Originally Posted by Steve Williams:
“Dallas of course was a big show in its day and indeed I most associate it with Wednesdays (although when it started and in its Who Shot JR pomp, it was on a Sunday, and the last series was dumped on Sunday afternoons) with Dynasty (and The Colbys for the five minutes that lasted) on Fridays after Blankety Blank.
But even when they had Dallas there Wednesdays weren't that great for BBC1, you had Wogan followed by something that would die against Corrie - Doctor Who for two years, as you say - then Dallas if you were lucky or a repeat of Bergerac if you weren't, and then after Points of View and the news BBC1 usually had factual, like QED or Inside Story (actually I'd really like a show like QED these days with its pop science business).
Meanwhile ITV would have This Is Your Life pulling in big audiences six months of the year, then Corrie, then Des O'Connor or a big entertainment show followed by perhaps a big film, or a two hour drama like Morse. Then later Champions League football in the era that was getting about ten million viewers. No chance of the Beeb catching it.
I don't know if this makes me sound adorable or idiotic but I used to have Cubs on Wednesday and when it finished I demanded we rushed home so I could be back for Points of View at 8.50.”
Ive got it in my head that the season running up to the Who Shot JR climax(79/80) was on Saturdays BBC1. I seem to remember ITV running Hammer House of Horror against it but I may have dreamt that. Whatever that season was an absolute masterclass in building tension and creating a reason for virtually all the cast to have nobbled JR. So much so that the eventual payoff was always going to be a bit of an anti-climax- but the hard work won a landmark rating all the same.
I vaguely remember Terry Wogan saying about the launch of his thrice weekly chat show that something had to take on Coronation Street at some point and it might as well be him. This presumably because Wogan ran to 7.35 or 7.40. Wogan though was never powerful enough to make much impact against the immovable object that was Coronation Street and it simply carried on the then longstanding weekday off junction scheduling issues that beset BBC1 in the seventies and eighties. ITV was always very neat iirc, having all of their big LE shows/films/comedies running in half hour/hour/two hour blocks to major junctions -whilst the BBC had off junction 6.50- 7.20-8.10-9.00-9.25-10.20 or 7.00-7.40-8.10-9.00-9.25-10.20. I seem to remember Terry and June(and like shows) having endless repeats in the 7.40-8-10 slot which arguably raised a white flag. Arguably this was only solved completely when the News moved from 9.00 to 10.00. The 9.00 News was, for the most part, a mediocre lead in to shows at 9.25/9.30.
