STV Interval caption

Looknig at the sub-tv website, about ITV Schools, up until circa 1982, Schools programming was suspended between 10:30 and 11:00 every morning. The regional ITV stations opted out and showed their own captions, and played their own music. The ITV network was used during this 30 minute period to distribute last minute adverts to all the contractors.

On the sub-tv page, it shows a caption from STV, dating from the 70's or early 80s. It has the word "INTERVAL" on the top third, and the STV logo used then on the bottom.

Was this used by STV as a 10:30 - 11:00 caption? It doesn't mention schools on it? In addition, there was a "Schools on STV" caption, used for opt outs from the network programming to show its own schools programming, and used again before national continuity returned. If the INTERVAL caption wasn't used, what was?

And was it regional announcers who made the 10:30 announcement, or ATV in Birmngham?

Well I can answer all of these questions!

First of all a word about why schools programming was suspended between 1030 and 1100 every morning. As Robert says, that was the time when new commercials, trails and other programme material were fed 'up the line' between companies. Therefore the network wasn't available to provide an interval caption during this hiatus period. Some companies ran short programmes in the gap but most simply put up an interval caption and played a bit of music.

STV's INTERVAL slide (I still have a good half-dozen copies) was part of the station branding, and conformed to all programme slides. I recall that towards the latter part of the 80s we sometimes also used a slide with white lettering on a bright blue background with the wording PROGRAMMES FOR SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES RESUME AT 11.00 This slide was sent to us by Thames, and it conformed to the Thames house style. Although there was indeed an STV-branded "Schools" slide it was never used in this slot, since technically the interval was not considered part of schools output but was viewed simply as a pause in presentation output. An interval. The "Schools" slide was used as a crash caption in the event of a breakdown, or sometimes at the end of the schools sequence. However we later were furnished with sets of the network schools interval slides (when they changed every week) and we used those in preference to the generic slide which frankly looked awful. We had three slide scanners, incidentally: two were shared with studios and one was dedicated to presentation. The latter machine was loaded with crash captions, however one of the other two was used for the 1030 interval.

Presentation was a lot more free and easy in those days, so it would be left to the duty Assistant Transmission Controller to decide which slide to use and what music to play. (The Transmission Controller always spent the morning previewing the day's filmed material so the ATC was left to look after schools transmissions.) In turn, the choice of music was often left to me, since I had a better knowledge of library music than most of the ATCs. I tended to favour the Amphonic albums, and they appeared frequently in the half hour interval.

We never bothered with a 1030 announcement. Just did a down and up into the interval.

thanks for that informative insight, it's always a pleasure to read an insight from a person involved in broadcasting.

Yes, your contributions are great Tony.

I look forward to reading more... even though it does make me realise that I started in telly about 20 years too late!

I'm intrigued as to why Thames supplied a slide for use in the interval (rather than ATV who ran the Schools service); was this just a spirit of co-operation that they'd knocked up a slide that they thought would be useful elsewhere and distributed copies as a matter of course?

Although ATV did indeed supply the schools programmes (and furnished schools interval slides) the 1030 - 1100 hiatus not being part of the schools period meant that responsibility for the network reverted to the "nominated contractor" (Thames on weekdays; LWT at weekends) which is why thames supplied the slide.

Indeed. it's always nice to hear from someone in the know, please keep your contributions coming Tony!

It's believed that by the early 1980's, I'd reckon after the franchise changes and start of franchise arrangements from January 1982, the 30 minute interval was abolished. I'm guessing that by this time, extra vision mixers had been hired, meaning the ITV network didn't have to be used.

BTW, if anyone is wondering what these captions are, here's the link to the page.

http://www.sub-tv.co.uk/itvschools.asp

Whilst we are on the subject of advert distribution here's a flashback ...

MONDAY'S NEWCOMERS (1958-76)
ITV

NOT A programme as such, not even something meant to be watched by the likes of a skiving/off sick/study period/can't-be-arsed you and me. All the same, every Monday at 9am a half-hour round-up of all that week's new commercials went out, supposedly for the benefit of the advertising industry (though it was a damn sight too late for them to complain about anything) but chiefly for the entertainment of baffled schoolkids. Never credited in the TV Times, which added loads to its curiosity appeal. Handily split into new 60 second, 45 second, 30 second and 15 second ads, for the likes of Fray Bentos pies, Capstan fags, Nimble and Slimcea.

(from TV Cream)

Sorry for sounding totally newbie, but actually is the "ITV Network" in this context? Is it a physical cable which linked all of the regional presentation centres? I had always assumed that when something was "networked" live it was broadcast from the source and the other regions just picked up these transmissions and relayed them, like S4C Analogue does (or did in the late 90s) with C4 English programming.

Each ITV company* had multiples circuits in and out of the building connected to the local BT Exchange, Lines were booked by the IBA to connect these local ends together for each programme as necessary. So for Coronation Street, an outgoing circuit from Granada would be routed to the incoming circuits at the other stations. For The Bill, it was a circuit from Thames. This had issues for genlocking, as is excellently explained here

more here

* Channel is the exception, who used a dirty feed from the mainland.

"Monday's Newcomers" ought to have its own thread.

But a word or two about one of my favourite non-programmes.

Its origins were in the ad agencies, who really wanted to see their brand new commercials in the context of an ad break (ie scattered amongst other commercials) rather than in splendid isolation in a viewing theatre. Moreover every agency wanted to show-off to other agencies, and in a number of cases the agency executives never got to see their work on screen as it was either shown in a different region (I.e. NOT London) or they had the misfortune to commute away from London!

The ITA agreed to the regular screening of new commercials providing it was never publicised. Which it wasn't - except for a weekly column in "Television Mail" (and its successor "Broadcast") which reviewed all the commercials in the programme each week. Writer Jack Rosenthal penned many of these reviews.

So how did it work?

On Monday morning at 10.00 (the times changed a bit later) the transmitter network switched to their line feed which carried the programme. Up came the silent caption MONDAY'S NEWCOMERS (In white on black in an old-style serif font) and then silent captions ahead of each block 60 SECOND COMMERCIALS 30 SECOND COMMERCIALS etc. My heart always sank when it began with 10 SECOND COMMERCIALS because then you knew the whole thing was going to be over in a flash! The longest I recall was nearly an hour of commercials. Marvellous fun and you'd often get all the variants of a new commercial; and you would see regional ads that never aired on your station.

At the end a caption came up. The wording is taken from my memory - and I haven't seen the programme for over 30 years - so feel free to correct me. But I seem to recall it was: MONDAY'S NEWCOMERS - THE END AN ITCA Networked Production for Advertisers and Advertising Agencies.

After which test Card C (or D) would appear as if nothing had ever happened. No startups, closedowns, or any acknowledgement that the programme existed. Its companion, IBA ENGINEERING ANNOUNCEMENTS had similar treatment.

Sometimes the caption would say http://tx.mb21.co.uk/features/slidescan/MondaysNewcomers1t.jpg which meant there was nothing new to see. Or the transmitter had lost its network feed. Or something.

In later years they tried to zap it up with a theme tune, opening credits and coloured captions. It died the death soon after.