Networked ITV - 1990s and before...

A question about TV-am - how did they get on the air?
Were they routed through local ITV stations galleries or did they have control over the network transmitters.
Could a local station over-ride the output if they wanted? ( I realise that they weren't franchised to broadcast at that time, just theoretically speaking here )

No, TV-am totally by-passed the ITV companies. The IBA and BT switched and patched the local ends and network feeds accordingly. In fact because manual patching was required at some BT switching centres, for the first few months of operation, TV-am closed down at 09:15hrs, to provide a 10 minute period for BT to repatch.

When Mr & Mrs started being networked, the first Border series was recorded at Tyne Tees as ITV wanted the show to go out in colour and Border only had black and white equipment at the time. The story goes that the money made from that first networked series allowed Border to invest in some second-hand colour equipment and record all of their subsequent editions at Carlisle.

http://www.mr-and-mrs.tv/mr-and-mrs-story-so-far.htm

The IBA and BT routed them, just as was the case for the switching between LWT and Thames I believe? (Though ISTR that there was a junction where LWT were switched by Thames for a trail for their local news - though this was usually non-sync ?)

In other words, TVam were routed directly to the IBA transmitters, bypassing the local ITV franchise facilities. This meant that ITV didn't have to have any staff present during TVam transmission hours, and there was no possibility for ITV stations to opt-out of TVam, as during these periods the ITV franchise had no connection to the transmitters.

GMTV took a different approach.

Gloriously non sync !!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBbgp9Yay44

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mxva6S6OLEg

The sync-jump on both examples is accentuated by the original VCR's servo jumping a beat !

Feature films, adverts and series shot on film were in colour on Border from their 10th birthday in September 1971. Local programmes, live and on tape, were black-and-white until late summer 1973. And the film inserts in Lookaround remained in monochrome for a fair while after that. The original quotee, if there's such a word, is incorrect in stating that Border dropped in-vision continuity totally from 1971 until the late 80s. The continuity studio did remain monochrome after the main studios were equipped for colour. But it was still utilised for local news etc, although Border Diary, for example, was a read over a colourised caption. But there was colour in vision continuity long before the late 80s.

That is the first time some has given point information its a shame ch4 did not keep doing this



TT, did do it 6 times a week, I think around 84/85. I think there were two feeds, one from

* Central - Borders, Granada, HTV, TT, UTV and Yorkshire ( Mon - fri/sat)

* Thames - Anglia, Grampian, Scottish and TVS, ( Wed- Sat)

When did TSW actually broadcast this?



I thought most of the US sitcoms started coming off ITV and moved over to ch4 by this time?

I know at least in early 87 when Crossroad kings oak was killed off it would have left them with alot of free slots.

it just seems to be wild time around those slots,

Yes, and the sync jump was present on both ITV and Ch4, both at 9:25 am and the Thames/LWT changeover.

I don't remember there ever being an LWT News trail on Thames but the opposite did happen in the 80's when LWT had a Thames news bulletin on Friday evenings. This would have just been taken as an outside source rather than being a change of transmitter routing but I have seen a recording of one of them on YouTube where there is a bit of picture disturbance at the cut.

Indeed, hence their spat with UTV when UTV decided to opt out of GMTV for breaking news.

Ah Thames Weekend news, it appeared from 1982 - 1988, September - May it has 15mins slot within Six O'clock show, while during the summer there had stand alone show

Here is the clip: http://www.ultimate-lwt.co.uk/video071.html it does look like it goes back to Thames?

by 1988, LWT got off there back side and introduce LWT news outsourced to another company, and Friday now was born, that never lasted long, that got axed and Six o'clock live come about in 1989 , until Summer of 1992.

it was replaced by cheaper LWT news at 5.15pm. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRCuhLtvjhY
H&W at 6pm

I know that TV-am provided the advertising on 'The Channel 4 Daily' from May 1989 until Dec 1992, but didn't the ads come into C4, or perhaps ITN as an outside source, rather than C4 being routed via TV-am ?

I've never managed to find out what happened for S4C. Was S4C's output routed via HTV Cardiff (a lá the rest of the UK for C4) or the ads provided as an outside source into S4C ?

They cut to their studio but not the same as the 5:15 changeover. I've seen videos online where there's a similar jolt going into a programme being played from another ITV station, I think the stations were less fussy about sync jumps.... but the VHS machines at home weren't


Not quite. LWT News was the replacement for the Thames Weekend News and did appear in the 6 o'Clock Show for a while (I remember Michael Aspel and Andrew Gardener commenting that it would be the last time they'd hand over to each other), LWT News appeared within them too, although in the case of 6 o'Clock Live from the same studio (studio 10) as that was the news studio at the time too

There was also 'Weekend Live' which were glorified in-vision continuity throughout the weekend (and a longish programme on Sunday)