[Stuart]

As with others, for me it was the ITV logos/idents.

Back in the day, they would show the ident for the originating region before each programme, which was the only way you would see those outside your own region. The 1982 franchise change was the trigger for me, as for the first time there were all these new idents. I was insanely jealous of other regions as they had very nice idents, and I was in Granadaland - which had never progressed beyond a silent static logo on a bit of card.

TVTimes would state which region produced each programme, so I would find myself watching some random networked programme from TSW, Channel, TVS, Grampian etc just so I could see their idents.

I guess it just spiralled from there, especially when I discovered there was a similarly afflicted community of people known as 'Pres Geeks'.