Yorkshire Television Start-Up and Schools Standby Junction - October 1985

Graeme Roberts welcomes us to YTV on Monday 21 October 1985. Local YTV ident, weather forecast, programme line-up (with the fantastic music by Chris Gunning), TV Times promotion and schools standby interval.

The formal authority announcement had been discontinued in 1983, when TV-am launched, so a slightly friendlier welcome (by YTV's standards) had became the norm. This startup was quite typical of the time.


Notice no mention of YTV on the line-up graphics - YTV had produced this ITV caption for the network, having been responsible for the Autumn promotional trails, so tended to show off their own work locally whenever possible. (One error in the listings - the programme A Country Practice was shown at 3.30pm, but was omitted from the line-up here for some reason - the news headlines didn't last 35 minutes!)

Also worth noting that the schools slide, despite being identical to the networked version from Central, is actually YTV's own copy being put to air. YTV announce that schools programmes are following shortly just before 09:28, and the caption wouldn't appear on their feed from Central until 09:28 exactly, so they used their own copy and faded up the audio only (ie. music) from Central not joining network properly until 09:29 (note they are a bit late in cutting to the clock).

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• ytv
• yorkshire
• television
• start
• up
• schools
• standby
• october
• 1985

[UKTVProductions]

I never knew that Yorkshire TV covered parts of Norflok! I always thought that was Anglia! It must have been odd sitting in Kings Lynn getting stuff from Leeds!

[CaptainSiCo]

@UKTVProductions Yes, quite a lot of North Notts and Derbys was covered by YTV as well, despite not being in 'Yorkshire', and unofficially the signal went much further. The Belmont transmitter in Lincs was handed over to YTV from Anglia in 1974, having previously been allocated to Anglia (which in itself covered a vast region with the signal being watchable even in Greater London). The impression I get is that many viewers in Lins and Norfolk found the YTV service very Yorks-centric, though.

[JFredUK]

You say that A Country Practice was the omitted programme in the 3.30 afternoon slot? I might be wrong, but I seem to recall that Sons And Daughters was shown in that slot from around 1983 until the series ended in 1987. Only after, did they start showing A Country Practice in its place. Also, with it being a Monday, I was half expecting to see Prisoner:Cell Block H at around 11pm, but we get Carry On Dick instead! Yorkshire liked to take off Prisoner for practically any reason, as I remember!

[CaptainSiCo]

@JFredUK No, it was actually ACP that was shown at 3.30. From around 1984 to 1988 ACP was shown Mondays and Tuesdays and S&D Wednesday-Friday (after earlier variations in the scheduling). From 1988-89 S&D ran five times a week, ACP being moved to an hour-long early-afternoon slot once a week, then when S&D finihsed in 1989, ACP was then stripped five times a week at 3.30 for a while. And yes, Prisoner must have been on a break - YTV scheduled it very sporadically in the early days.

[RobRobintv]

I wonder what ep of Picture Box it was?

[CaptainSiCo]

@RobRobintv Wonder no more! It was the first episode of a two-part folk tale - 'Black Mountain 1'!

[SiriusBroadcasting]

@franksmith109 Depending on where you live in the Kings Lynn area, you'd probably get the choice of YTV, Anglia and Central.

[SiriusBroadcasting]

@guymaddo And Loose Women? Those were the day's...

[guymaddo]

Where's Jeremy Kyle Show?

[franksmith109]

Yes, the King's Lynn thing is strange - I rented two flats when I lived there between 94 and 97, one had the TV aerial set up for YTV, the other for Central East Midlands - although I believe Anglia used to have an office in Lynn at one stage.

[mikey2509]

Most other regions screened ACP on Weds or Thurs at 1.30pm but YTV seemed to prefer Falcon Crest at 1.30pm Weds and Carsons Law on Thurs. This left ACP without a 1.30pm slot and it therefore fitted in to the Mon Tues slot. Bank Holidays and the Budget played havoc with the programme though as sometimes the first half of an ep would be screened on Tues with the second half waiting until the following Mon.

[mikey2509]

@JFredUK YTV had stopped Prisoner two weeks before this date on 7 October with ep 39. On the Friday after that (11 Oct) the second ITV region to start screening it was TVS weekly on Fridays. A Country Practice was screened at 3.30pm Mon and Tues and at this stage YTV was the only region splitting episodes into two. The next to follow would be Central or Thames several years later. YTV did not want The Young Drs and SAD did not produce enough eps to be Mon - Fri.

[JFredUK]

@CaptainSiCo You're absolutely right. There was a period when they had different Aussie Soaps on the 3.30pm slot, and S&D didn't finish being shown until 1989. Not sure why I said '87. still.... YTV had a nasty habit of taking PCBH off for practically any reason they could find. The worst part of it was that they wouldn't tell you until just before it would have started that they're showing some parliamentary debate instead. Which used to infuriate my Mum, who loved watch PCBH! LOL