Where only one big ITV region opts out

The schedule I have came from a third party source and isn't an 'original' publication.

It is possible, come to think about it, that The Good Word, NE News, and Carols of Cornwall were all only 5 minute long additions to the schedule, and that Sesame Street was shown in all regions starting at 9:30 - and probably the same episode as well.

As I previously mentioned, the Christmas Message and The Nutcracker from Central instead of The Dollar Bottom is the interesting case because Central is one of the big regions.

Yes, as mentioned on this forum before, the 1985 Thames Telethon saw Thames going their own way for the best part of 24 hours, and in the meantime Central played out the mini-series Hollywood Wives to the network, which Thames had acquired and edited. Unfortunately, somewhere between London and Birmingham, one of the reels went missing.

Much later, in 2000, Granada had to opt-out of an episode of Midsomer Murders because the storyline was too similar to the Harold Shipman case and his trial was going on. And many regions would regularly opt out for football.

STV and Grampian often opted out for football, but also, there's a video from 1993, I think from Tyne Tees, where they were giving news of UEFA cup matches on ITV the next night, and Jim Rosenthal, at the end of the Champions League programme, mentioned that viewers in the Carlton region would see a different game from the rest of the network.

I remember being on holiday in Blackpool in 1998, and Granada were showing a champions league match involving Manchester United, wheras the rest of ITV were seeing a different game.

I think Yorkshire TV opted out of the FA Cup Final replay match in 1983? It didn't involve any teams from Yorkshire, and the Beeb were showing it anyway

That's right, Carlton, Granada, Tyne Tees and Yorkshire would all opt out of the network match when required to show local teams, although there were a few occasions when Carlton didn't opt out to show Arsenal because they thought the Man U match was more glamorous, and there used to be a website called Football Fans Against Carlton.

There was an occasion in 2001 when every region apart from Carlton showed Liverpool vs Barcelona on a Tuesday night in the Champions League, but Carlton opted out and showed The Bill and Millionaire instead, and the following night Carlton showed Arsenal live and the other regions showed The Bill and Millionaire. That was in the days when Wednesday was the regular Champions League day on ITV and the ITV Sport Channel showed Tuesday games, but ITV couldn't resist it when that match came out on a Tuesday. ITV Sport showed both games.

One famous one was Yorkshire and Tyne Tees opting out of Hollywood Lovers in 1997 because Bruce Gyngell considered it unsuitable. I remember Dave Pearce on Radio 1 doing a competition, open only to listeners in Yorkshire and the North East, where the prize was that he'd tape it and send it to you.

1982, fact fans. Around the same time they opted out of the BAFTAs, because they said they were irrelevant to their audience and were full of BBC programmes they didn't want to promote.

It wasn’t particularly uncommon for any of the “big five” to go their own way and pre-empt what the rest of the network were seeing. I can’t bring any regular examples immediately to mind but here are some notable occasions:

During one of the Thames TV disputes in 1984, some episodes of The Bill were shown only in London. The rest of the network saw these at the end of the series (while Thames showed something else), leading some viewers to write in and ask why Galloway was suddenly seen driving the car he had sold months ago.

In December 1992 the Provisional IRA exploded two bombs in Central Manchester (note: I am not confusing this with a similar incident in 1996). That morning, Granada aired special news bulletins to their region only, whilst still feeding This Morning to the network. You could say they “opted out” of parts of TM that day.

I remember when Leeds United had their run in Europe, YTV would show their game instead of the networked one.

Imagine that, a time when ITV would not just have one Champions league game, but other ones available to them that they could show if they wanted to!

Of course as late as the early 00s you still had vast swathes of the schedule that were not networked, with various different schedules airing depending on what ownership group your region was in - weekday afternoons, overnight, Sunday afternoons.

Often the schedules were different for no apparent reason, very similar programmes just in a different order.

Hence Bruce Forsyth making a big fuss about 'bringing the network together' on Saturday nights in 1979, it wasn't necessarily the case that everyone in the country would have the same programmes at the same times.

I prefer the word "accurate" myself!

Did any companies throw the towel in early on that ill fated series?