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Programmes Certain Companies just didn't like

(November 2016)

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WH
Whataday Founding member
One that comes to mind was the cancellation of TMWRNJ when Jane Root came in as controller of BBC Two, apparently because she didn't like Lee and Herring. According to Richard Herring, a third series was getting a lot of support in the comedy department and from the previous controller but when Steve Coogan introduced him to her at a party and she immediately turned her back and blanked him, he knew they wouldn't get another series.

There's also an apocryphal story about Stewart Lee asking about giving The Goodies a repeat run and Root replying "No, we're not going to repeat any of your shows".


Reminds me of a similar story that Richard Herring told that a TMWRNJ edited highlights was due to go out but no no one told Stewart Lee, a show was then frantically edited and went out in the same evening.


The live show on a Sunday was 50 minutes with a repeat screened every Friday evening, edited down to 30 minutes. The edit would take place every Thursday afternoon ready for the Friday evening screening. One Thursday afternoon they were making a start on the edit, and happened to be flicking through a newspaper where they discovered that the BBC had moved it a day forward to Thursday evening - without telling them.
nwtv2003 and Blake Connolly gave kudos
SW
Steve Williams
Yorkshire TV refused to show an FA Cup Final replay in 1983 (back then, if the Saturday match ended as as draw, there was a replay on the following Thursday). Man U v Brighton, so (according to YTV) no local interest.
The Beeb showed it of course, so actually YTV probably ended up with more viewers, than they would have got showing the match


It was actually the previous year's replay, Spurs vs QPR. Possibly another reason why YTV decided against it was because the European Cup Final was the night before so they decided they didn't want live football two nights running (Brian Moore had to fly back from Rotterdam to commentate on both of them).

Not quite. IIRC Sheffield Wednesday were at Wembley, and the game went in to extra time, just as the throphy presentation was starting, YTV ended coverage and moved on to another programme.

Hence, the Owls 'fanzine' was named 'Rise of the monster trucks' as it was that show, that YTV pulled away from Wembley to show.


Yes, I think they did show the trophy presentation but ITV Sport extended the coverage for another half hour for interviews and analysis and so on, and I think Yorkshire were the only region to decide not to bother hanging around. The other interesting League Cup Final story is that in 1993, when it was Arsenal vs Sheffield Wednesday, the trophy presentation was massively delayed when Steve Morrow broke his arm in the over-boistrous celebrations, and in the end ITV decided to show adverts and then play it in as live afterwards. This was alright, but you couldn't see the royal box from the commentary box and had to commentate on the presentation off the telly - so Alan Green on BBC Radio was watching adverts while it happened and had to simply guess what was happening, based on the crowd noise.

I'm not sure Scottish had it in for Emmerdale or any other show as such. On franchise renewal in the 90s they took a decision to replace the 7pm show each night - no matter what it was - with Scottish programming.


There was a similar instance circa 1996 when HTV had got a bit of a slagging in the ITC performance review for boring regional programmes shoved in off-peak slots, so they immediately rescheduled regional shows for 7pm on Monday and Wednesday, moving the network shows to 5.10. Six months later, when the point had been proven, they moved them back.
:-(
A former member
I'm not sure Scottish had it in for Emmerdale or any other show as such. On franchise renewal in the 90s they took a decision to replace the 7pm show each night - no matter what it was - with Scottish programming. This led to very worthy shows like Scottish Action - the sort of thing you'd normally put on against EastEnders, or on Sunday afternoon - making an appearance in primetime. I remember by this point The Sun's TV guide had a primetime section on the ITV part of the listings as all other ITV stations had agreed to go with a clear line-up, and the inevitable "not Scottish" line beside one programme a night.


It never happened till Sept 1993 and at that point there moved alot of stuff around.
* 17.10 is where the network stuff appeared
* 17.40 Evening news
* 18.00 Home and away
* 18.25 Scotland Today
* 19.00 Local or network shows.

Thing was the 18.30 slot had been used for high Road, Scottish action, and Gaelic programmers from April 1990 - Sept 1993. You have to wonder why rejig everything around, to move the network stuff ALL the way to 17.10? why not swap the 18.30 and 19pm slots around? There had alot in that 7pm slot, including Scottish passport.

The strange thing is STV been dropping series for years and yet Digital spy would make you feel its only a new thing. Around 2000-03 stv double down on getting decent slots. Monday 8pm all networks show dropped, I remember Gaelic music show got that slot for 2months. My kind of music the last series has never been screened in Scotland, because it got held back so high road could go out at 7pm on a sunday, after Emmerdale went 5 nights a week.

How could HTV move the series back to 17.10 when there were showing ACP in that slot most days?
RI
Riaz
Why did C4 commission them then ? On what grounds are they not being shown ?


Because the documentaries were too contentious. The producers told me at a meeting that, although they cannot prove this, they believe that the British media has reached a conclusion what happened on 7/7 so only wants material with evidence that supports the conclusion. Anything that runs counter to the media's conclusion; questions the conclusion; or covers suspicious findings outside of the conclusion will not be accepted even if supported by primary sources of evidence that would stand up strongly in an historical or legal report.

I know a journalist who works for the local rag who has read the official narrative of 7/7 (Report of the official account of the bombings in London on 7th July 2005, published by the Home Office on 11 May 2006) and is fully aware that the document is not backed up with primary sources of information, and is riddled with errors and factual inaccuracies. For a start, the authors did not even get the train time right and it was public domain knowledge back in August 2005 that the 7:40 train was cancelled. However, senior management and the media corporation which owns the newspaper, along with over 100 other local newspapers, will not have any of it.
PE
peteprodge
ttt posted:
It wasn't just beating Swap Shop -- for a while these programmes were thrashing the BBC in the ratings, despite being little more than a series of continuity announcements in the early years.


Very true. In fact, the BBC came up with Swap Shop after having noticed their Saturday morning ratings were very poor in the midlands.

ttt posted:
The unions even got involved as the shows weren't treated as programmes in their own right for a number of months.


Yes, the first series of Tiswas was cut short because the unions wanted the show to be recognised as an actual programme, so it had to be moved out of Studio 4.

ttt posted:
I seem to recall that Sep-Dec 1981 was the only period where TISWAS was networked, as in January 1982 TSW started with their own programme.


Tiswas was never fully-networked (due to Channel not picking it up), but Sep-Dec 1981 was the period were it had its fullest coverage. TVS also started with Number 73 replacing Tiswas for their first six weeks.
:-(
A former member
There was a great Link, on the Tiswas online site, which actually list who took what over from 74 - 82. I help fill in the gaps, ( thankful I downloaded the stuff Very Happy )
TC
TonyCurrie
[quote="623058" pid="1035123"]



The strange thing is STV been dropping series for years and yet Digital spy would make you feel its only a new thing.


To be technically accurate, Scottish Television was simply not acquiring or paying for series that other contractor bought, rather than 'dropping' series.
RI
Richard
News at Ten probably fits into this discussion, and then the programmes that replaced News at Ten and the effect it had on the 6-7pm hour.


At point in the 90s HTV floated the idea of sourcing its own national news because of the cost of using ITN. In the 2000s, UTV was part of a consortium, along with Sky and others who bid to get the ITV News contract.
TT
ttt
News at Ten probably fits into this discussion, and then the programmes that replaced News at Ten and the effect it had on the 6-7pm hour.


At point in the 90s HTV floated the idea of sourcing its own national news because of the cost of using ITN.


This was in around 1997 as I recall, and was a proposal led by Yorkshire TV with HTV support. The idea had legs, but died off when YTTTV was bought by Granada.
:-(
A former member

The strange thing is STV been dropping series for years and yet Digital spy would make you feel its only a new thing.

To be technically accurate, Scottish Television was simply not acquiring or paying for series that other contractor bought, rather than 'dropping' series.


Thats the bit I keep on forgetting, It just getting the right balance, and sometime its not easy, since you have to keep to your legal quotes while other times STV wants to push the boat out. TSW did the same back in the day, TT tried to aswell.

Of course there were always programmes which never had room or just disliked,
NL
Ne1L C
ttt posted:
News at Ten probably fits into this discussion, and then the programmes that replaced News at Ten and the effect it had on the 6-7pm hour.


At point in the 90s HTV floated the idea of sourcing its own national news because of the cost of using ITN.


This was in around 1997 as I recall, and was a proposal led by Yorkshire TV with HTV support. The idea had legs, but died off when YTTTV was bought by Granada.


I didn't know that. Sounds like what Granada did in the 1960's and what Scottish are doing now. I can understand HTV Wales doing such a thing with a kind of "World News Wales" motif but I'm not sure about YTTTTV.
:-(
A former member
Back in the early 90s, YTV, Carlton Scottish and a few others all wanted rid of news at ten, but of course there was talk of ITV news at 7pm. ticks all the boxes etc.

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