Widescreen

Can anyone remember what and when were the first programmes to go widescreen on the BBC & ITV?

Also, how about a list of new programmes that are still to this day made in 4:3, excluding imports and only including the major channels

Not BBC or ITV, but I remember Brookside being one of the first programmes with the tell-tale black bars on screen.

As for new programmes made in 4:3, ITN's output and Big Brother spring to mind straight away.

The BBC broadcast a few programmes in 14:9 in the mid 90's to guage opinion of the format - Noels House Party was one, I think Casualty was another

Yep and Gen Game - it was almost everything one Saturday night.

Wasn't the Saturday night experiment just a straight crop of all the programmes to 14:9 to see how viewers reacted to "black bars" on their TV rather than the programmes being created completely in widescreen?

I think so, but IIRC, Casualty was being made in 16:9 from the start of the 12th series.

Some early 90's BBC programmes, like Modern Times and the House of Elliot, were shot in a widescreen format before the current standards (or even PAL Plus) were in use.

"Future-proof" was the phrase bandied around at the time, when viewers complained about the black bars.

The first channel to really go for it was Channel 4 in the mid-90's, broadcasting Brookside and Channel 4 Racing in the analogue PAL Plus format, which failed in the end partly due to the deep letterbox that those watching in 4:3 (i.e. 99.9% of viewers at the time) had to endure.

the DVDs of the first series of ER are all 16:9, although the title sequence is still 4:3. I suspect that they might have remastered it from the original film, though.

Yes, I think so

Cybernet is still made in 4:3. Infact it still says it's a program made for Yorkshire Television, so they are way behind. Nothing wrong with that though

Did they ever try out broadcasting 16:9 letterbox on analogue? Channel 4 do it with films and i prefer it to 14:9 myself.

This Life only exists in 14:9 - it had to be shown like that on digital a year or two ago.

As does the BBC with many (although not all) films.