a few central series:
- kicking it around (football related chat show on central west set, included bill tidy drawing a cartoon)
- central jobfinder with derw thomas (employment/careers info, latterly from central east set)
- lifeline with anne dawson (charity/community organisations) iirc produced at central south
- central post
- rock legends with noddy holder
- back to the present (local history game show with bob warman)
- scam with mark gough (consumer issues)
Central used to do a 10-minute early morning magazine called Asian Eye, which later became a half-hour programme called Spotlight Asia.
hmmm, istr asian eye lasted right up until the end of the early morning opt outs?
There were a few networked series that got their first outing regionally, I remember Harry Enfield's Guide To Opera in 1993 was shown on Channel Four on Thursday nights but every episode was first shown six days earlier on Yorkshire, I'm not sure why. Also Roy and HG, the Australian comedians who you may recall on Ben Elton's BBC1 series (whenever I see their names I always hear Elton saying them), had a series on Anglia in 1998 which was then repeated on Channel Five the following evening. And Granada made Stuff The White Rabbit, an anarchic magic show for BBC2, in 1996, but showed it themselves six months before BBC2 did. It was certainly commissioned for the Beeb, though, as on Granada it was 35 minutes.
similarly there was meridian's "the village" fly on the wall doco, which was shown first on meridian, and then repeated on bbc two.
not itv, but in a similar vein, i remember a mid afternoon diy show which had a "bbc birmingham production for uktv" end cap - very odd, presumably produced for uk style, and then repeated on bbc two.