Daytime TV in the UK

BBC One's daytime schedule was introduced on October 27th, 1986, while a little earlier in the same month, BBC Two gained a full afternoon service outside of Daytime on Two. Channel 4's came sometime in 1987, and BBC Two was the last of the first four terrestrial channels to introduce a full daytime service outside of Daytime on Two on June 19th, 1989.

What was the reason it took so long for the BBC to introduce a full daytime service, especially for BBC Two, considering it was nearly three years after BBC One's was introduced?

Also, is it safe to say the ITV network was the first of the flagship stations to introduce a full daytime service, as their afternoon service was introduced on October 16th, 1972?

Well, ITV introduced daytime TV pretty much as soon the government lifted broadcasting hours restrictions.

In the case of the other three channels, it was all about being able to afford such a service as and when.

1972 was the year the conservative government lifted all broadcasting hours restrictions - a real tonic for ITV who had been pleading with previous governments to at least extend the broadcasting hours provision, even if they could not lift them totally.

1971, BBC and ITV were limited to just 8 hours per day of regular programming. If BBC or ITV wanted to air anything else during the day it had to come from either exempted programming genres of schools programmes, adult educational programming, religious programming, Welsh language programming or programmes catering for viewers from India or Pakistan - or the outside broadcasting quota allowance, which gave a set amount of hours per year to broadcast sporting coverage etc. By 1971 it was around 400 hours per year for both BBC and ITV.

BBC took ages to produce a proper daytime service down to money. The simply did not have enough licence fee income to produce a full daytime service.

This was the case used by the BBC for not lifting the broadcasting hours restrictions. BBC maintained that every hour ITV was on air they made money, whereas every hour BBC were on air they spent money.

Problem in that reasoning was that it seemed like the BBC thought every extra hour of ITV programming made came free, and that it did not cost them anything. In fact ITV spent a lot of money on daytime television, and got reasonable returns in ad revenue, but not a fortune.

I forgot to add that BBC Two experimented with a full afternoon service from October 8th, 1984, but went back to filling it's downtime with Pages from Ceefax from January 1985, whenever Daytime on Two wasn't being shown.

BBC One had a full afternoon service launched in January 1983, but also had it scaled back a little as BBC Two's did, when Pages from Ceefax was shown between the end of lunchtime programmes and children's programmes, (became Children's BBC from September). However, when Michael Grade's weekday schedule revamp came on February 18th, the afternoon Ceefax pages were removed, and were now regulated to Ceefax AM and before and after Play School, until October 1986.

For all his critics, I feel Michael Grade, his uncle being a descendant of the late Lew Grade, breathed new life into a stagnating BBC One under the supervision of Alan Hart, which was constantly loosing to ITV in the ratings battle, with the streamlining of weekday primetime, the introduction of Children's BBC and Daytime TV, plus moving Neighbours to it's famous teatime slot after CBBC before he jumped ship to Channel 4.

BBC Two I feel benefited greatly from See-Saw being moved from BBC One in June 1987, after loosing Play School and Play Away several years earlier, but despite donning a new afternoon service, Pages from Ceefax was shown haphazardly until June 1989, (although it was even worse until September 1986, when outside of term, Ceefax was shown non-stop from 9.25 in the morning, until 17.25 in the afternoon!)

But the BBC did have a daytime service in the seventies, you can see it here, including The Afternoon Programme featuring Delai Smith.
https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/bbcone/london/1974-04-10#at-12.55

However, it was abandoned at the end of 1974 as the Beeb were suffering from a severe financial crisis and made loads of cuts in programming, and only Pebble Mill survived.

Fascinating. Sounds like The Afternoon Programme was basically Pebble Mill at Two Forty-Five

As a child growing up in the early 1980s and as TV addict at an early age, I still remember wishing the BBC had a proper daytime schedule. Pages from Ceefax never really cut it.

Yes, but there was never any consistency in their daytime output compared to ITV, who managed a very decent blocked schedule. BBC always seemed haphazard, and from 1975 onward for over a decade they continued with the on/off approach to daytime television.

ITV blocked their daytime schedules into schools 9.30am-12.00pm, programmes for the little kids at 12.00pm, followed by the lunchtime news. Proper daytime schedules commencing after the news and running up to the start of the afternoon kids programmes. A decent schedule with no stop/starts.

When the broadcasting rules were relaxed in 1972, ITV originally wanted the lunchtime News to start at 12:00pm, to allow a free flow of the schedule in the afternoon. However, ITN challenged this on the basis that if a major story was to come out of Parliament then it wouldn’t be reported on their bulletin and that the BBC would be able to (albeit on radio) with the World at One. ITN argued for a 1:00pm bulletin, eventually a compromise of 12:40pm was reached and First Report began in 1972. Due to its success, the bulletin moved to 1:00pm in 1974.

That reminds me, how did Channel 4 fair in its daytime output before ITV Schools moved to there in September 1987? I know they started broadcasting on weekend mornings around that time, though I imagine it wasn't much different from BBC Two outside of Daytime on Two, as both had weekday daytime services that started at lunchtime.

Oh heck. Whilst there's a lot of nostalgia for old TV- Pebble Mill at One really was dreadful on reflection. Poor interviews, the space in the foyer wasn't the best idea and they had a middle aged rent a crowd.

Mind you, I think there was a drunken Christmas party one year which made it to air?