Networked ITV - 1990s and before...

This would be from September 1993 and the first episode of Sooty and Co, thus the first Sooty to come from Granada, as presented from my own VHS via YouTube...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lEx2WvRtuY

I only figured out a couple of years ago why the credits were cut short...!

There was an exception to the rule though - Schools programmes were routed through ATV/Central. So YTV would feed Scientific Eye to CEN, and CEN would feed it out to the network. This had the advantages that the other regions could cut up CEN and put their feet up for the morning.

Which would have sounded better if the Regions didn't have to come in do the start-up at 9.25am and then sit around doing nothing until 12.00pm, hoping for a breakdown from ATV/Central.

They had the interval to do as well

Yes, I recommend reading through some of Yellowtriumph's posts on the Mausoleum Club on this subject, they're fascinating

Networking Secrets Revealed:
http://www.mausoleumclubforum.org.uk/xmb/viewthread.php?tid=17014&page=1

An explanation of how ITV/BT lines were set up
http://www.mausoleumclubforum.org.uk/xmb/viewthread.php?tid=17288&page=1#pid196491

Yeah, I seem to remember after the 1989 rebrand, while the usual endaps would read, for example "An LWT Production for ITV", after imports you'd get one saying "An LWT Presentation for ITV", presumably with the name of the company responsible for playing it out.

Hmm, not sure about that, the only time you'd get that would be a programme from a UK independent production, so The Bill would have a Thames endcap and then "A Central Presentation for ITV". For imports that wouldn't happen, the local company would put their own in - I remember on Home and Away, Granada would shrink the picture and put "A Granada Presentation" at the bottom of the screen.

However a specific company would, I think, be responsible for editing it and compliance and so forth, although they wouldn't be credited. I can't remember where I read Yorkshire presented H&A.

these seem to back this up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjuxXz-qzV0

I also believe that ITV's morning schedule that replaced schools programmes was for a while transmitted via Granada to all stations, starting with The Time The Place promo at 09:25:15 until the end of This Morning, eg. Crosswits from TTT or Lucky Ladders from ANG would be fed to Granada from the originating station, also TTTP itself from wherever it may have been coming from, and the various ITN News bulletins. I remember Granada opting out of This Morning to show regional news updates during the 1993 Manchester bombings, whilst still feeding This Morning to network.

And - in earlier days - the 12:00-12:30 childrens programmes were normally transmitted via one station (eg THS, GRA, YTV) regardless of the originating companies - I assume the short 10 second gap between them didn't make switching easy.

Interestingly, even in the mid 90s afternoon programmes like Home and Away, the Emmerdale/Corrie repeats and quiz shows tended to get scheduled at different times in different regions, even though most/all were showing the same episode. I also noticed that just because say Granada, HTV and YTV were showing H&A at 17:10, they weren't using the same feed - one region could be as much as two minutes ahead of another. I'm not sure if these shows would be played out from various 'hub stations' or not. I assume a region wanting to show H&A at 14:30 would tape it from a station who played it out at 12:55, so would already have a copy to play back at 17:10.

It's also interesting - and puzzling - how one station could 'purchase' an overseas programme (think Falcon Crest or Shortland Street, for example) and either 'network it' or 'sell it on'. When Central bought Shortland Street, for example, did the other regions then pay Central for it when they started showing it? Or would this be a separate transaction with the distributors/producers? When Thames showed Sons and Daughters, and Tyne Tees and Anglia latched onto their feed, how did they 'chip in'? The legalities sound complicated - but perhaps they're perfectly simple?

I wonder whether This Morning was fed directly to the network stations (from Liverpool) or whether it was routed through Manchester?

The Manchester Bomb was on a Saturday (and was in 1996)

There used to be a video on youtube of a time where granada introduced viewers in their region to Corrie, and a few seconds in the tape paused! So it reverted back to a Granada holding slide. Though not a fan of Corrie, I remember this in the STV region, and the still image remianed on screen longer than was shown in the video from Granadaland. Presumably Corrie was played out from Manchester.