ITV Regional Variations in the 70s and 80s

Blockbusters was never really Networked. even for a couple of years from 85 - 88: half the channels only broadcast it Wednesdays to Fridays due to Emmerdale being dumped in that slot, monday and Tuesdays

other places opt out here and there. Before that in 83.84 it was shown at; 15.30 or and in 1989 onwards it was all over the place

Thanks for your replies. I never realised regional variations were still quite regular in the early 90s. I was very surprised to hear that Blockbusters wasn't networked. I can't remember if Married With Children was shown in the Central Region, did it ever get shown in the Midlands?

They may have done but it was 1988 when they showed it properly and 5 days a week.

Yes apparently Central never showed the Sullivans - it was on ATV but they dropped it before Central took over. I remember The Sullivans was on HTV for years and years just 2 says a week (Mon/Tues) until the Mid 1990s!

1983 there broadcast it hourly once a week, by September it was dropped.

Scottish/ Grampain TV were the only places that kept the hourly format, the rest went for the strange 30mins.

HTV showed it hourly on Thursdays then Fridays at around 2.20pm I seem to remember - then when Sons and Daugters ended they replaced it with half hour ACP's Wed-Fri at 3.30pm! By the end of its run it was on at 5.10pm on HTV with Home and Away at 6pm.

Gosh, this column is making me feel very old...

For the benefit of our younger readers (lol) until the early 90s, the schedule varied wildly from region to region. If you received a second ITV region, you effectively had a fifth channel for several hours a day.

Some of the schedule was properly networked - the bulk of peak time programmes, sport, Children's ITV on weekdays, the news.

Some of the schedule was "half networked" as it were - shown in several regions but not by all. For instance, the Scottish regions all took Farming Outlook from Tyne Tees on Sunday morning.

Some programmes were eventually shown nationally but on wildly different days and times.

Some programmes were properly networked but individual regions chose to take them at different times, eg Crossroads.

Different regions showed their regional programmes in different slots - there was no slot specifically for regional output.

Off peak films, most imports and so on tended not to be properly networked but were sometimes shared by individual regions.

Naturally, stations like STV with a lot of local programmes were the most distinct - but even the schedules between English regions were often very different. Hope this helps.

The last region to finish Prisoner was Westcountry who did so in late 1997. This left UTV, Meridian and Carlton, who were all well behind and all eventually cancelled it around 100 episodes from the end.

UTV did so at the end of 1997 saying they had run out of episodes and couldn't buy the rest now that C5 were showing it, Carlton 'temporarily' suspended it in mid 1998 and spent a year promising to return it before admitting that they weren't going to, whilst Meridian ploughed on until mid-1999 when they pulled it, their explanation being that network programming had taken over it's timeslot and they had nowhere else to put it

That really is poor! even Scottish were able to finsh it and that was in late 1996? there were worse at showing Oz show.

Another show that was never network in the same time slot was bullseye!

Same place like TVS has it at 2pm. others had it at 5pm like central, and the Scottish viewers? 6pm!

Sorry about the late reply, the listings aren't in full in the book, but to give you an idea, here's some of the line-up and variation from Saturday 22nd December 1979

Anglia
10.30 Saturday Banana
12.30 World Of Sport
5.30 Mork and Mindy
6.00 Film
8.15 Search for a star

Border
10.30 Tiswas
12.30 World Of Sport
5.30 Happy Days
6.00 Film
8.15 Search for a star

Channel
12.30 World Of Sport
5.30 Mork and Mindy
6.00 Film
7.40 Xmas Sale of the Century

Grampian
10.30 Tiswas
12.30 World Of Sport
5.30 Happy Days
6.00 Film
8.15 Search for a star

Granada
10.30 Tiswas
12.30 World Of Sport
5.30 Happy Days
6.00 Film
8.15 Search for a Star

HTV
10.30 Tiswas
12.30 World of Sport
5.30 Mork and Mindy
6.00 Film
8.15 Search for a Star

LWT/Thames
10.30 Tiswas
12.30 World of Sport
5.30 Happy Days
6.00 Film
8.15 Search for a star

Midlands
10.30 Tiswas
12.30 World Of Sport
5.30 Mork and Mindy
8.15 Search for a star

Scottish
10.30 Tiswas
12.30 World Of Sport
5.30 Film
7.40 Christmas Sale of the Century
8.15 Search for a star

Southern
10.30 Saturday Banana
12.30 World Of Sport
5.30 Happy Days
6.00 Film
8.15 Search for a Star

Tyne Tees
9.00 Saturday Shake-Up
12.30 World of Sport
5.30 Happy Days
6.00 Film
8.15 Search for a Star

Ulster
11.30 Christmas in Sesame Street
12.30 World of Sport
5.30 Mork and Mindy
6.00 Film
8.15 Search for a Star

Westward
9.20 Morning Picture Show
12.30 World of Sport
5.30 Mork and Mindy
6.00 Film
8.15 Search for a Star

Yorkshire
10.30 Tiswas
12.30 World of Sport
5.30 Happy Days
6.00 Film
8.15 Search for a star

To summarise, World of Sport and Search for a Star being the only networked programmes from this particular day in the Junior TV Times. Also interesting to note Tyne Tees and Westward's morning programmes are for their regions only. Mork and Mindy or Happy Days taking the 5.30 slot on all except STV, and most likely Channel, Ulster and probably Border all coming on air in the morning later than the rest of the Network.

Here's a couple of thoughts.

Was the 3rd Batman series(the one featuring Batgirl) ever shown in ATV Central land, as I don't remember ever seeing those episodes until the infamous TV AM strike reruns?

I remember seeing episodes on ATV in the early 80's(Saturday mornings?), but never ones featuring the 'Dominoed Daredoll' (As I believe she was refered to on one website I've read somewhere!).

Similary the Mork & Mindy episodes featuring Jonathan Winters as Mork's son Mearth, were those ever shown in the Midlands?

Another TVAM dust off were 'The Ghost & Mrs Muir' & 'Nanny & The Professor'. Never heard of those until TVAM.

In fact did any US series ever get a complete run start to end on it's first transmission or did we miss out on the later episodes?

(I used to watch '3rd Rock From The Sun' when it was Thursdays at 9 on BBC2, but lost track of it when it moved to a later slot & you never remembered to set the video!)

Noticing the post above, why didn't Westward or TVS ever broadcast an 'ITV' branded service to both themselves & Channel on Saturday mornings, if Channel were unable(Financial reasons?) to start their own service at that time? (Legal reasons? Technical reasons, as it would have been an 'off air' transmission in the Isles?)

When did Channel start all day broadcasting on Saturdays? When TV AM started?

Thank you for that! I forgot to say that Sale of the Century ( we can add Give us a clue Pre daytime ) was also never networked. Scottish did broadcast Mork and mindy and Happy days but else where......

Different strokes/ Benson was also all over the place, some stations had it at 6.30pm

Was SOAP networked at 10.40?

I forgot to say:

you can see how Saturday mornings looked like in the 70s here: http://www.tiswasonline.com/look_in.php?details=on

Missing date in 1979 for Stv and Grampain can be looked here:
http://www.tiswasonline.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=927&start=60

I also have a listing ( somewhere) for a couple of Saturday evening in early 1979: which has the same programmes from 5pm - 11pm but there all at different times!