Let's Talk

In terms of a late night talk show - after speaking with a researcher in television, she said it can be traced back to pre-1972 why we do not have a history of late night talk shows on British television.

She believes that before January 1972, all broadcasting hours on British television was regulated and controlled by the Postmaster General, and for a long time, both the BBC and ITV were restricted into only airing regular programming for 50 hours during the course of a week.

By the mid 1960s this worked out as 7 hours a day Monday to Friday, 7.5 hours a day on Saturday and Sunday = 50 hour week

It was only in 1968 and later in 1971 that the broadcasting hours "ration" was extended to 7.5 hours, seven days a week, up to 8 hours a day by 1971 - so both BBC and ITV had to be careful in where they used these hours, saving the majority of the hours for their peak viewing schedules.

She gave an example that in 1960 when the US talk show Tonight Show was starting to become very successful, British television was very restricted.

In 1960 - BBC Television would normally air their 7 hour rationed day of programmes like this - 2.30pm until 2.45pm Watch with Mother. Regular programmes then ran from 5.00pm until around 11.15pm. Any other programmes would be exempted programming such as educational programmes and sporting coverage.

ITV was the same, with all ITV franchises saving their 7 hour day for 4.45pm until 11.45pm with others such as Granada airing from 5pm to Midnight and Southern television from 4.20pm until 11.20pm.

This meant there was really not much spare time for nightly talk shows in this era - and this hangover continued after the lifting of restrictions in 1972.

But if we're comparing to the American late night chat shows, they're still heavily censored.

Don't forget BBC 2's Late Night Line Up, which was open ended. I've heard the then BBC2 controller David Attenborough say that they would just quietly run way past the scheduled finish time, because anyone from the Dept of Post and Telecommunications would have been safely tucked up in bed.

The Old Grey Whistle Test and I think Film 19xx were spins off of LNLU, and the former also would often be open ended

For language yeah, bizarrely. But you're not going t get the kind of political satire that fuels most of those late night shows at 5pm.

I thought that was the main concept of LNLU, that it was open ended so debates could continue naturally.


That programme is one of those ‘I wish I was there to see it’ things for me.

Youtube has this full episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56LzrE6dQEg

I think the BBC had to publish a finite running time (in RadioTimes etc) to satisfy the Postmaster General rules, but it rarely actually ran to time.

I'm too young to remember it too. My dad always used to say it was the best thing BBC 2 ever screened.

I've checked a few late 60s/early 70s editions of the Radio Times and they don't in fact show a finish time for Late Night Line-Up or its spin-offs.


Also the BBC1 Film xx series wasn't a spin-off of LNLU, but the BBC2 series Film Night was.

Comparing 'Late Night Line Up' with a 2010's - 2020's late night talk show is a bit chalk and cheese. The former a specialist and extremely intelligence led intellectual tour de force, the latter ......

I can help you with that - the reason why Late Night Line Up had an open ended form was the fact BBC 2 never used up their rationed daily allowance during the earlier part of the day like BBC 1 or ITV.


For example in 1966, BBC 2 would be on air for 20 minutes at 11.00am for Playschool and then nothing until 7.30pm leaving the channel with 6.5 hours of transmissions left, allowing Late Night Line Up the freedom to be open ended.

BBC 2 was not widely available in the UK for nearly a decade, due to it being transmitted on 625 line UHF and later in colour, so it would not be a channel which would be the best place to air a regular late night talk show which would probably be more suited to BBC 1 or ITV

Just an example - Friday 13th March 1970 - BBC 2 was on air at 11.00am - 11.20am for Playschool, and then would not start again until 7.05pm.

Line Up was scheduled that Friday at 11.10pm - In 1970 the daily hours limit was set at 7.5 hours a day (increased by the government in 1968 at the behest of the new ITV franchises) and meant BBC Two could continue until after 2am if they really wanted too - but that was never going to happen, due to the severe budget limit BBC 2 had.