[robertclark125]

Firstly, admins, if you can think of a better title for this thread, please change it.

In relation to a post in the challenge tv thread, where Tyne tees had to skip certain episodes of blockbusters, to catch up with Yorkshire, any contestants on the editions not shown who were in the Tyne tees area, were sent videos of the programmes, I had a thought. 

Once Yorkshire installed the playout Centre in Leeds, for both Yorkshire and Tyne tees, the latter had to skip certain editions of blockbusters and A country practice, to catch up with Yorkshire. Likewise, Yorkshire had to skip some editions of prisoner cell block h, to catch up with Tyne tees. This was because the way the playout Centre worked, the two companies schedules had to be similar. 

But why skip episodes? Why couldn't Yorkshire go backwards, to be at the same episode of blockbusters and A country practice as Tyne tees? Yes, it would mean Yorkshire repeating episodes, but surely that's better than episodes being skipped, and people missing out on plot lines. Same thing, why couldn't Tyne tees not go backwards to be at the same point as Yorkshire, for sons and daughters, and prisoner cell block h?

[Brekkie]

I think you've answered your own question there - indeed with the limited channels of the time there was probably even more crititicism of repeats than there is now.

There were other options than skipping or repeating episodes to align them - especially with Prisoner Cell Block H airing overnight you'd think it would have been easy enough to double them up until they caught up.

Blockbusters in daytime probably more trickier but I don't think it was ever networked and different regions would air it anything from once a week to 5 nights a week. Not sure what Yorkshire/Tyne Tees did but possibly dropping one a week on one and adding one a week to the other until they were in sync could have been an option, but they had other programming commitments to think about too and fixing one issue would probably have caused others.

[WillPS]

Blockbusters would have been networked from Central Birmingham.

I presume Yorkshire were showing the networked edition live and Tyne Tees were time shifting? Had Yorkshire 'gone backwards' they would have had to keep the timeshifting operation going. Perhaps this wasn't viable in the new playout they had; remember each station only had so much recording equipment so its usage would have had to have been planned carefully.

Also rights issues. These days buying out for an unlimited number of airings (in a certain period) is common. Back then a programme would have been cleared for x many broadcasts across the network (with a bit of wriggle for stations to timeshift if they chose to). If Yorkshire wanted to arrange an additional repeat in their own region this would have had to have been arranged with Central directly.

[Milkshake]

When it comes to Blockbuster from January 1990 it was a complete dogs dinner with each ITV company playing it out on its own terms. I also don't think it was networked by Central as some areas were able to complete the series before Central in September 1993. There were 3 flash points when it comes to this type of thing - take any ep number as a rough guide.

No1: Channel switching feeds from TSW to TVS: Jan 1986

Channel had to skip 100 eps of The Young Doctors, the first 9 episodes of Prisoner because TVS had already started in 1985 and the most bonkers of all they rescreened 60 episodes of Sons and Daughters as TVS was behind TSW. They also had to skip a few editions of Blockbusters maybe 16 episodes? However thus meant Channel could stop recording Crossroads at 5.20 and putting out any or rubbish at 5.15 and playing out Crossroads Wed - Friday at 18.30

No2: Second Flash point Late 1992- 1993:

This happened as a number of itv area align them self's to have mini networks, Central and Anglia was one of them but managed to avoid any issues with Aussie soaps.

Yorkshire Tyne tees:

The mess with Blockbusters happened because Border, Granada, HTV, TVS, TSW, Tyne Tees, UTV and Yorkshire play it out Tuesdays to Thursdays at 6:30pm during 1990. Lets just say it didn't last long and certain areas cut back and then played catch up etc.

Tyne tees opted to broadcast more local shows at the 6.30 slot but not all the time, but when it become clear the merge scheduling was coming in to play TT push out 4-5 editions a week but alas 50 episodes had to be skipped to catch up with Yorkshire, Personnel I would have played out the editions with TT players, instead of having to mail out tapes ( surly it cant have been that many)

* Yorkshire had to skip 200?-250 episodes of the Young Doctors as they never stared the series until 1988.
* TT had to skip a number of country practice, TT tried alot to get series out including have 3 hour long editions per week over the summer
* TT had to skip two eps of Prisoner to catch up with Yorkshire. ( Surly they could have played out it 3 time on 2 weeks instead) Many of these area could only play Prisoner at 11pm as the joined up to Network Night time service.

Thankfully sons and Daughters had finished.

Border:
71 eps of Prisoner had to be skipped to catch up with Granada.

No3: The third Flash point come in 2003:
It wasn't as much as what come before but HTV, Westcountry and London had to skip 100s- 500 + eps of Shortland street to catch up with Central broadcast.

[JAS84]

^And that was barely worth it. Shortland Street was dropped soon after (I assume due to the Carlton/Granada merger in 2004) having never aired in the Granada owned regions, though it still runs to this day in it's native country.

[nwtv2003]

^And that was barely worth it. Shortland Street was dropped soon after (I assume due to the Carlton/Granada merger in 2004) having never aired in the Granada owned regions, though it still runs to this day in it's native country.

Granada did show SS for a short while in the mid 1990’s, before it was dropped, possibly 1997/8? It came back in 2002 for a few weeks, at around the time of the World Cup, but was dropped quite quickly.

[Humphrey Hacker]

Granada did show SS for a short while in the mid 1990’s, before it was dropped, possibly 1997/8? It came back in 2002 for a few weeks, at around the time of the World Cup, but was dropped quite quickly.

Slightly off topic but I remember how tv guides used to run synopsis for soaps airing different episodes in different parts of the country for example "Sons And Daughters"

[Brekkie]

Surprised nobody else really picked up Shortland Street or indeed ITV didn't give it a chance on ITV2. It may have never been in the league of Neighbours and Home and Away, or indeed the classic Aussie soaps, but it must have been doing something right for Central and I think a couple of others to give it a 5 10/5.30 slot.

[Humphrey Hacker]

Surprised nobody else really picked up Shortland Street or indeed ITV didn't give it a chance on ITV2.  It may have never been in the league of Neighbours and Home and Away, or indeed the classic Aussie soaps, but it must have been doing something right for Central and I think a couple of others to give it a 5 10/5.30 slot.

Adam Rickitt was in the show for a while and his wife Katy presented Calendar for a while.

[Andrew]

Rather than theories about technical reasons I would have thought the reason is plainly because they decided to make the two regions have exactly the same schedule, except for the predetermined regional opt out slots.

Airing what was basically late night filler at the same time on the same days, but then airing different episodes would make no sense over an extended period of time

And despite the fact that these days teatime game shows are hot property, and it’s obviously fondly remembered, back in those days even Blockbusters was basically just filler shown on days when there wasn’t a proper regional programme.

They could however have prioritised episodes with Tyne Tees contestants before jumping. In the days before the internet I’m not sure people would even widely know that episodes had been jumped unless they’d appeared themselves.