all possible, and ideally before any compressed circuits that could reduce the quality. This is the broadcast quality archive copy lodged with BBC Information and Archives (i.e. the BBC library) and is also potentially used for programme re-sale or re-versioning. It will often include the run-up to transmission and the aftermath of transmission (you would expect to be recording at least 2'00" before the show starts and often a bit longer)

I believe broadcasters are required to keep viewing copies (they don't need to be broadcast copies) of their output for a reasonable length of time, with time-of-day (I think). This is because defendants in court cases may use the "I was in because I remember XX / YY happening on ZZ" and the prosecution may want to disprove that ZZ happened at that point by checking what was broadcast and when, precisely.

It was an excellent show although I think they were concentrating on the after 7pm slot rather than the early evening shows hence why there wasn't mention of Jim Davidson (guess he was never popular at the Beeb!). Also no mention of Gladiators, Pets Win Prizes (which launched Dale Winton's primetime career) or any of the Lottery shows.. but the documentary was already 90 mins long, it could have gone on forever!

Surprised Nigel Lythgoe didn't get some kind of mention.

I'm surprised about the lack of Gladiators considering many of the people interviewed had connections with LWT. There was also no mention of You Bet or Stars In Their Eyes. If they'd covered Davidson's Gen Game they could have interviewed him about Big Break too.

I do enjoy Michael Grade's documentaries both on TV and radio. The fact that he was around and has stories to share relating to the subject adds something extra special.

NTV didn't, it started with Noels House Party.

It was definitely pre-recorded! I remember when watching it occasionally noticing some fairly obvious edit points. Many of the NHP features did indeed originate on it, but it was a major part of the publicity surrounding the start of the House Party that it would be broadcast live, unlike its predecessor.


(Incidentally, the Wikipedia article on the Roadshow does reckon it was broadcast live, but then it can't even get the title of the programme correct - it should be the 'The Noel Edmonds Saturday Roadshow', not 'Noel's Saturday Roadshow').

There was an interesting point made by Peter Fincham in the programme, about the timings
of Saturday night shows. They are, and always have been, random. No fixed scheduled time
for any of them, on either channel. eg 18:25 or 19:10 or whatever fits.

Not something you get (today) with weekdays. That was something ITV have always
had weekdays, everything in peak in neat 30 or 60 min blocks, and something Grade
brought with him to BBC 1 when he became their controller in 1984.