MA
Unless things had changed by 1992, Channel didn't have the standard VTR machines the rest of the network used so they wouldn't have been able to play a copy of FF supplied by Central. There was no way the programme could be clean-fed to them at an earlier date to record either. So they could only timeshift programmes they'd recorded from the dirty Westward/TVS/Meridian feed (not that this happened very often).
In 1993 the Stockland Hill SABRE was still in use, primarily for BBC 1 and 2 South West, which became the Beeb's primary Channel Is feed (They refused to use the SABRE initially, dunno why, they had a funny attitude towards it). TSW/WC was still available to CTV as a standby feed, should the Rowridge (TVS/MER) SABRE fail. I'm sure CTV still had access to the TSW/WC feed for network progs that TVS/MER had opted out of until at least the mid 90s ?
In practice, how often did this happen though? Was it a case of just flicking a switch if the Rowridge feed went down or would this involve having to get other parties involved, etc? I can see the benefits of having the Stockland feed at hand, because I assume any number of factors in the link could take Channel off the air.
I don't know, as you infer the problems would have been all political and legal, rather than technical
I assume Meridian rescheduled the New Years Day edition of Family Fortunes, which could be another reason CTV didn't show it - otherwise they'd have ended up repeating it, or having to opt-out again.
Quite possibly. 11 years earlier the good people of North East Kent were treated to 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' twice within a week. Once on Thames on Dec 28th, and again on TVS on Jan 1st (the day Bluebell Hill changed ITV regions) . Southern had opted out of showing the film on its last week of broadcasting.
The following day Meridian opted out of Family Fortunes at 19:00 to show their own "First Night of Meridian" programme, which Channel subsequently had to opt out of, and presumably not being able to get a tape of Family Fortunes, had "On Location with Heartbeat" scheduled instead.
Other than that, every region stuck with the network on New YIear's Day.
Other than that, every region stuck with the network on New YIear's Day.
Unless things had changed by 1992, Channel didn't have the standard VTR machines the rest of the network used so they wouldn't have been able to play a copy of FF supplied by Central. There was no way the programme could be clean-fed to them at an earlier date to record either. So they could only timeshift programmes they'd recorded from the dirty Westward/TVS/Meridian feed (not that this happened very often).
In 1993 the Stockland Hill SABRE was still in use, primarily for BBC 1 and 2 South West, which became the Beeb's primary Channel Is feed (They refused to use the SABRE initially, dunno why, they had a funny attitude towards it). TSW/WC was still available to CTV as a standby feed, should the Rowridge (TVS/MER) SABRE fail. I'm sure CTV still had access to the TSW/WC feed for network progs that TVS/MER had opted out of until at least the mid 90s ?
In practice, how often did this happen though? Was it a case of just flicking a switch if the Rowridge feed went down or would this involve having to get other parties involved, etc? I can see the benefits of having the Stockland feed at hand, because I assume any number of factors in the link could take Channel off the air.
I don't know, as you infer the problems would have been all political and legal, rather than technical
I assume Meridian rescheduled the New Years Day edition of Family Fortunes, which could be another reason CTV didn't show it - otherwise they'd have ended up repeating it, or having to opt-out again.
Quite possibly. 11 years earlier the good people of North East Kent were treated to 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' twice within a week. Once on Thames on Dec 28th, and again on TVS on Jan 1st (the day Bluebell Hill changed ITV regions) . Southern had opted out of showing the film on its last week of broadcasting.