Networked ITV - 1990s and before...

Tyne Tees did continue to start programmes after a trailer post-1988, often without a static ident either. They also went through a phase in 1990 where in prime-time (when they were experimenting with no IVC between 7 and 10pm) they'd cross-fade a trailer to a menu of the night's programmes, then switch to a still of the ident which was left to cross-fade into the programme without the announcer introducing the programme.

They also burned in the station ident into regional programmes up until around July 1992, and these were usually joined right after a break or trailer. It was only in 1993, when transmission moved to Leeds and all IVC was done whilst YTV played out an ident, that all programmes started being introduced with an announcement -- up until 1992 it was 50/50.

The use of the static slide used to depend on the on-duty controller. The control desk had basic automation (which allowed easy screen-wipes, cross-fades, fast fade-through-black etc) but this introduced sound glitches. It was also possible to do this manually (which was glitch-free) but it seemed that some controllers preferred the automation and others didn't bother with it.

Generally, if the automated system was in use, the static ident would appear. If not, it only appeared sometimes.

The point being, though, that announcerless intros into programmes were very common. Even after 1993 it wasn't unusual for Kathy Secker in particular (at this point the announcer self-opped some parts of presentation from Newcastle) to play out a clean ident in lieu of an announcement, although this was usually animated.

I get the impression that this would have continued had TTTV remained independent -- several of the junctions on New Year's Eve 1992 (the last day of true TTTV presentation) with Lyn Spencer (I have the tape somewhere) went straight from trailer to programme without ident of any nature.

As an aside, I do not believe there was a conscious effort to phase out IVC. Between Feb and Dec 1990 there was no IVC in prime-time at all, but this stopped around Christmas of that year and TTTV beefed IVC back up to 1988 levels at that point (sometimes with IVC before and after the break). But it all came to a juddering halt in 1993 -- first there were three IVC segments per night in early 1993 (each lasting 45 seconds -- one trailer plus one ident on YTV), and then when transmission was moved, pretty much every other junction had IVC of 10-15 seconds before programmes when YTV were playing an ident. If YTV played a short ident, TTTV would usually go with a static but Bill would often do a 4 or 5 second IVC just for the sake of it it would seem.

Fantastic upload just appeared on YT:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pV3-YDQ2Zic

Note the burned-in generic ITV ident on this regional programme. The show itself as well is utter lunacy -- *THIS* is what regional broadcasting was all about right here: TX45, Gilbert's Late, Friday Live, the original A Word In Your Ear and so on -- stuff that would not have looked out of place on the network. Forget the boring identikit rubbish it became later on.

Was that networked?

I cant see Central ever doing with you just described, as there were press mad, but the number of clips are appearing of ITV companies doing this, like STV just gun-hoe heading for the next programme:

Im sure STV did this up till 1998;

* 12.55pm lunchtime Scotland today and then into 1.25pm Lunchtime home and away:
* 3.30pm For CITV
* 6pm For Home and away and again into Main Scotland toady.

No -- that's the point -- it was a "parochial, boring" regional programme!

TTTV tearing up the rulebook again...

Anyone know why Granada's presentation was so bland in the 70s and 80s, up until their blue and White striped 'G' of the early 90s?
Always static captions, as a child I was very envious of the flashy idents of other regions.

A quickie about Sesame Street. ATV produced a special in 1973 'Julie on Sesame Street' - YT vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAGbX01aUHE&feature=related - but it doesn't appear to have been broadcast in the UK (at least, a UK transmission isn't listed in the BFI database).

Nice 'ATV in Colour' (not Color!) and ITC captions in the closing credits.

BFI Does have mistakes and other non-up to-date information, I might have a good look around on the newspapers, I dare say ATV would have broadcast it...

Granada's house-style had not fundamentally changed since the 1950s... they deliberately eschewed flashy graphics as they considered it unprofessional. They, along with Rediffusion, had persued a policy of "BBC with adverts"... the problem being that the BBC themselves had modernised several years prior to Granada.

YTV were the same -- if anything they were even more stark than Granada, and of course refused to go down the IVC route even in the 1980s when Granada and Border were beginning to loosen up a bit. I know YTV were respected in the industry but I always considered their style to be unnecessarily wooden, and not at all inkeeping with the region they served.

For a short time in the early 1970s it really was "grim oop north" for ITV presentation. You had Border being Border (stuffy and old-fashioned even for the time), Granada stuck in the 1950s and YTV putting professionalism above all else. TTTV were broke, so they too took quite a while to sort themselves out with colour IVC and bright-and-breezy presentation, although they did at least snap out of it fairly quickly.

Come 1987 or so and Granada finally seemed to wake up. Just as some of the rest of the network was becoming bland and corporate (and open for having their pres departments merged because they were all exactly the bloomin' same -- look at early 90s Anglia, Thames, TVS, Meridian or Carlton and show me the differences, bulk cart-driven auto-pilot the lot of them with no charm or individuality), Manchester started doing things right. Shame it didn't last really.

Thanks for the additional info, and for jolting my memory. Yes, I remember that from 1993 there would be announcements into programmes that would previously not have had one, such as the junction from the 3.15 regional news into Young Doctors. And, as mentioned before, there were many mishaps, particularly during the early part of 1993 until YTV were required to clean up the feed, such as TTT cutting to the YTV ident instead of their own, and having to mix out quickly when YTV suddenly popped their presentation endcap up a bit early.

I remember one of the most noticeable cock-ups I saw being on Monday 4 January. YTV showed a three-minute 'catch-up' before The Young Doctors - still images and a voiceover - having skipped about a year's worth of episodes and TTT filled the gap with a couple of PIFs. For some unknown reason though, TTT then went to the Young Doctors crash slide and cross-faded into the YTV 'catch-up' just before it ended. We then got the YTV announcement into the programme. Had YTV not communicated the junction properly to TTT, making someone there think the show had started when they were seeing still images from the 'catch-up'?

Another oddity from later in the YTV/TTT era, though not specifically relevant to that station - they started showing Part Two of an episode of Young Doctors instead of Part One - only for a few seconds before a straight jump-cut to Part One during the title sequence. How could that have happened? I am led to believe both parts would be on the same tape, so they'd have to spool back/rewind to get to the right part? Or don't I understand how the VCR machines operated?

In September 1993 when the new (and at the time state of the art) transmission centre opened, YTV would play out two copies of all pre-recorded, locally-generated content (this included trailers, imported and local programmes and even networked stuff). I believe this was because of the quite severe teething troubles -- TTTV would be taking the feed from the new, heavily-automated gear and YTV would play out the same material to the Yorkshire end from (presumably) (parts of) the old gallery. If things crashed and burned, staff at Leeds could crash to the output that was correct, which happened several times that I saw including one occasion where the beginning of "The Bill" was played out instead of the second half of a 7.30 regional programme. That took several minutes to put right, and TTTV viewers were treated to a generic "Regional Programme" crash slide, since the "Next" slide for regional programming was still generated at Newcastle right up to 1996.

As to the earlier mess-up, communication between Leeds and Newcastle did seem very poor indeed for the first few weeks. I remember TTTV joining the main evening news on New Year's Day nearly 30 seconds late. The reason for this was made clear after about 20 seconds when TTTV's ident video cut to black, and Newcastle cross-faded to the YTV output at this point. YTV had not switched between the TTTV trailer and the news correctly, and we were treated to a paused VT clock of the following trailer which hard-switched to the news a few seconds later.

Ah, so there were two copies being played out - that explains it. How long did this go on for, I wonder? I know the norm now is to have a backup of many shows playing out on tape in Leeds.

I saw an example much earlier of How We Used To Live rewinding on air, and then someone cutting to an alternative feed. This was, from memory, prior to the move to Channel Four - so perhaps YTV were playing out two copies of material much earlier as well?

Now, an unrelated question about ATV and Central. From 1982 to 1984, schools programmes made by ATV were played out with the ATV ident and endcap, preceded by a 'Central Presents' caption, before being re-edited to show Central captions from 1985 onwards.

Other networked shows produced by ATV, such as episodes of Family Fortunes (shown in early 1982) and the programme Vet (repeated in 1982) were rebadged 'live' with a Central frontcap and endcap - and not always particularly well - parts of the ATV jingle were sometimes heard, and flashes of the endcap broadcast. On one occasion Central cut from their ident/frontcap back to the continuity studio, instead of into the programme, and the whole network saw Mike Prince (or someone) getting up off his chair!

I also have memories of early 1982 epsiodes of Crossroads having a still Central Presents caption but no ATV or Central ident.

So three different ways of 'presenting' an ATV programme to network. Why not one standard way? Were the legalities different (eg. which arm of ATV had produced the programme)? Or were Central keen not to show any trace of ATV in mainstream, but not so bothered during schools broadcasts?

I am not sure, but perhaps the reason was that on the schools' programmes (which would be repeated a number of times) the re-edit was done in bulk with full edit-suite access, whereas on shows that would be going out once Central decided to save money by doing things live -- with the obvious room for error that brings, especially back in 1982.

ISTR that there were a few "Central Presents... Southern" programmes that went out as well weren't there?

I recall one night in around 1989 when Wheel Of Fortune failed quite catastrophically. I know from speaking to others that STV's output of this ep failed completely and showed a holding slide for around 6 or 7 minutes; Tyne Tees dealt with the failure quite well and showed a couple of cartoons to make the time up, but somehow YTV managed to continue with the programme, albeit with some pretty funky glitches and digital patterns on-screen near-constantly. Quite where YTV were getting this feed from when both Tyne Tees and STV themselves lost the programme altogether I've never quite been able to work out.