[Stooky Bill]

Carlton and GMTV could be certain as it come from Kent house LWT operations where already in full swing. Meridian took over Southampton TVS offices so again they would be sure.

The one company which could appeal to this "Westcountry" as it was coming from outside the area.

The only one that was straight forward was TVS to Meridian as in terms of playout that was essentially a rebrand - the same TX suite just started using Meridian branded material rather than TVS's. Though I imagine they had some sort of practise or familiarisation of how they worked on air. Of course Meridian Tonight and the new news centres would have been piloted a lot before then

Carlton and GMTV (and LWT) came from a new playout area (run by LNN) in an existing ITV building, I don't know if it had been used on air before 1993 but they were running pilots for a while. Putting the South bank to air in London was routine of course, putting GMTV on air across the country wasn't. One big difference is that unlike with TVam there was regional news opt outs, however they didn't start till the Monday.

Westcountry was totally new - new studio, new playout suite (albeit at an existing ITV company) and crucially a new all digital distribution network. It wasn't a simple BT switch at midnight, there was a lot of new stuff to go live.

No way really they could test it actually on air but they could of course check that the video was getting to the transmitter sites and was good before plugging it to air at midnight. However there was mention here a while ago that it was put to air accidently and briefly on the evening of 31/12/92.