TV time and Radio tv

I have to ask why before 1990 or somewhere around that time, there kept BBC and ITV/Ch4 listing sperated. It does seem pointless that you had to buy to mag to see whats on, yet normal papers had both

radio times began in 1923 as a radio listings magazine for the BBC and took on the TV listings when BBC began broadcasting that as well in 1936.

when ITV started in 1955? it needed it's own listings so TV times was born which also took channel four under it's wing when it started in 1982.

in 1989 somebody decided that radio times and tv times should not have the monopoly on the tv listings mag market and that all magazines should show all tv / radio / satellite broadcasts

The marketplace was deregulated in 1990 through the Broadcasting Act of the same year and since Radio Times and TV Times only published listings for the BBC and ITV/C4 accordingly, the explosion in competition meant lots of new channels, lots of new magazines that covered the listings for all the channels and therefore Radio Times and TV Times were forced to go with the flow as it were because if you don't show the listings for channels you watch, you don't buy that magazine.

TV Times started in 1955 but it didn't cover the whole of ITV, but many of the companies outside London had their own magazines. In 1968 they were replaced by the TV Times.... except for Channel TV which still had their own magazine for years afterwards

It's just the way it was. Newspapers had listings for all channels, but only one the day. The only way you could see a whole week's listings was through the Radio or TV Times

Although the Sunday papers did publish limited information of what was coming up in the next 7 days.

Yes, but it was very limited - I remember our local paper on Fridays could print the listings for Friday and Saturday but could only bill highlights for Sunday.

Briefly before deregulation, Sky also had their own magazine, the imaginatively-titled TV Guide, which had full listings for the Sky channels - plus Lifestyle, The Children's Channel and Screensport, that lot - and only highlights of the BBC, ITV and Channel Four. It was running in 1990, I have an issue of it, but it certainly didn't run past deregulation.