Options
ITV Nighttime
![[Deleted User]](https://w5.vanillicon.com/v2/5821e1d02f46a84933a8b237285862de.svg)
[Deleted User]
Posts: 513 Forum Member
✭✭
Just what has happened to ITV nighttime? As a student in the early to mid nineties, we were always staying up late, getting very stoned, watching ITV Nighttime. And maybe it's just a case of rose-tinted glasses or the puff was better in those days, but ITV Nighttime in 2004 it isn't a patch on it's former self.
All they seem to show nowadays is repeats of Trisha and Tonight with Trevor McDonald, then three hours of ITV Nightscreen. Where has all the Nighttime only stuff gone? Such gems as God's Gift, The James Whale Radio Show, Prisoner Cell Block H, Alien Nation (the series), Carnal Knowledge, Cue the Music, The Hitman and Her, Dial Midnight (LWT only) and the clubbers bible - BPM. Plus they use to always show decent sci-fi and hammer horrors at about 3am, and the rarely repeated stuff from the daytime. Also there was no ITV nightscreen - programmes went through till the ITN Morning News at 5:30am (When that came on, you knew it was time for bed!)
Just to illustrate - Tonight's stunning line up is:
20th Jan - London region
1:15 am Trisha (R)
2:10 am Today with Des and Mel (R)
3:05 am World Sport (R)
3:35 am Football League Extra (R)
4:00 am ITV Nightscreen (Crappy teletext style thing)
Thank god for Cartoon Network and it's overnight marathon of the Magic Roundabout for all us pot heads.
All they seem to show nowadays is repeats of Trisha and Tonight with Trevor McDonald, then three hours of ITV Nightscreen. Where has all the Nighttime only stuff gone? Such gems as God's Gift, The James Whale Radio Show, Prisoner Cell Block H, Alien Nation (the series), Carnal Knowledge, Cue the Music, The Hitman and Her, Dial Midnight (LWT only) and the clubbers bible - BPM. Plus they use to always show decent sci-fi and hammer horrors at about 3am, and the rarely repeated stuff from the daytime. Also there was no ITV nightscreen - programmes went through till the ITN Morning News at 5:30am (When that came on, you knew it was time for bed!)
Just to illustrate - Tonight's stunning line up is:
20th Jan - London region
1:15 am Trisha (R)
2:10 am Today with Des and Mel (R)
3:05 am World Sport (R)
3:35 am Football League Extra (R)
4:00 am ITV Nightscreen (Crappy teletext style thing)
Thank god for Cartoon Network and it's overnight marathon of the Magic Roundabout for all us pot heads.
0
Comments
You take drugs you turn into a hippy
Everyone knows Hippys are bad M'kay
Though going to work on two hours' sleep was not fun, as I recall.
Have a nice day!
The ever-so charimatic agony uncle on Dear Nick.
The profiles of stand-up's on Funny Business.
Late and Loud - the national edit of the superb Central Weekend with Nicky Campbell.
Sledge Hammer,
American Gladiators,
Married with Children,
Night Network with Tim Westwood, Mick Brown and Emma Freud,
The James Whale Show live from Radio Aire!
Friday the 13th - the series!
The Twilght Zone remakes.
Alfred Hitchcock presents - the series.
War of the Worlds - the series!
Pub Quiz with Stuart Hall and latterly Ted Robbins.
Pick of the Week - the best funny stories from ITV's regional news.
Phil Donahue.
Special Squad.
And if you lived in Meridian land - Graham Rogers interviews whoever happens to be in panto in Southampton at the time!
I wasn't going to mention Bushell on the Box but what the hell - someone must hav watched it.
Ah, the great ITV Nightime shows of old!
I know us in London had a different line up to Granada, as my mate was up in Manchester Uni and he always watched Best of British Motor Sport at the sensible time of 1:30am, where as I couldn't watch it as it was on at 5am in the Carlton region.
ITV generally has falen back a long way since around 1998, but Night time is probably the best demonstration of how ITV has deminished since the mid-90s. It's now just bland boring repeats of stuff nobody wants to watch. In a way it's a bit sad - I'm am up late either working on some uni project or doing some PHP coding, I tend to just have TMF on in the background - sure they play some good stuff in the early morning, but it's not the same...
As I remember (circa 1989) 'Night Time' with the Granada announcers and the logo of the cat sillouetted across the moon also went out on Grampian, Tyne Tees, and TSW.
I rarely saw it but I think 'ITV Night Time' from Thames was possibly shared by Anglia TVS and HTV also (although HTV had their own 'Night Club' announcers at one stage, and by 1993 the incredibly perky Graham Rogers was presenting 'Nightime' on Meridian and Channel')
Yorkshire, Scottish and Central all had their own schedule - until Carlton swallowed Central and YTV merged with Tyne Tees - creating 'Night Shift' with the YTV announcers.
As well as Carnal Knowledge - the late Bruce Gyngell was head of Tyne Tess & Yorkshire at the time and his notorious penchant for puritanism made Cromwell look like Oliver Reed.
I can still remember the cat silhouette that introduced NightTime and the sunrise that closed it - but what was that spooky music used to accompany both?
Other shows I remember were 'Wideangle' for Anglia and '01' for London. These were kind of a 'what's on and where ' programme which had their individual regions, not sure if the like of Central had them or not.
SHiFT was one I remember, an arts/culture magazine which randomly featured the ace poet Vis the Spoon.
James Whale was kind of interesting though I do remember it being particularly shabby - even for a live show. He was quoted as saying, just before it finished completely, "nothing goes on for ever.." Chris Evans twisted it around and said that James Whale was right, since his programme contained absolutely nothing and it did go on forever....
Music shows such as 'Hitman and Her' - going back to being less than 11 now!! The Beat, BPM, Flux(?), and ClubbaVision.
Chat shows like, the Funky Bunker, Nightshift (a really cool show where Mr Bennet from Take Hart interviewed random nightworkers)...
You see my gripe is that you don't get this niche, innovative television anymore, and I work random times which mean I can get away with going to bed at 5:30am (avoiding the news) and wake up ready for my 15:30 shifts. Some people say that the quality was pretty poor, but then, you don't really want to watch challenging TV when you are tired or stoned at night. A LOT of innovative TV came from Granada, now you are lucky to find anything of interest coming from that company... too many debts to pay off and too much interest in just making money - daytime repeats do NOT make great television and nor do those money grabbing competitions - personally I would restrict those (by law) to no more than 2 hours every couple of nights....
That's a track called "Unseen Danger" by Steve Gray on the Bruton Music library
Surely someone must remember it - I've scoured the internet but no sign of it, I'm gutted!
ah yes they sliced up episodes iirc so you had about 8 mins then you had to wait 30 mins before the next me, and the JW films were made by a tiny film company called Lone Star
after the Hitman and Her finished, and wasn't even a patch on the show it replaced. I've still got a
few episodes of the Hitman and Her on VHS tape, including the last ever edition recorded at the
(former) Discotheque Royale in Manchester. (The taping of that final show was only a few days
after I became legally old enough to even set foot inside a nightclub!)
This September will see the 20th anniversary of the first ever edition of the Hitman and Her, which
was taped at Mr Smiths in Warrington. I doubt that there'll be anything on TV (or anywhere else)
to celebrate what was, in my opinion at least, the best ever ITV Night Time show.
(BE'AVE!)
It was actually called "Quiz Night" ... all the teams represented different pubs. Stuart Hall was the
last host of this show in 1993. ITV should bring it back! It was on Sunday nights after Prisoner.
And, IIRC, the set of the last couple of series was designed to look a bit like a pub.