Where only one big ITV region opts out

I got my hands on the ITV schedule for 24 December 1982. It's notable that most of the regional opt outs are by TSW, Ulster, STV, and Grampian.

TVS, Anglia, HTV, Border, Granada, and Yorkshire have no opt outs apart from their local news.

Tyne Tees opts out of Sesame Street at 9:30 for The Good Word (starting at 9:20) followed by NE News. At the same time TSW opts out of Sesame Street for Carols of Cornwall (starting at 9:25).

Most interesting is that Central opts out of The Dollar Bottom at 10:55 for their Christmas message followed by The Nutcracker at 11:05. Ulster also opts out of The Dollar Bottom at 10:55 for Cartoon Time followed by Stingray at 11:05.

How common was it for a big ITV region to opt out of a networked programme?

Also of note is how Grampian opted out of the film Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood at 14:30 and showed Charlotte's Web instead, but STV showed it. Did Grampian dislike it for some reason or other? STV showed Freetime at 16:15 followed by Emmerdale at 16:45 whilst Grampian showed Strawberry Ice along with the rest of the network apart from TSW which showed The Messengers followed by (coincidentally?) Emmerdale at 16:45.

In the era you are referring to, the regional ITV companies didn't opt out, they simply chose not to take a network offering. There wasn't a single network as such.

Did that apply to the BBC too in regards to the regional variations?

No the BBC regions definitely do opt out.

I think editorially the nations now don't opt out.

So how does that affect Scotland, Wales and NI. Are they regarded as regions, nations or both?

The ITV structure was a very weird nature in the first 30 years of ITV - it was only from 1st January 1993 that things started to change slowly.

Remember ITV never really had a codified network presentation package which the BBC always had until around 1998.

I draw your attention to this from Transdiffusion

https://www.transdiffusion.org/2018/10/03/this-weeks-itv-childrens-programmes-in-1974

Scotland NI and Wakes are Nations ..they create and playout a Schedule with their own (copy of) programmes at times they choose Except news and most live programmes. ( so a recorded programme can go out in the same slot as England but at a different time )
They do have access to a sustaining feed so they could if they wanted to “just take London”
Thus has been the case since 11days after the launch of Digital tv so they have near total Editorial control
The BBC runs the playout in the nations ..
England is outsourced with other things to Red Bee.

The (English) Regions take the England feed from Red Bee and then opt out .
.often seamlessly I.e. in the middle of programmes .... so the signal goes Red Bee (BBC) - BT - BBC region - BT - BBC code and mux then to Arqiva who get to the transmitters and emit it.

Just for reference Itv regions are played out separately so do not ever opt out ...

You make it sound so simple. It probably isn't.

It was simpler in analogue days when a region or a nation was connected directly to the transmitter ...
and everyone opted out

If anything, I’m surprised there wasn’t more variations in the schedules during the daytime - though at Christmas, New Year and other Bank Holidays the ITV regions did tend to stick to a pretty common schedule, and locally scheduled programmes (such as the Aussie soaps) didn’t get shown.

In the case of Tyne Tees, The Good Word and NE News were both less than five minutes long, so I doubt they “opted out” of Sesame Street at 9.30. That said, I’m surprised to see SS in that slot across the network - is it likely everyone was seeing the same episode?

If you really want to be pedantic over terminology...

Anyway. It must have been uncommon for just one of the big ITV regions not to show a network offering.

Were there any times when London showed a different programme from that shown in the rest of Britain (small regions like Ulster and Channel possibly excepted) this side of 1970, apart from the Thames / LWT handover of course?