Networked ITV - 1990s and before...

The Beeb were no different in those days, in fact my memory was they were even worse than ITV.
The Children's slots were padded out with dreadful imports from Eastern Europe, dubbed into English, with just three or four different voices, or US cartoons of course, Scooby Doo , Wacky Races and Top Cat that due to ridiculous commercial paranoia the Beeb called Boss Cat with almost comically bad editing of the title sequence. Coupled with The Monkies nothing the Beeb imported and served up would have ever been allowed by the IBA on ITV !

In general ITV's original productions were of a higher standard than the BBC's IMHO.

I remember that too. We lived in the Border area (Isle of Man) but on a hill so could get Granada and HTV Wales too. I seem to recall the Border strike was during the TVS Real World 3D experiment, which people who didn't live on a hill didn't manage to see.

Anyway, Border always seemed more amateurish than Granada. The same dull graphics year in, year out. Dull announcers (until John Myers came along), lots of "local" adverts that were slides with voiceovers, dull news about places we'd only ever heard of because they happened to be in the same ITV region (geographically very large, disparate and illogical, undermining any romantic nonsense idea of it being "local") and Border went to bed just as Granada started a late film, especially on Fridays and Saturdays.

Investing in better graphics and sprucing up the announcing team was not a priority for a cash-strapped station like Border. It would have cost money but wouldn't have brought in a penny extra in advertising revenue.

One other thing I seem to recall from that period was adverts for new products ending with a caption "Only available in Carlisle" in rather miniscule lettering and often after the said products had become available throughout the rest of the area. I suppose Border went by the adage 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' with regards to graphics but by the late 1980s there's no doubt Border's graphics had become rather dated.

Well, it certainly is true that ITV were more consistent throughout the year because ITV would regularly show lots of new programmes in July and August, whereas on the BBC you were lucky if you got one new series in the summer, because ITV had a far bigger budget. These days that doesn't happen on the Beeb and there's a decent amount of new content all year round.

I would love to know what that means, is there anything in the IBA saying

* who created the Watch it brand?
* what ITV company took the lead?
* name of a report about it?

If I could found something to work on it would make it easy to get rolling on finding new information.

It should also be remembered that Children's programming was bolstered by the fact that it was often the only area ITV companies outside the Big 5 could really get their teeth into quality productions. Anglia, Southern, HTV, Tyne Tees and STV all produced some pretty ambitious stuff in this field, and a lot of it was break-even at best. It was used essentially as self-promotion for these smaller companies, many of whom used Children's programming as a stepping-stone to greater things.

As a result, their output was always going to be superior to the BBC who had none of the internal one-upmanship to improve the service.

During the 1990s Im sure STV become one of the largest Kids producers in EU, special with the amount of cartoons it had it fingers in.

Although I believe you, I really cannot remember what STV had it's "fingers in" aside the 1990's reboot of Rupert Bear which was mainly a Nelvana production IIRC. Although there's no denying STV got a boost when it took on TVS' childrens programmes come 1993.

Art Attack (1990–2007) ( there still own the tapes, but disney owns the format and name etc)
Birdz (co-produced with Nelvana)
Butterfingers
Captain Zed and the Zee Zone
Caribou Kitchen (co-produced with Ealing Animation / World of Wonder Productions, 1995-
The Disney Club (co-produced with Buena Vista Productions, 1989-9
Fun House (1989–99)
Get Wet (1997–
Finders Keepers (1993–6)
Flying Rhino Junior High (co-produced with Nelvana)
Harry and the Wrinklies (1999–2002)
How 2 (1993–2006)
Ice Cream Machine (for Channel 5, 2004)
The Hot Rod Dogs and Cool Car Cats
Hurricanes (1993–7)
The Magic House (1993–5)
Minty’s Double (1998)
Meeow!
On Safari (2000)
Rupert (1991–7)
Shadow of the Stone (1987)
Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century
Snug and Cozi (1996–7)
Squeak! (2004)
Stookie (1986)
T.I.G.S (1995)
Twister (2001)
Uncle Dad
Walter Melon (co-produced with Nelvana, 1998–9)
What's Up Doc (1992–5)
Wolf It (1993–6)

Don't forget that Border also had a look-in with regards to children's programmes during the mid to late 1980s; The Joke Machine, BMX Beat, Krazy Kitchen and the Sunday edition of Get Fresh were just a few of the children's TV shows to emerge from the Harraby studios. By then Derek Batey's two networked vehicles, Looks Who's Talking and Mr & Mrs, were coming to the end of their long runs, so the diversion into children's programming proved to be a useful fillip for Border. What's more, they actually did it rather well, too.

There also did Pick a number, does anyone know why It moved from Border to Grampian TV in 1987,

I used to enjoy watching kids shows from Border, I dunno why, much like I used to enjoy kids shows from BBC North West. There was a kind of feel from them I found very pleasing, and also in those days I was obsessed with Border because I liked the idea of tiny regions like that while I lived in boringly professional Granadaland.

In one of the IBA Yearbooks it talks about Border's kids shows, it points out they did the first series of BMX Beat regionally and it was taken up by a load of other regions and they realised that kids shows were a good way to get onto the network so made loads more of them. They were certainly highly enthusiastic contributors to Get Fresh, as well as the Sunday episode they made every week they also seemed to make far more of the Saturday shows than their size would suggest - I remember they made the first ever episode from Windermere in 1986 and at the start of the 1987 series there were a couple of studio-based shows before they started the OBs and Border made them, and at the time I assumed the show had been created by Border (which it wasn't, of course, Tyne Tees were in charge).

I also recall Crush a Grape was billed, not as a Border Television Production, but a Border Television Outside Broadcast. I think their last kids show would have been The Krankies in 1991?