Ghostwatch: 25 Years On

you mean Noel?

I'd just be glad that more presenters haven't decided they don't want to be associated with that time and also refuse their episodes to be shown.

As far as I'm aware presenters technically have no ability to block showings of their episodes any more (they did on the UK Gold showings in the 90s, but things have changed since then, and even then it was only Mike & Noel who blocked). It's a bizarre situation and he seems to be getting special treatment not afforded to other presenters. I can't help but think if he was still alive we'd be getting his episodes regardless of what he thought. It wouldn't be as bad if he was just an occasional presenter, but he was the most prominent presenter at one time, he does 16 episodes a year between 1985-87.

The fact BBC4 seem to regularly tweet clips of Mike during their TOTP tweetalongs makes the situation even more confusing, along with including a clip of him introducing Wham appeared at the end of their TOTP Story of 1981 last year, and Radio 1 Vintage broadcasting an hour of his archive a few weeks ago.

You mentioned Noel- none of his episodes were blocked on BBC4, we saw all his surviving April 76-78 episodes (and the Xmas 75 edition in 2015).

There's so many theories going round about the issue though, one of them is he took out an injuction due to BBC4 showing clips of him presenting TOTP with Jimmy Savile in the aftermath of that scandal that stopped them broadcasting TOTP footage of him, I don't have the slightest idea if that's true true though. Could explain why BBC4 still tweet clips of pretty much everything he did except TOTP though.

All sorts of stories, rumours and theories come from these situations, it could be as simple as respecting the wishes of a dead man (even if they'd not have been respected if he was alive- and of course he could have changed his mind then anyway) and not offend his widow, but it's such a shame the viewers (and the acts who appeared on his episodes) lose out.

Ghostwatch is after my time so I’ve never seen it fully, however I’ve read many things about it in the past and I think there was something about it in a BBC 4 show about how horror evolved or something like that, but I’ve got to say there’s something tremendously sad about the fact this a show that actually resulted in a death... never fully knew about that, that’s awful. To think potentially if there were just a bit more clarity about it before it aired someone would still be alive is crazy.

(but then again, many could just turn it off... perhaps it’s a ‘i want to look away’ but I can’t’ type of thing?)

It has come out on DVD (though it might have been discontinued by now), and it has been on the Virgin Media on demand service in the past, so it has been available even if it's never been repeated.

Not as much, but the show certainly seems to more akin to a C4 stunt. A lot of the public shock came from not expecting the BBC to be as subversive as that.




Read the OP – the "film" tag was only added with two days to go. The makers didn't want it, and management weren't too concerned about warnings or disclaimers.




No, the British Medical Journal reported on children who had lasting trauma because of the programme. They shouldn't have watched it, of course, but the presentation was in some way "child-friendly": featuring a kids' TV presenter, the story being about a family with kids, and so on.

Radio Times, which had been on sale for more than two days beforehand, clearly billed it as a drama, complete with cast list!

http://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/a0cfb8b043c7440b920b8217aa4d5ca6

Not everyone gets the Radio Times though.

The RT did sell a lot more copies then than it did now, despite deregulation of tv listings which was still relatively new then.

james-2001 has very clearly stated the name of who he's referring to, there. Mike Smith was on the roster of TOTP presenters for much of the 1980s (which is where the BBC Four repeats currently are).

Noel (Edmonds) - to whom I presume you are referring, 623058? - was on the TOTP presenter roster for a similar chunk of the previous decade, but I think had already well-and-truly left TOTP for good before even January 1979 (let alone the 1980s).

Be that as it may, some people still didn’t get it and the Bite Back special even mentions this...