Networked ITV - 1990s and before...

There were a number on important changes that night.

ITV and C4: The switch from Oracle to Teletext Ltd. The programme companies had nothing to do with Teletext.
The insertion points were at (still are) each main transmitter, so at midnight NTL (ex IBA now Arqiva) engineers had to patch an inserter into the video path at the appropriate transmitter sites.

I saw a very slight glitch a few seconds after midnight on Meridian, that was the exact point at which the Teletext data stream appeared..

C4's contract with BT changed at midnight, out went the analogue SHF BT links, and local ends via the ITV companies, and in came the BT fibre optic system, feeding main transmitters directly serving the LEMNUS macro regions. I have no detail how the changeover was achieved, but the interruptions reported in this thread were almost certainly due to that switchover. There'd have been work required at C4 HFR, and at about 25 transmitter sites.

I think C4 was still at Charlotte Street until 1994

I read somewhere Anglia went around 1998. I agree with you about Granada - it was a poor service compared to what other regions that had shared playout got. I don't remember being all that bothered when it went to London in 2002 as you weren't in effect losing all that much as we already had quasi-network continuity for four regions as it was...

Anglia CA went in January 1996, this was highlighted in nighttime thread,when I tracked down med ca, :p

Up until, dec 94 Anglia followed central, then 1995 it started following med.

That's nothing like I remembered but then it does depend on how well the VHS machine coped with the cut, some do those things better than others

Incidently, the 'first ad break' is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-FHIrFCy18&feature=player_detailpage#t=248s

There was a hint of irony when the continuity for the Northern regions (Border, Granada, TTTV and YTV) moved from Leeds to London in 2002. Leeds had been responsible for the closure of TTTV's CA department in 1996, Granada's in 1998 and Border's in 1999. In the end the YTV announcing team had done to them what YTV themselves had done to the other three stations.
The rot had really started in 1992 when YTV took over TTTV and the latter's in-vision continuity was gradually phased out over the next four years. I remember reading somewhere that TTTV's senior announcer at the time, Bill Steel, actually had a clause put in his contract to allow him to continue doing in-vision continuity for as long as he remained there. It wasn't Bill Steel who did the last announcement from City Road prior to continuity moving to Leeds, however - that honour fell to long-time Tyne Tees (and Border) stalwart Allan Cartner in March 1996, as Bill had by then left the station.

The Granada continuty at the end was appalling, none of the announcers ever seemed to know what they were announcing, I remember them going into Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned by saying "Football chat now, with Baddiel and Skinner". No, the point of the programme was that it WASN'T about football!

Also for at least the last two years, they never bothered with any of the animated versions of the ident, presumably to make it easier to opt in and out, so you always had the ident with the static logo, which was unbelievably dull.

Yes, sorry, my mistake, they were still. They had a Sony D2 based LMS system for their last year at Charlotte St, to provide the LEMNUS playout of ads.

They never said 'this channel', they used to say 'here'

If the announcements were pre-recorded it was so they could mention Granada.

Few local promos must have been Granada only as there used to be loads on Yorkshire.

Or "now" more commonly.

Local promos (made in Leeds) were common on Tyne Tees as well right up until 2002 -- although they always seemed to be rather half-arsed efforts compared to when Newcastle produced their own.

Leeds really did seem to be on a mission to make presentation as bland as possible towards the end. The rot really started to set in in September 1996 -- at this point station name-checking became rarer and the "coming next" routine was axed. It was downhill all the way from there and it was a welcome relief when pres moved to London in 2002.

The irony is that YTV used to take their continuity *very* seriously -- in the 1980s it was like a well-oiled machine when even the BBC was a bit slapdash at times. By the end they just seemed to be content to get something on-screen. Crossfades were poorly timed (and on TTTV at least they faded the sound at the same time as the vision rather than stepping it), the fading of the anno's mike was inconsistent and often jarring and they would frequently clip the end of trailers etc.

Tyne Tees on the other hand had just become pretty slick around 1991-2 (after being *very* clunky up to that point, which they got away with due to their friendly approach), only for all that to be thrown into flux in 1993 and never recovered.

The Carlton and Meridian stations always seemed much more professional in the late 90s/early 2000s. Meridian was totally unremarkable -- bland in the style of the early-90s YTV -- but LWT and Carlton weren't bad.

I've just watched the copy I got off UK Nova years ago, and the disturbance is even less noticeable there.

It wouldn't have been the same effect universally as you say - VHS recorders and the individual transmitters I imagine would have suffered differently.

Well YTV in the ear;y 90s was also ok it was sleek and professional until 1993 when they had to Tyne Tees's continuity originally though this was being maintained in Newcastle but then in 1994 next promos started to come from Leeds and it was downhill. I remember watching 15 mins of YTV in the Tyne Tees region, that was embarassing.