Networked ITV - 1990s and before...

It didn't sound right when I typed it.. I knew I should have said Mike Kyle or Redvers Prince!

By the way, this may be of interest to some:

TTTV Routine Sheet - 27 May 1987

Presentation routine sheet for the first part of Wednesday 27th May 1987, showing the originating companies and playout companies for everything shown - includes the ads, and references to 'Script' or 'PPC' included IVC, trailers, holding slides - in fact anything generated from the pres suite.

The 'hold' at 15:55 would usually be a programme title slide or 'the end' slide as jjne mentioned above (the idea being to mix out of the S&D credits early to avoid showing sponsorship captions), however in reality on this occasion the TC merely faded to black and gave the CA an extra five seconds to advise that CITV was coming up next.

And the 30" prom after About Britain was what Tony referred to as a 'pub anno' - it didn't arrive for some reason that day so the CA had to fill in with some birthday greetings!

In the case of credit voice overs could this have been the CCR/MCR at the originating station cutting from local mixer output back to the clean VT machine output?

Interesting, any idea why it doesn't list all advert breaks, in particular the first programme (a film?) doesn't have any listed (I assume there would have been breaks in it).

Also the only TT networked programme, How Dare You, says by it 'No Q Dot' I wonder if that means: 'it's not on the tape so add it live' or 'no Q dot needed'?

That shouldn't have caused a disturbance though should it? It would all have been in sync

This answers (or murkies the water of) some of the questions in this thread - we see Take The High Road as supplied by STV but "via GRA", so presumably Granada were playing it out, and quite a bit of the morning schedule coming from via Thames but being produced by a range of companies.

Also we see that when Tyne Tees were providing How Dare You to CITV, the source was listed as VT with a note "network to all via CEN", suggesting that they took the VT to air directly rather than it taking a round trip via Brum.

I recall HTV showing films during summer mornings with no ad breaks - one I remember is 'Finders Keepers', the 1966 Cliff Richard & The Shadows film. That must have been late 70s.

Prior to September 1987 there were few, if any, commercials on ITV before noon, except on Saturdays. Monday to Friday would usually be taken up by schools programmes, with the first ad break coming at c. 12:27, and this schedule was during half-term week. It was only after ITV daytime officially launched that commercials were seen in the mornings. (Ads during TV-am being the exception, but their ads breaks were sold separately of course). So, Inspector, all ad breaks are indeed listed.

The 'No Q Dot' puzzled me too - perhaps it means no Q dot coming from Central to prompt TTT to roll VT, or perhaps, as you said, no Q dot on the HDY tape for Central's benefit.

Granada networked TTHR to all except GPN, STV and BOR, who showed it at their own paces in an evening slot, and generally speaking well ahead of the Granada episodes.

By the way, the content of the 'script' (continuity bits) were sometimes not decided until minutes before they aired, therefore the timings of the ad-breaks are approximate. The TC would liaise with the CA as to whether they wanted to go on air at both sides of the commercials, only before, or only after. This was probably not the case within companies with a more formalised pres structure. TTT often went straight from a commercial or trail into the next programme - depending I assume on which TC/CA was on duty, whereas a company like YTV would always make an announcement into each programme.

I read "No Q Dot" as instructing transmission not to insert a dot, as Central was taking responsibility for that side.

Yes, TTTV would have opted out of the Central Feed for their locally-produced programme, as I mentioned further up in the thread.

As for the "script" sections, indeed these were in a state of flux. Presentation had an idea of what programmes they were going to trail that day but it was up to the announcer, in conjunction with the TxC to decide what went where and when. Typically Bill preferred to introduce programmes but very often Neville would be happy to take up the whole of the pre-break part and let the ad-break run straight into the next programme.

I do like the use of the word "script" here, when we all know that Bill in particular often went straight on with nothing but a set of bullet-points to help him

As for Sons & Daughters, as Si-Co says this was a slot that was often played around with; Anything from a "The End" slide to a full-blown IVC segment would be inserted here, depending on the whim of the people on duty at the time. It wasn't even completely unknown for them to put a trailer in here and opt out of the first CITV link, replacing it with a few birthdays from 4.

Lastly, interesting to see that the news was being sourced from studio 2 there; generally it would come from 3, so I'm not sure what the deal is there.

Absolutely fascinating, thanks for providing that. I'm involved in producing the modern day equivalent of this, so very interesting to see how it used to be done - especially as there is one name listed that's still around today!

Quite possible the whole thing was run without breaks, and it would be possible to run parts back to back as that's how the film tapes would be provided - continuous - with the nominated break points marked by a local holding slide. At a guess anyway! Certainly the part durations add up to the on air of the next part with nothing being run in the "breaks".

buster, it would be equally interesting to see what the modern version of a routine/presentation sheet would look like!
And to confirm, the morning film was run from Telecine without breaks or any local insert between 'parts'.

jjne, studio 2 did appear to be the dedicated news studio in those days as it was fully kitted out as such. Oh, and there was another 'The End' slide, with the text in block capitals within a rectangular box, you may recall, but it rarely got used. I actually remember Bill popping up on occasion in between CITV segments too, instead of the networked link! By the way, did you ever work there?

Yes, studio 2 was the "main" news studio but IIRC they had a smaller setup in studio 3 from which they usually screened the shorter bulletins. Of course there was no technical reason why they couldn't use studio 2 but I seem to recall that 2 was often used for other things and so they'd use 3 during the day. That said, that information dates from around 1990 so it's possible that in 1987 things were done differently.

I never worked at Tyne Tees but I knew a number of people who did, and being a bit of a geek I took an active interest in what was going on (and bored a fair few folk with it )

I don't know if you remember but when Kathy Secker rejoined Tyne Tees in 1991 they went through a phase of completely opting out of CITV continuity, and replacing all links, before and after breaks, with masses of IVC, birthdays, the works. Absolute heaven for a pres nerd, why I didn't record it heaven alone knows, but I wonder what the kids must have made of it all....

I can't say I remember the alternate "The End" slide, but there was a further, later one that was created electronically, not much used, but introduced in early 1988 with a blue background. This must have been generated from an electronic slide store, but for some reason they didn't start full usage of electronic slides until the end of 88 (so the electronic store used for this must have sat idle for a while). It's particularly odd when you consider that they were using a slightly dog-eared looking slide as a static ident in the early part of 1988, when they presumably had the technology to use an electronic version.

EDIT: actually, I wonder if we're referring to the same one? It had a dark-to-light blue vertical gradient, with "THE END" written in capitals in the middle with a metallised effect, and had a rectangle around it in light blue. Ring any bells?