Networked ITV - 1990s and before...

A logistical one too I'd have thought. Planning, billing and playing 2 different episodes of soaps once, sometimes twice a day would complicate things a lot.

When did the weekday evening regional news bulletins start being scheduled at the same time irrespective of region?

Must have been after the end of Crossroads in 1987, or did Home & Away continue being either 6 or 630, depending on region?

(I remember ATV as was scheduling a five minute headline bulletin at 6pm, then Crossroads at 605pm, then the rest of ATV Today at 630pm. I don't remember Central doing the same, so did Crossroads run from 6, then Central News from 625 straightaway? I know Central News was hour long on Mondays & Fridays!)

I don't think it was ever consistent across the country until the start of the ITV Evening News.

Thames for example moved their news from 6:00 to 6:30 in the late 80's when most others stayed with 6:00. Carlton (and Westcountry) launched with an hour at 6:00 while others had half hour, then shrunk and moved it to 6:30 again

It was only when the national news moved from 5:40 to 6:30 that all the regions had to fix on 6:00-6:30

I remember STV and Grampian having 35mins news slots on Tue-thursday at 6pm.

from 1993 - 1998, Scotland, Central and HTV? had home away at 6pm with local news on at 6.28.

Yes, and even then some regions had an hour-long regional news/magazine programme from 5.30pm.

That said, Crossroads and Emmerdale were pretty much fully networked at 6.30pm in 1988, so regional news would have had to be shown at 6pm then.



Carlton and LWT also showed H&A just after 6pm for a while during this period.

Up until 1988, the regional news either went out at 6pm (for 30 or 35 mins) or at 6.25/6.30pm (Crossroads, having been cut from 5 nights a week down to 4, and then 3, meant a half-hour programme was scheduled on Mondays and Fridays, meaning a slighly shorter regional news programme on those nights).

I remember Tyne Tees tended to show quiz shows at 6pm on a Monday (Mr & Mrs, Gambit, Sale of the Century) and for a while had an hour-long 'Weekend Lift Off' show on a Friday, incorporating a short news and weather summary. The Weekend Lift Off eventually became scheduled as a separate programme starting at 6.20 (prior to that you were lucky to get more than 6-8 minutes of 'news').

That anit nothing special with TT Saying that you are right some place got small news, Grampain/border did that on Monday: 6pm News 6.15 30min filller

On Monday or sometimes firdays up until 1980, Network start at 18.45, no idea for the strange start but there did. some companies found some unique programmes to fill the slot.

It was up until around 1978, I think - Opportunity Knocks used to go out on a Monday at 6:45pm. When that show finished, the first series of the Kenny Everett Video Show then took the slot. The first Everett TV outings were 45 minutes long as against 30 minutes for most of the rest of his ITV run and all of the BBC episodes.

.....and for reasons that I was never privileged to know, on Monday nights STV ran SCOTLAND TODAY to a duration of 35' 20". It was followed by a standard 3'40" break. Then I (or Clem, Kate or Marion) had to fill for SIX MINUTES IN VISION!!!! Every week!

Was this before or after your epic Christmas Eve shift?

You were obviously cheaper than Tweety Pie!

I recall all of Everett's ITV shows (vastly superior to the BBC versions BTW) being 45 mins long ?

I also recall panel quiz game, 'Whodunnit' also being in that 45 min Monday slot ?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069656/

Nowadays they'd normally have a small 3 minute filler programme. Passport Pics, which were bascially a recording of a holiday report from Scottish Passport, springs to mind.