Networked ITV - 1990s and before...

Do you know when it might have went out? Its not coming up on Saturdays before 1978:



even when it started only half the itv compaines had the series it wast until 78/79/80 when rest really took it.

Here the proof stv took to 79 to get it,

Don't forget, because the IBA termed it 'Educational' no ad breaks were allowed during it, and perhaps before or after ? That would have led to reluctance to show it, and possibly why LWT had it super early (for those days) at 08:30hrs ?

I quote..."The award winning original Rainbow was made by Thames TV and ran from late 1972 until 1992, when Carlton was awarded the London weekday franchise. Rainbow was ITV's answer to the popular BBC TV Play School and the American Sesame Street - broadcast in the UK by ITV - and was launched as part of a new package of day time programmes. Afternoon television was introduced in the UK after five years of repeated appeals before the British Government relented and permitted the extra hours of broadcast time. Pre-school programming was undertaken by four seperate ITV companies. As well as Rainbow, ATV produced Inigo Pipkin, Yorkshire TV Mr. Trimble and Granada Hickory House. The companies took it in turns to strip the shows at around midday Monday to Friday. Over the years, the programmes won plaudits from the experts and won the hearts of children and their parents. The way was paved for home grown educational childrens programming in 1971 when in the Autumn of that year, the Authority Schools Committee authorised LWT, HTV and Grampian to broadcast a short run of Sesame Street under the understanding that its permission "should not be construed as educational endorsement of Sesame Street for British children"."

Thanking you,I have found Grampian listings : 25 September - 18 December 1971, It does seem it disappear for 7 years, until 1978.

I wonder why HTV and LWT continued with the series? then for UTV and Granada to pick it up year later, and Grampian not to.

The Children's Television Workshop also insist that Sesame Street goes out free of advertising, as it did on Channel 4 right up to when they stopped showing it, and obviously the same went for Disney Channel who continued showing it for a few years after that.

Lets Change the list then, in order of it appearing:

Sesame Street
* HTV - 1970
* LWT - 1971
* Grampian: 1971: 25 September - 18 December 1971 disappear for 7 years, until July 1978:
* Granada - July 1973
* UTV - 1973
* Westward in 1974
* ATV/Central: 1978
* Borders 1978
* Southern: 1978
* STV 16 March 1979* -- Sundays always well, instead of Morning worship:
* Anglia - Summer 1981 -
* Tyne Tess / YTV - Easter / 29 March 1982 ?

It does seem Yorkshire was the last to pick it up but there still a few unanswered questions:

It seems SS did not start until 1982 in Tyne Tees, I don't know how but some of my records abit of a mess in 1979 for TT but I had to double check with original sources.

TT on saturday in 1979 had the following patten

9:05 Saturday Shake-up
9:10 : series like Tazen / Grizzly Adams/ Lucan
10:00 Carton Waldo kitty or macor
10:30 Saturday Shake-up
10:35 Film:
12:20 Saturday Shake-up

It hasn't been shown in the UK for ten years now, although there have been a few localised spin-offs over the years.

Pre-school seems to be the only part of children's TV that does well commercially these days, especially since the ban on junk food ads, and with most imports being dubbed over with British voices and fine-tuned for the local audience, it seems there's no room for an hour long show which, while brilliant, is very American (I can't have been the only person who loved Sesame Street as a child but got very confused by the whole zed/zee thing).

firstly RJG where is the oringaly quote this come from?



I was wondering about jjne in FX Problems about how some itv station just omitted idents and CA to operate straight in next problems.

I have to ask was this partly down to the front there was a front cap on the programmes?

better still was there any other ITV stations that never used there idents when doing the next programme IE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LudUjbQcZ40& but still had CA....

I know Tyne Tees often just went straight from a trailer/advert directly into a programme without any sort of announcement, in the days when everything produced by the ITV companies had a frontcap of some sort. The only programme they almost always announced into, normally with their ident or clock, was the ITN News. Sometimes, but not always, they would play the Tyne Tees ident before films or imported programmes (and use a black and white version for black and white films).

This only changed when frontcaps were discontinued in 1988, when they started using a still Tyne Tees slide to introduce programmes, though not always with an announcement. I guess they thought it looked neater, or it was easier, to cross-fade into the opening titles rather than fading in after the frontcap (that was often still present, just not broadcast). Slowly announcements became more commonplace as they moved away (again slowly) from IVC - although this wasn't dropped totally until 1996.

YTV tended to always use a programme title/'crash' slide to introduce programmes, and always play their fanfare over a 'Yorkshire Television in Colour/Yorkshire Television' slide at the start of imports and films. When the liquid gold ident and rebrand came in in 1987, they used a revolving chevron to introduce programmes, except those which already had a YTV frontcap on, when they used the programme title slide. They also stopped playing the fanfare then and just cross-faded into imports. YTV continued to show frontcaps, if they were present on the tapes, well into 1989.

A few other regions were known to go straight into programmes in the 'frontcap' era - possibly just on the whim of the TC/announcer on duty - if no formalised presentation structure was in place.

Anglia go straight into the next show here, although at a guess the short news bulletin is probably being done from the in-vision studio which would restrict their ability to introduce the programme too!

In the days of front-caps, UTV junctions had various approaches. Usually there'd be a programme caption and announcement of the next programme at the start of a junction - but after the ads and trailers, there'd either be the pre-programme ident (the programme maker up until the end of 1987, their own ident from 1988 onwards) or an in-vision continuity link before the ident. Sometimes there'd be no caption at the start of the junction, going straight from the production caption into adverts, and the in-vision link at its end.

Less frequently did UTV have in-vision links at the start of junctions, they tended to do this more in the late 1990s/early 2000s and mainly leading into news bulletins.

If a programme directly followed a news bulletin, which most of the time came from the continuity studio and read by the duty announcer, it would be a case of end of bulletin then fade through black into the ident. From 1987 onwards, there'd be an "Ulster Newstime" still caption between the end of the bulletin and the ident.

These days, as UTV still use its IVC studio for short bulletins, you tend to hear announcements over the ECP of the preceding programme (done live when there's one on duty), followed by a break and then no announcement over the ident into the bulletin, even if it's Gillian/Pamela/Rose/Aidan reading it. There's usually enough time between the end of the bulletin, the weather forecast and the preceding junction for the duty announcer to reposition themselves in the studio, but most of the time the link into the next programme is done out-of-vision.

Another thing UTV did until the mid 1990s at the end of films was announce the time of the next "movie presentation" (a phrase Julian *still* uses today) over a still ident caption - which they used in such instances rather than an "Ulster Television Presentation" caption; a trend only Thames tended to follow from the off-airs I've seen.