As mentioned there Central Weekend is probably the noteable example from Central.
Following on from the talk of Granada Tonight earlier at one point they did cut the show back to 30 minutes in order to air local programming at 6.30pm. I think there was Schools Challenge and Crime File, plus a cookery show IIRC. They used to do a bit after the news too - Revelations was a noteable drama and I've vague memories of a rather tacky club based docusoap.
Central Weekend famously achieved what all these programmes secretly aspire to, when it was taken off air one week while the police broke up a mass brawl in the studio which led to numerous arrests and hospitalisations. It was such a big show in the Midlands, it did get a network outing in the mid-nineties, as the boringly titled Wednesday Night Live, but it didn't catch on. Quite a few regions had a similar show on Friday nights, Tyne Tees in the early eighties had Friday Live which was seemingly a bit of a bearpit (and I seem to remember reading that Central Weekend started as Tyne Tees' Andy Allen joined Central as Head of Programmes and wanted their equivalent of Friday Live) and Granada had Up Front, with Tony Wilson and Lucy Meacock, which mixed debate with comedy and gave the likes of Caroline Aherne and John Thomson some early TV exposure.
Revelations was shown in a couple of regions as well as Granada, Carlton and Central showed it, as did Border who took most of Granada's regional shows. Devised by Russell T Davies, of course. Seemingly in return, Granada showed Carlton's London Bridge for a while, which lasted for a few years. Seems bizarre to think now we don't get much networked drama on ITV at all than 25 years ago there was so much money sloshing around we could get regional dramas.
Schools Challenge was an interesting one, it was a straight spin-off of University Challenge, on the same set with the same rules, but only on Granada, and introduced by Mark Radcliffe, while he was doing the Radio 1 breakfast show. Who said he was too low profile? Also in that 6.30 slot in 1997 was a fashion series called Girls Who Shop, which was the first TV exposure for Trinny and Susannah.
Granada did a couple of other regional comedy shows, for a couple of years circa 1991-92 they did a series called Stand Up, which was then repeated on the network in 1996 because in the meantime everyone involved had become massively famous, including the likes of Lee Evans, Frank Skinner and Stewart Lee. In 1992 Granada even did a series of regional comedy pilots, including the original version of The Mrs Merton Show, sketch show The Dead Good Show with Steve Coogan, John Thomson and Caroline Aherne and a sitcom pilot written by and starring Mark Little which never came to anything. Also, Granada produced a comedy magic series called Stuff The White Rabbit for the Beeb, which BBC2 showed in 1997, but six months before it was shown regionally on Granada.
I remember reading an article a while back how one of the most important comedy shows of the nineties was a regional programme on Meridian called Six Pairs Of Pants, not because it was any good, but because the cast included Simon Pegg, Jessica Hynes and many other people who all went on to be massively famous, and I think Edgar Wright directed it, and it was that series that brought people together who would go on to make Spaced and many other shows.
One other interesting series that moved from the regions to the network was a show in 1996 called The LADS, which was probably the highest profile series produced by Westcountry. It was very much a lad mag on telly, when they were the latest thing, presented by Terry Alderton, Sophie Anderton, Jadene "Don't Forget Your Toothbrush" Doran and some other bloke, and I first remember reading about it in Broadcast where they were reporting it was the most successful regional show in Britain in terms of audience share, it was getting about 60% of the audience in the South West. So it got picked up by quite a lot of other regions, I remember watching it on Granada, and that led to a full networked series being commissioned, albeit at 1am as part of the overnight line-up. It was a big deal for Westcountry, who managed to capture the zeitgeist and do it before everyone else. It's a bit like when Border in the eighties managed to be the first people to put BMX on the telly when they did BMX Beat, which was picked up by the network and established Border as a major producer of kids' shows for the rest of the decade, because they got in first.
Our House started as a Central regional programme but ended up getting an airing across the Carlton stations (including HTV).
The similiar series on Granada was House Style, which was very popular in the region, we used to watch it every week, and I think it later got a network repeat on daytime, with the more obvious local stuff edited out.
And over to Granada didn't they have their own kids series which usually aired on Saturdays at 12.30pm - a game show of some kind IIRC. I think Central and HTV both usually shows Movies, Games and Videos in that slot.
Movies, Games and Videos was an interesting show, I remember watching the very first one when it was networked on Good Friday 1992 when it went under the name of Movies, Movies, Movies (which is better, let's face it). I think it came back in the autumn, and there was a period where it was pretty much networked, it was certainly part of ITV's notorious Christmas Day 1993 line-up when they just showed all the usual Saturday morning shows. I remember it was billed as a Capricorn Production for LWT. At one point there was an even a spin-off magazine, though much as it was at the low-rent end of video games programming, so it was published by Europress, who were at the low-rent end of video games magazines, and it didn't last very long. After a while it seemed the various regions started dropping it and I seem to recall towards the end the only region near us still taking it was HTV.
After Granada took over LWT, there were various shows broadcast in both regions, including a kids quiz called NvS with Dominik Diamond and a Tarby chat show late on Saturday nights. There was also a Jonathan Ross series in 1996, broadcast on Friday nights like his other big chat shows, but only on LWT and Granada, which shows you how his career was down the toilet at the time. They also did a few weekends where the two regions would join together for a live event, there was one called Holidaywatch Live, with Tony Wilson in Blackpool and Jono Coleman in Southend meeting holidaymakers in various programmes over the weekend. One thing I remember
about that is that Garry Bushell then parodied it on his awful Bushell on the Box series, even though nobody outside London and the North West would have ever seen it.
When Carlton took over Central, they too had a couple of shows involving both regions, including a Just A Minute revival and I remember watching the first ever televised Mobo awards in 1997, which were only on Carlton and Central. Around that time too, Carlton had a regional pop show called Videotech, which didn't especially have a London bias and featured bands from all over the place. I remember they did a particularly starry episode, with people like Robbie Williams, which was shown in all regions at 10.40 one night, seemingly serving as a pilot for a potentially networked series. But it never happened, and a year later they did CDUK instead.
HTV produced a twice weekly soap for the ITV network in 1981 called Taff Acre but it didn't last very long.
Yes, as part of the same initiative to create networked daytime dramas that also created Take The High Road. That lasted a long time (although it was seemingly regularly axed by the network and then brought back by popular demand), but Taff Acre didn't.
Last edited by Steve Williams on 11 February 2021 11:56am