Networked ITV - 1990s and before...

Some of us miss Grampian you know!

I thought Living and Growing was only networked when C4 took on schools programming? Grampian also made a schools programme with Christopher Lillicrap. Not sure if it was networked or not.

Let's not forget James The Cat, and the documentary series Oil, which was shown on C4. Although not networked, The Paul Coia show used to get some good guests occasionally. Didn't Graham Chapman do one of his last interviews on that?

Yes he did, which was also broadcast on Scottish. Grampian also did: , Scotland the what, Pennywise, Pin Money, The Electric Theatre Show, Homestyle

I wasn't slagging Grampian at all, just mentioned that the Inspector's comment's general tone reminded me of that Room 101 episode

I remember that lack of access to network slots was a source of immense frustration to the guys at City Road over the years, to the point where they had given up bothering trying to put together drama proposals for a while. And they, although small, were rather larger than the like of Grampian or Border -- so it must have been soul-destroying for the very small ITV contractors to have to fight for every scrap of airtime the network would give them.

Together: Was it really networked live? at lunchtime in 1980 and 1981?

http://www2.tv-ark.org.uk/itvsouth/southern_programmes.html Nice clip

http://www.80sactual.com/2010/02/together-southern-television-1980-1981.html

Well that was some ghastly telephone acting.

I can concur with this; it was certainly around 1992 as I remember Frankie Miller performing "Caledonia" (from the Tennent's Lager advert of the time) on the first show broadcast by STV, which Gerry mentioned at the beginning of that programme. I think "Kelly" was dropped by the crew at Cowcaddens after one series.

There's no point in checking with the BFI Online Database, which seems to think "Kelly" started in 1993, rather than September 1989!

Come to think of it, Jenny Bristow's series for UTV in the early 1990s also got shown around many ITV regions - here's a clip from LWT in the Autumn of 1992 with the end credits to an episode of "Highdays and Other Days":



And clicking on various programmes on Jenny's filmography on the BFI database gives some indication which regions took her programmes over time - it suggests LWT broadcast "Highdays and Other Days" on Sunday afternoons in late November:

http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/480990?view=transmission
http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/480693?view=transmission (the possible date the YouTube clip is from...)
http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/480988?view=transmission (...as the broadcast time for this was 1.15pm, the time mentioned at the end of the announcement on the clip?)

I even recall - and hopefully someone may confirm if this is true - a clip from a Jenny Bristow programme was shown on Bet Lynch's TV screen in an episode of "Coronation Street" sometime in the early 1990s!

Did they even get Lenny Bennett? The only thing I remember him doing around that time was Punchlines, which was LWT

Much later on Lennie did "Lucky Ladders", but that was for Anglia.

Cheers for that, I as going to check a number of online paper which does not have STV listings I take it then took the series from Sept 1992 - April 93? I cant see LWT nor Central taking Kelly has there had there own show fully book in the 10.40 - midnight slots.

Well, the general point was that in the summer the BBC were very weak, and I've just got out the Radio and TV Times from the same week, 30th July-5th August 1983. On the BBC that week, the only new kids shows were The Get Set Picture Show (which in itself was mostly cartoons and imports), Play School, Newsround, Animal Magic (which was a clip show) and We Are The Champions. Meanwhile on ITV we have No 73. Rainbow, A Musical World, Hold Tight, Moschops, What's Happening, Heggerty Haggerty, Animal Express and Freetime, plus the import Home (all the BBC imports were repeats). Just in terms of the main, non-pre-school shows, ITV are way ahead.

If we look in the Watch It era, meanwhile, in the week of 8th-14th August 1981, BBC1 gives us the same five programmes as in 1983 - Animal Magic again a clip show - while ITV offers Runaround, Into The Labyrinth, Razzmatazz, How and Freetime. There's no Saturday morning show, but again in terms of new home-grown stuff in the ostensible kids' slot, ITV again offer a wider range in the summer than the Beeb did. If you look later in the eighties I would imagine an even bigger gulf, I seem to remember weeks of no new programmes at all outside Saturday mornings. I know the Beeb were way ahead in the rest of the year but summers were very poor on the BBC.

Though that was a general point with the BBC anyway, ITV always showed more new programmes of all kinds in the summer in those days. Whereas now it's the other way round.

The BBC traditionally was weak in the summer, as they had to devote large parts of the schedule to sport and the rest of the time they mostly showed repeats. ITV tended to show American mini series in the summer, as these were generally well made and could pull in 10 million viewers.

Presume you've been cured of liking On the Buses by about five minutes of watching the repeats on ITV4.

Anyway, was it just LWT's fault about Saturday nights? There were three other Big Five companies that produced programmes at the weekend as well as LWT.

And World of Sport was always a bit crap compared with Grandstand, wasn't it? The Big Ticket live sporting Saturday afternoon stuff was on the BBC, Grand National, Boat Race etc.

World in Sport had the crap wrestling and the ITV7 (or fewer) random horse racing meets.