UKTV

I remember Chris talking about the show one morning in the first half hour (which is mainly a conversation between the team that flows like a normal conversation). He said that it was repeated so many times that he once saw a New Year's Eve episode played out in October, and that they couldn't show it after the renaming to Play UK because every link mentioned UK Play.

It may be archived somewhere, not sure. One of the funniest first half-hours I've heard from the show.

That'll be 'The Phone Zone' (name based I think on 'The Ozone') which was their only live bit of the schedule and went out daily in the afternoons and then repeated at other times


Yes, as I mentioned above it fitted the UKTV/BBC style of presentation rather than a more modern MTV style (I say more modern even though they invented it in 1982!)

Towards the end of the channel they invested in a system that could compile music videos together without them having to make a programme out of them but that was short lived

Not really. Like all UK Play's home-grown programmes it was basically a way of linking together music videos very cheaply. There might have been a few sketches but if so they were very basic as they had no money.... it was no Fast Show.

IIRC they recorded it in the music studio in TV Centre (which is the odd room that stops the corridor from the main reception to old bit of TV Centre being straight) so it was essentially a desk, a couple of cameras and a wood panelled background.

The main thing I remember is that Comedy Dave wore a jockey's outfit for every episode for absolutely no reason.

Yep, after that he did 'Live with Chris Moyles' on Channel 4. It then became 'Live with Christian O'Connell'. The Phone Zone later became 'Top of the Pops at Play' if I remember rightly.

The Live With... shows were on Five.

Something I do remember was UK Horizons only being available from 8am-6pm on analogue cable in the early days. I enquired to UKTV why the channel only broadcast part time around a year and a bit after it became available on analogue cable and was told 'It appears that the cable operator ntl didn't realise the channel was 24 hours so the channel switched to the channel guide at 6pm'. Needless to say, after me raising the issue - the channel was then available fulltime. Apparently this was a problem across the UK! Ntl were always rather rubbish, hence why I went to Sky as soon as Analogue cable started to lose channels when the analogue contracts were not being renewed and ntl were trying to force a switchover to their digital+ service.

On that note, if you look very carefully in this picture of the TC11 gallery, you can see some TOTP@Play graphics on the monitor stack, and on the PC monitor at the bottom right. It was taken in 2007, probably a good five years after the show had finished (and after BBC News had occupied the studio, mainly for BBC Three programmes)

Watch seem to be having serious sound issues this evening. It is also affecting Watch+1. I guess no one monitors the sound on these channels.

The sound during some of the adverts is pretty bad on Dave too, although not as bad as Watch, which still has the issue several hours later.

Also, it appears Dave now has a clock in the top left of the screen during the adverts counting down to the programme starting again. Good idea for the viewer, I've seen this done in other countries, but I don't know what the channel or the advertisers get out of it. It just makes it easier to miss the adverts, especially when fast-forwarding through a recording, I would imagine.

As part of the advertising for the new School of Hard Sums show, Dave is having little brainteasers at the start and end of breaks, with a timer in the top left of the screen during adverts.

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http://i42.tinypic.com/md2fjl.jpg
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For the channel it could get them a few extra viewers channel hopping who might be willing to stick around if they can see the break's about to end.

It's quite common in Central Europe, albeit only before the main Evening news programmes, with a massive analogue clock on screen, not before a repeat of Top Gear.