[Kojak]

It must be remembered that the whole trigger of (ITV at least) going 24hrs was an inkling they were going to have those hours taken away from them and farmed out to somebody else TV-am style.  Whether it was a serious threat or not from the IBA is up for debate but the end result was 24hr television.

The spoof closedowns were always quite good, like this one Not The Nine O'Clock News did:
www.youtube.com 

I believe there was talk of ITN bidding for such a franchise (something I think may have been spearheaded by Sir Alastair Burnet himself!). ITN’s plan was to have the night franchise run from 10pm to 6am, and would have brought an end to the lunchtime and 5.45 bulletins.