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A question about ITV pre 1968 (March 2019)

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MA
Markymark
bilky asko posted:
Markymark posted:
Steve in Pudsey posted:
But closer than say Scarborough is to Leeds.


In the time it took to whizz up the A64 from Leeds to Scarbourgh on the A64, you’d barely have reached Dartford on the North or South Circular from Elstree or the Bush


Presumably that's very dependent on traffic in both cases - Leeds to Scarborough is about an hour and a half, but in current traffic (for example) would be more like an hour and three quarters.


I must say about ten years ago one August Saturday I drove from Hampshire to Scarborough. Hampshire to the A1/A64 junction took three hours. Then a further two hours to get to Scarborough !
IS
Inspector Sands
Markymark posted:
623058 posted:


Why was the BBC so bad for Kent Viewers?


It was ( and still is) a long way from Lime Grove and Elstree

They ended up quite Hertfordshire-centric through being in Elstree. Even when it became BBC London and moved to the West End it retained this as a lot of the programme's team still live up that way.

BBC London had a Hertfordshire and Essex correspondants, but everyhwhere else was covered by correspondents for East, West and South London... so the 'south London correspondent' covered everywhere from the South Bank to the North Downs!
SP
Steve in Pudsey
Markymark posted:
Steve in Pudsey posted:
Markymark posted:

In the time it took to whizz up the A64 from Leeds to Scarbourgh on the A64, you’d barely have reached Dartford on the North or South Circular from Elstree or the Bush

Although by train fairly comparable


Do/did TV News crews travel by train ?

The audience do. Most regions have crews based at outposts like radio stations, surely there would have been an edit facility or ENG inject at Radio Medway/Kent back in the day?
NG
noggin Founding member
Steve in Pudsey posted:
Markymark posted:
Steve in Pudsey posted:
Although by train fairly comparable


Do/did TV News crews travel by train ?

The audience do. Most regions have crews based at outposts like radio stations, surely there would have been an edit facility or ENG inject at Radio Medway/Kent back in the day?


I think there was a circuit from (and a remote control DTL studio in) Chatham in the Elstree days, not sure if it went back as far as London Plus, and no idea if there was an edit there. (Wouldn't surprise me to find there was a 2mc Beta SP facility there back in the day)

ISTR that Robin Gibson was largely the main (only?) Newsroom South East reporter based in/reporting on Kent back in those days?
dazza1976 and Steve in Pudsey gave kudos
DA
dazza1976
noggin posted:

I think there was a circuit from (and a remote control DTL studio in) Chatham in the Elstree days, not sure if it went back as far as London Plus, and
ISTR that Robin Gibson was largely the main (only?) Newsroom South East reporter based in/reporting on Kent back in those days?


There was a remote control studio in Radio Kent's Sun Pier studios. They opened in 1986, I wouldn't have thought the previous studios in the High Street would have had the room.

When Radio Kent moved to Tunbridge Wells, they kept a Medway radio studio and TV inject point in Pier Chambers, next door to Sun Pier. Think that quietly closed a couple of years ago or so, the building is now missing all of it's BBC signage.

You're right about Robin Gibson - and he's still here! Laughing
MA
Markymark
JKDerry posted:
It was weird during the early days of BBC Breakfast Time in 1983, when the rest of the country opted out for local news at 6.45am, London/SE had Frank Bough sitting on the couch telling us of London news stories and Francis Wilson would give a brief update in the weather in the capital before the rest of the network rejoined.

I have to say that ITV were better at trying to produce a better local news for London from 1977 onward, with Thames at 6. At least they tried to bother.

BBC One just didn't, and were happy to continue that path until 1984 with the launch of London Plus.


The point made up thread about all regional TV news being no more than radio with a couple of still pics is a good one. Also, back in the 70s London was brilliantly served by Capital and LBC for local news and information, TV couldn’t really compete against that, ( pictures or otherwise) I’m not excusing the TV broadcasters, but it often gets forgotten what a force for local broadcasting radio was back then, even if Capital disturbed ILR’s ‘centre of gravity’ as an industry
Steve in Pudsey and TedJrr gave kudos
RO
robertclark125
When the ITV companies sold the C4 airtime, it's been mentioned already that there was a clock before the programme at 17:15 on a Friday on C4, and in the London area, an on air glitch. Was that glitch present elsewhere, or just in London?
IS
Inspector Sands
robertclark125 posted:
When the ITV companies sold the C4 airtime, it's been mentioned already that there was a clock before the programme at 17:15 on a Friday on C4, and in the London area, an on air glitch. Was that glitch present elsewhere, or just in London?

I don't know what you mean about there being a clock or why there would need to be one, but there was always an on air glitch at 5:15 during whatever was on. Presumably they were careful lot to schedule an ad break to be on air at 5:15 on a Friday.


I don't see why any other region would see any glitch on a Friday, though of course they all got one on channel 4 at 0600 and 0925 every day
SC
Si-Co
robertclark125 posted:
When the ITV companies sold the C4 airtime, it's been mentioned already that there was a clock before the programme at 17:15 on a Friday on C4, and in the London area, an on air glitch. Was that glitch present elsewhere, or just in London?


Channel 4 occasionally announced into The Tube with a clock at 5.15, but only because it started at 5.15 prompt. The glitch was only present on the London transmitters as the feed was switched from going through Thames to going through LWT. Other regions were unaffected, as the Inspector says.
BL
bluecortina
Inspector Sands posted:
robertclark125 posted:
When the ITV companies sold the C4 airtime, it's been mentioned already that there was a clock before the programme at 17:15 on a Friday on C4, and in the London area, an on air glitch. Was that glitch present elsewhere, or just in London?

I don't know what you mean about there being a clock or why there would need to be one, but there was always an on air glitch at 5:15 during whatever was on. Presumably they were careful lot to schedule an ad break to be on air at 5:15 on a Friday.


I don't see why any other region would see any glitch on a Friday, though of course they all got one on channel 4 at 0600 and 0925 every day


Yes, in all respects. Did you know that we had to give a programme grading for each programme (and agree a random selection with the local transmitter) even though C4 were the broadcasters? Must have been some sort of technicality. I ‘hated’ having to grade programmes and agree the result of my opinion with the transmitter engineers. I think you had to agree within half a point on the IBA scale. Very much more often than not you did agree but I never liked doing it.
JA
james-2001
Inspector Sands posted:

I don't see why any other region would see any glitch on a Friday, though of course they all got one on channel 4 at 0600 and 0925 every day


Though most days there wouldn't have been much on at those times anyway, apart from the start of the ITV schools interval.
MA
Markymark
james-2001 posted:
Inspector Sands posted:

I don't see why any other region would see any glitch on a Friday, though of course they all got one on channel 4 at 0600 and 0925 every day


Though most days there wouldn't have been much on at those times anyway, apart from the start of the ITV schools interval.


The routing of C4 via TVam only started with the start of The C4 Daily, from May 1989. Up until then C4’s transmitters didn’t even come on until about 08:30

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