ITV Regional Variations in the 70s and 80s

Soap was on after news at ten on Granada - possibly thursday but that is pure guess

The main reason why Channel changed from TSW to TVS was because of Crossroads. Simply as Westward used to show Crossroads at 6.35pm, so Channel did too, anyway TSW comes along and moves Crossroads to 5.20pm, Channel did the same, but due to complaints they rescheduled it back to 6.35pm which meant they had to record it off air from TSW at 5.20pm and then broadcast it on Channel at 6.35pm, which for them seemed a bit of a nightmare.

They switched to TVS as they showed Crossroads at 6.35pm, when Southern was on air they showed it at 5.20pm, the reason for the move there was originally on TVS, Coast to Coast used to start at 5.30pm and then run until 6.30pm, although I can't say how long this practice carried on for.

hourly episode were gone by 83, I believe.

Apologies if this had been posted, but didn't have time to look back six pages.

Grampian used to show an hour of regional news on a Monday night at 6pm, and even changed the title of North Tonight to Summer at Six each year in the 80s, presented with a less " newsy " feel.

I seem to remember Grampian used to show regional programmes on a Monday night at 7pm, along with US imports such as Sledgehammer and Married with Children on Mondays / Thursdays after the News At Ten. Tuesday at 7pm was their other regional slot ( The Paul Coia Show / The Way It Was ), and they used to show other regional programmes on a Friday at 1035pm, Also on Thursdays you would get the regional politics show Crossfire, latterly followed by Gaelic programmes ( Tuesdays / Thursdays ).

Bring back Grampian and their invision continuity!

The hourly programme was gone by the time they moved into the Maidstone Studios at the end of '82.

In the late 90s, under the leadership of Bruce Gyngell, Yorkshire and Tyne Tees were subject to quite a few regional variations following his purge on sex on TV.

Various series of late-night shows, The Good Sex Guide and Carnal Knowledge weren't shown in the regions as part of his campaign - much to the delight of Mary Whitehouse. Prime-time series, Hollywood Lovers was also never shown, and replaced with Whicker's World Turns Again.

Most controversially, another late-night show, God's Gift was pulled mid-series to prevent a gay edition of the programme going out. I was rather proud at the time of a friend of mine who appeared on Right To Reply to complain about the apparently homophobic decision.

By the time Home and Away started 'The 6 o Clock Show' had finished they followed it up with a couple of similar hour long programmes for a while. I can't remember what happened after they went to doing a half hour bulletin, but towards the end of Thames they started doing a handover again so they presumably moved it after 6

The reason that Thames went for a 6pm showing of Home and Away was because people get home from work later in London than anywhere else so they moved their news to 6:30, H&A at 6 and Blockbusters or equivalent at 5:15/510. Those 3 were in various combinations across the network, I don't think any other region had an hour long regional programme until after 1992, (except maybe on Friday)

When Carlton came along LNN and London Tonight was launched - an hour at 6pm Mon-Fri so Home and away moved to the consistent 5:10. This only lasted a couple of years then they decided that the hour long news wasn't working and they split it into two with 'After 5' on at 5:10, a half hour London Tonight at 6 and Home and Away at 6:30

In fact when Home and Away started it was only on at teatimes, it was about a year in before they started screening it at lunchtimes as well. The first lunchtime slot, I remember, was 12.25 because kids in my class used to be able to go home and watch it in their lunchbreaks and leg it back to school for one o'clock. They moved it to 1.20 during the Gulf War when the News at One was extended and became the News at 12.30 again.

Since this thread seems to be turning into some sort of record of Home and Away scheduling, Granada started it at 5.10 but moved it to six in January 1990 when Granada Reports became Granada Tonight and moved from six to 6.30 (which was possible as Emmerdale's network slot moved from 6.30 to seven at the same time). Then in 1992 they moved it back to 5.10 and Granada put regional shows at six, including Blockbusters, Families* and an hour-long Granada Tonight on Fridays. But that flopped as in January 1993 they moved the regional shows back to 5.10 and Home and Away back to six. Then in January 1997 they moved H&A back to 5.10, Granada Tonight to six and regional shows at 6.30, until they got fed up of the effort a year later and just did an hour-long Granada Tonight.

That * in full, then. Families was an odd one as it was mostly networked at 3.25, and Granada, as they made it, did an omnibus on Thursdays at 10.40. However for some reason Granada decided not to show the network screenings after a while and only showed the omnibus. During 1992 they screened it at six o'clock for a bit but when that slot ended they didn't go abck to 3.25, but went back to showing the omnibus alone. I remember the last ever episode was an extended 45 minute show, which neccessitated moving the 3.20 news bulletin, so Granada had to put a cartoon on to fill time. So the only region not showing Families in its intended slot was the region that made it.

Granada also persisted with the Corrie omnibus after the regions dropped it in the early nineties, and when they launched daytime repeats of Corrie in 1993, Granada didn't take them and stuck with the omnibus on Sunday teatimes. They used to reschedule the ITV shows like Dr Quinn Medicine Woman and The Cosby Mysteries for mid-afternoon and put the omnibus on at 6.30. They never showed the Monday episode in this omnibus, by the way, just Wednesday and Friday, so if you missed Monday's, tough. They had to eventually stop when the Sunday episode started in 1996.

Of course, a few series were only shown in a few regions, Granada and Carlton alone showed Granada's stupid CofE soap Revelations, and in return, Granada showed Carlton's awful London Bridge for a bit.

In the nineties, Granada also did what no other region seemed to do and take Granada Tonight off for two or three weeks in August, and instead do a five minute bulletin and fill the rest of the time with Laugh With The Carry Ons. Surely the North West generated enough news in August for a proper show. It's quite a big region!

No-one has mentioned Falcon Crest.

Also when did Prisoner first air in the Granada region? I first saw it around August 1988 and looking at the recents DVDs it must have been one of the first which I saw, but I know it was on three nights a week but I still wonder how they got through so many episodes so qickly?

One of the characters in that show, ("Chase"?) had a car with the licence plate, "4-PLAY".

My grandmother said she thought it was obscene, but wouldn't elaborate on what it meant.

Happy now?

Well, occasionally there's a big long list of who showed it when on the show's Wikipedia page, but spoilsport moderators keep taking it off. Here it is on an old version...

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Prisoner_(TV_series)&oldid=318571545#ITV_Regional_Scheduling

I love that list, if only for the speculation on how Yorkshire may have scheduled it had they not merged with Tyne Tees. Scheduling fan fiction! That's what I want to read. I can't remember where I read it but somewhere someone once mentioning how they introduced a British character and they came from Yorkshire, and they speculated if that was because, at the time, only Yorkshire were showing it in Britain.

Of course the famous thing about Yorkshire and Tyne Tees merging is that Yorkshire had to skip two hundred episodes of The Young Doctors to catch up with Tyne Tees, and edited those entire two hundred episodes down to two minutes,

Whne Granada and LWT merged, they sometimes showed regional shows on both, which was quite glamorous for Granada (they also showed them on Border as they always took Granada's regional output). There was a Tarby chat show late on Saturday nights and they also did a few weekend events, one a Hospital Watch rip-off from hospitals in London and Manchester, and something called Holidaywatch Live, presented by Tony Wilson, which over the weekend featured live links to Bob Greaves in Blackpool and Jono Coleman in Southend. Then the following week Garry Bushell parodied it on his rubbish late night Bushell On The Box series, much to the bemusement of everyone who didn't live in London or the North West. There was also NvS, the Dominik Diamond-fronted quiz with teams from the Granada region taking on teams from the LWT region, and a Jonathan Ross-fronted chat show which brilliantly went out at 10.30 on Fridays, exactly the same slot he has now. But only on Granada and LWT, which shows you what sort of state his career was in in 1996.

I remember that, it used to be on Saturday lunchtimes on Granada (and presumably LWT), I also remember it as the end cap was A Granada and LWT Co-Production, which had the G Arrow logo on the usual LWT endcap.

I think Granada gave this kind of idea another go earlier in this decade, Crimefighters and some Comedy thing with Ed Byrne comes to mind, all Regions (Granada, Yorkshire, Tyne Tees, Border, Meridian, Anglia and LWT) got the programme but their own versions appropriate to their areas.

I don't remember the Jonathan Ross programme, I do remember The Big Big Talent Show, that was made by LWT, but I do believe that one was networked.