Anyone else miss late night ITV?

[Joe Chung]

I don't know about anyone else but once I got a TV in my bed room for my 11th birthday it opened a whole new world to me. Being a wrestling fan at the time, Thursday nights where packed with -

Tour of Duty
Coach
WCW wrestling
War of the world TV series
Cell block H

Fridays had the james whale show, God's gift, that weird sexual advice show and I'd always try to stay up late and watch the short segments on the 80s twilight zone.

I guess like most of you I just miss the originality of back then. Now TV stations are steralized and minimum effort. Back then they would just throw stuff against the wall to see what sticked..

Anyone else wish we could get that kind of TV back?

[angliaknight]

Re: Anyone else miss late night ITV?

I wish they would use a couple of the wee small hours to air archive material, similar to Talking pictures tv who screen Public eye starring Alfred burke or other classic itv shows which you can find on air today.

[Richard1978]

Re: Anyone else miss late night ITV?

America's Top Ten was very popular with me & my brother & dad.

We used to video it & watch the next day. It was great to see hear new bands & songs before they came out here, as well as seeing how British artists were doing there.

[George 1978]

Re: Anyone else miss late night ITV?

In answer to the thread's title, most people would say that they were obviously in bed fast asleep when it was on and therefore didn't see it unless they video recorded it. However, there were some people who stayed up late and saw stuff and had school the next day - mostly Sundays when Prisoner: Cell Block H was on, and I mean the Central revival from 1993 and 1994, although we did see the 1987-1991 run as well.

Central used to do their own schedules which meant no Night Network [sic] and more films and Jobfinder at around 4.30 am, aimed at those who couldn't get a day job because they happened to be awake at night for all the obvious reasons. They used to have on screen after the final commercial break of the programme:

NOW: Prisoner: Cell Block H
NEXT: The Hit Man and Her

Probably one good thing when Carlton took over Central in 1995 - the night time schedules. We even saw Granada's pub game Quiz Night for the first time as a result!

[George 1978]

Re: Anyone else miss late night ITV?

And of course, if you got Yorkshire TV in the mid 1990s (which I did from Belmont via a signal booster and a portable aerial positioned 90 degrees to the left), we got to see more of Prisoner: Cell Block H which ironically ended within days of Channel 5 starting their run of the series just after they went on air - ironically Yorkshire TV was the first to show PCBH in Britain way back in 1984 when it was still being made in Australia, and it was still being shown more than a decade later. So, in the first week of April 1997 we saw characters PCBH Tom Lucas on Yorkshire TV and Franky Doyle on Channel 5 - one end of the series versus the other!

That "weird sex advice" show that Joe mentioned was The Good Sex Guide which was made by Carlton (says a lot doesn't it?) and was banned from the Yorkshire and Tyne Tees (sorry, Channel 3 North East) regions because the stations' Managing Director Bruce Gyngell thought that it was too sexual and pornographic, even at 3.00 am in the morning, and shown a lot more films in that region than viewers sae elsewhere. I do commend the late Mr Gyngell very much for that decision, but let's not forget that this was actually in 1996 and not 1896. Nottingham is of course, is to the Yorkshire TV region what Berwick-upon-Tweed is to Scotland if you know what I mean.

[darren]

Re: Anyone else miss late night ITV?

WHEN YOU SAY LATE NIGHT TV I REMEMBER IT WAS CALLED NIGHT TIME HERE IS THE AD FROM 1990
https://youtu.be/DK-5e3EheTM
CANT BELIEVE ITS SO LONG AGO.


BUT I DID SIT UP WATCHING MANY SHOWS DURING THE NIGHT TIME SLOT.
WHICH IT SEEMS STARTED AT 10PM.

[MiniMort]

Re: Anyone else miss late night ITV?

I have recently obtained a tape from which my aunt (I assume) recorded Murder, She Wrote on VHS-LP in 1994 but just let the recording go until the end of the tape. The result is a tape that keeps going through the likes of Prisoner: Cell Block H, Sail The World, The Chart Show, Riviera, Travel Trails, Get Stuffed and Central Job Finder (complete with ad breaks to boot).

[Mulletino]

Re: Anyone else miss late night ITV?

I have recently obtained a tape from which my aunt (I assume) recorded Murder, She Wrote on VHS-LP in 1994 but just let the recording go until the end of the tape. The result is a tape that keeps going through the likes of Prisoner: Cell Block H, Sail The World, The Chart Show, Riviera, Travel Trails, Get Stuffed and Central Job Finder (complete with ad breaks to boot).

Awesome! I bet the ads are great?

I have the complete series of Tour of Duty on DVD as it's still one of my all-time favourite TV shows (just wish I had the version with the licensed music).

I do remember when the TV guide trialled the "Red Triangles" to show if a TV show contained "Adult" content, this just made it easier for us teenagers to find the decent telly shows to laugh about at school the next day.

[Clare]

Re: Anyone else miss late night ITV?

I remember, from my teens (late 80s, early 90s), Night Network, which had things like Captain Scarlet, and a show where Roland Rivron would interview people in the River Thames - actually in the river! I also used to stay up for, or video, music programmes like The Beat, Hitman and Her, and Tracking.

[zabadak]

Re: Anyone else miss late night ITV?

A lot of those programmes were clearly made for sad white men coming home from the pub. Which I was!

[80sChav]

Re: Anyone else miss late night ITV?

All the time I do OP yeah .... old ITV before it was broken down further in the early 90s was amazing, especially shhows ike Quiz Night and of course old Cell Block H etc etc!!

[darren]

Re: Anyone else miss late night ITV?

A few fave late night shows the james whale show.
As well as gods gift a sort of dating show hosted by davina mccall.

[Mulletino]

Re: Anyone else miss late night ITV?

Pretty sure I have a DVD somewhere which a mate made me many years ago with all episodes of "TV Offal" and "In Bed With Me Dinner" on. Gotta love the Gay Daleks!

[Richard1978]

Re: Anyone else miss late night ITV?

Pretty sure I have a DVD somewhere which a mate made me many years ago with all episodes of "TV Offal" and "In Bed With Me Dinner" on. Gotta love the Gay Daleks!

I've still got some TV Offal on VHS somewhere in my collection.

[agfagaevart]

Re: Anyone else miss late night ITV?

America's Top Ten was very popular with me & my brother & dad.

We used to video it & watch the next day. It was great to see hear new bands & songs before they came out here, as well as seeing how British artists were doing there.

I still have tapes of the AT10 as I heard ol' Kasey Kasem call it once. At the time his sweaters rivalled Bill Cosby's! I also have some of the films shown afterwards, that I recorded from that era - some of which haven't been aired since, and are not on DVD or Blu Ray. It's quite funny to see the old adverts again too.

IIRC, Thames started its late night service around June 1986, and it was long over due.