Back in 1985 Thames did a 24-hour telethon. I'm curious therefore firstly, what did they do during TV-AM's legal hours but also how did they fit in the plethora of network shows they must have missed, particularly continuing serials? How did London viewers catch up with these?
I know that regions taking Thames' feed for the various afternoon Australian shows had to fill them with something else that day, but it must have caused huge schedule disruption?
I don't think it was a 24 hour telethon, but may be wrong.
:-(
A former member
29-30 October 1985. Here are the TV listings: The other stations had a Thames programme, and Film which was shown the next day, Again the network was getting minder.. There does seem to be one Ep of Take the high road missing...
JM
JamesM0984
They also missed an episode of Crossroads - when did Thames catch back up?
What's interesting is they were allowed to Drop schools programmes.
I see this is during the era of Channel taping Crossroads off TSW at 5.20 and playing it back at 6.30.
Who would have played out Carry On Laughing, Des O' Connor and Hollywood Wives?
Last edited by JamesM0984 on 3 August 2018 12:31am
I assume Thames were allowed to drop schools programmes that day because it was half-term in the London area, and the schools programmes were repeats of those shown the previous Wednesday.
It seems the only programmes they were obliged to show were the ITN News bulletins, and they opted to show the local news too. Understandably TV-am was shown because that wasn’t Thames’s airtime.
They could play programmes out to the network, such as Thames schools programmes and Des, independently of what they were showing locally, or another company may have played these out for them.
I wonder if Thames remained “nominated contractor” for the duration of the Telethon? It would have made sense for another of the big five to take over that responsibility, as one of the duties was co-ordinating any last minute timing changes to the schedule (easier to do if you’re following that schedule yourself!)
I wonder if Thames remained “nominated contractor” for the duration of the Telethon? It would have made sense for another of the big five to take over that responsibility, as one of the duties was co-ordinating any last minute timing changes to the schedule (easier to do if you’re following that schedule yourself!)
I wonder if Thames remained “nominated contractor” for the duration of the Telethon? It would have made sense for another of the big five to take over that responsibility, as one of the duties was co-ordinating any last minute timing changes to the schedule (easier to do if you’re following that schedule yourself!)
Central did have form for that sort of thing. I recall around the same period, there was a Sunday night network drama they had produced. They played it out from the beginning of Part 2, realised the error about 10 mins in, up came apology cards (while the VT was spooled back to the right place) , the whole thing was played out correctly from the beginning
JM
JamesM0984
Around 1990 they also returned from the commercial break of the evening Home and Away, only to start playing back Part 1 again. The tape started spooling forward on air before an apology caption came up. I believe the practice at the time was to tape the lunchtime showing off Thames and it was up to each region to play it back at teatime.
I wonder if Thames remained “nominated contractor” for the duration of the Telethon? It would have made sense for another of the big five to take over that responsibility, as one of the duties was co-ordinating any last minute timing changes to the schedule (easier to do if you’re following that schedule yourself!)
It would be interesting to see the continuity from the various regions when the film finished some 15 minutes earlier than expected. At least most appeared to be closing down straight after the film, so there was no need for a filler programme to be inserted.
It would be interesting to see the continuity from the various regions when the film finished some 15 minutes earlier than expected. At least most appeared to be closing down straight after the film, so there was no need for a filler programme to be inserted.
Here's how Sir Charles Foster handled it on Granada...
As mentioned in the comments, although he doesn't mention why they're closing down so early, you can see they're shoving out everything they have on the shelf to pad things out. As mentioned in the Herald report, Tony Currie of this parish was on duty on STV and explained what had happened in the bit they missed, but I seem to recall he said he was just guessing what might have happened from the synopsis.
