Hidden gem on ITV4 -- old TVS footage

Just thought I'd mention this since it's something you don't see every day.

As part of the Big Match Revisited series, ITV4 today broadcast a complete edition of the TVS variant "The Saturday Match" with Fred Dinenage resplendent in his big shades, complete with the obligatory early-80s screen-wipes, dodgy early-computerised astons and the TVS ident at the start.

Certainly surprised me to see that one again on-screen after all this time.

I have it TiVo-ed, and I believe it's repeated on Sunday.

I caught an LWT 'Big Match' last week & was intrigued to notice that they used the same music as Granada 'Kick Off'.

Jeff Wayne composition I believe.

About time we had a ATV or Central programme IMO

By the way, why didn't ITV4 reedit the individual shows into a new package, as they still broadcast info that would be out of date?(Yes & I did notice the date in the corner of the screen!)

Well ATV would be no more seeing as they're only showing 1983 eps.

Didn't ITV lose the rights at the end of the 83 season? Hopefully they'll shift back to an earlier year next season if that is the case.

Yesterday's ep actually contained a plug for some showjumping coverage which followed the original showing.

I bet Fred never imagined this would be shown nationwide in the future, much less 25 years later when his employer was long dead!!!

Actually here's a thing -- if TVS's programmes are stuck in limbo how did ITV get clearance for this rather obscure (and somewhat battered) piece of tape?

They are slightly repackaged (new captions here and there, and one or two sections of some programmes seem to have been pulled out).

The TVS showing was what really surprised me though. This holds up some hope that other "lesser" regional programmes like Shoot and Match of the Week may eventually make it to the screen.

Take your point about ATV.

Surely TVS, & Southern before that, sports footage would've been classed as part of the local news archive which would've been sold / passed onto the new company, Meridian?

ATV Midlands news & sport archive certainly passed to Central in 81 / 82!

How 'battered' is battered?

It must have been transmittable at least, or are ITV transmission standards really appalling thesedays?

They alternated with the BBC for the rights, in the case of the 82/83 season the BBC had the Live Sunday aftenoon games where as ITV had the Saturday Night highlights, whilst for the 83/84 season ITV had the Sunday afternoon Live game where as the BBC had MOTD on a Saturday night. I think continued until 1988, although there was no Football on TV at all in Autumn 1985, which is hard to believe now.

> They alternated with the BBC for the rights

I see. So they will have to move forward or back some time, assuming they continue with this (interesting) series.

As for the battered bit, it was generally very good, but there were a couple of times where there was some quite bad tape dropout, especially noticeable when captions were on-screen.

That said, who knows, the programme may have gone out like that in the first place -- I know TTTV were quite guilty of that at the time (re-using tapes over and over, and when captions appeared you'd get flickering lines all over the place).

Good point about TVS's local output being passed onto Meridian, which of course would mean that it is indeed part of ITV's library now. Interesting that on the Granada and TVS shows, the front and endcap were left intact, but for LWT the frontcap has always been edited out.

They NEED to show some other regions now

I believe many TVS tapes are at Leeds.

what tapes you ask? well that is a very good Question, and you will have to ask ITV.

Catchphrase TVS will never be coming BACK!

That may not be drop out - it may just be poor line-up of the replay machine - as sharp caption edges have lots of high frequencies, and because (like analogue satellite) 1" and 2" VTRs used FM recording, any poor line-up will show up as white sparklies (often very disturbing) on high frequency detail (like sharp caption edges) and also on saturated coloured areas (where you have a lot of high frequency chroma subcarrier)

1" VT machines suffered from this far more than 2" machines ISTR - because the format pushes things much further.

From memory - I think this was called "bearding" - though it is identical in cause to "sparklies" on analogue satellite AIUI.



I would expect the sport to be treated differently to local news - different rights, different production teams, and different formats. News items of that era will be on 16mm film or UMatic 3/4" VT - with the only likely use of 1"/2" being for PasBs (Programme As Broadcast - i.e. the studio show recording) - which may or may not have been retained as part of the local news archive. (Often inserts are treated as news archive, but PasBs as programme archive)

I think we heard you the last 70 or so times you've said that.

I believe a lot of the TVS tapes are still at Maidstone but we've been over this time and time again.

Er NO, there are NO tapes at Maidstone, I phoned them one day, and there said there place was refurbish and al tapes were moved on.....

Where? no idea!

I spoke with disney and there said No ---- Catchphrase