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ITV's Cut Closing titles


nenehcherry2

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Fantastic anecdotes & research, confirming much of what I've heard in the past. 

Sky were linked with Home & Away in the 2000 round as well.  They were also making serious moves in 1991 to bid for Coronation Street if Granada lost its franchise; like what happened with Thames they would have pivoted to an independent production company and ITV would have to bid for Corrie on the open market.

You've got to remember this was just after Sky had snatched the rights to top-flight soccer from ITV for an egregious amount by 1992 standards.  Rupert Murdoch was desperate to make Sky "happen" after a muted first few years and he had the money to do it.  That said, it's not impossible that someone at the Seven Network called in a favour from a fellow Aussie and asked Sky to be a stalking horse to get more cash out of ITV.

Edited by James Martin
So good I posted it twice! ?
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  • 11 months later...

Appreciate this thread is a year old so hope nobody minds me bumping it.

I've always been intrigued as to when exactly ITV started cutting the credits to H&A and always assumed it happened from the first episode to be shown in 1994 (so 1265).  

Not H&A I know but there were two shortened versions of the A Country Practice credits. Carlton aparrently started cutting the credits at the same time as H&A, just playing the last 5-10 seconds of the theme tune and showing the production company logo. Aparrently all other ITV regions also adopted the same cut credits as and when they reached that particular episode but by 1995, HTV who were still yet to reach this point had seemingly begun to cut down the credits themselves with the last 15 or so seconds of the theme music playing and with the cast credits starting to scrawl before cutting to the final slide production company logo.   

I have had it suggested to me that not all regions cut the credits at the same time and Carlton may have actually retained them on the evening showing.  One theory is that some regions got possible got copies of the eps with the full credits and opted to edit them down themselves which HTV ended up doing with the ACP credits?

Btw as of mid 1994 HTV did still seem to be showing full length credits on ACP albeit with an early fade to the HTV logo but at the same time they had adopted the 5 second cut credits for H&A.

 

 

Edited by Martin2013
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  • 2 weeks later...

Its been suggested to me a number of times that not all ITV regions cut the credits at the same time. Have actually had it suggested that some regions (with Carlton being one) continued showing the credits up until the mid 90s whilst others have suggested that they were cut earlier in their region earlier than 1994 (Pretty sure someone in the Meridian region once suggested the credits got cut from January 1993.

Carlton were definitley cutting the credits on the lunchtime episode by May 1994 but the suggestion did get made to me that for a time they were retained on the evening repeat.  Can anyone clarify whether this was indeed the case?

For anyone interested Carlton still seemed to be showing the credits as of late 1993.  Got an ep taped from that region around that time which has the "red" titles in full at the end.

 

 

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Posted (edited)

Maybe, just maybe, today is the 30th anniversary of ITV's cut closing titles?! 

Based on the newspaper articles I shared here last year, I would read it that the newly formed ITV Network Centre DEMANDED that ALL regions aired cut credits by a deadline date in early 94 (if not from the very start of 94). Which would still fit with the alternative suggestion somewhere here that it was a few eps before the boat crash. Either way, both Anglia and Central had cut before ep 1304 (25/02/94 UK pace).

It's possible, to your point, that some regions were airing cut versions before this. But more difficult to believe (though, not impossible) RE the reverse scenario given how strict the Network Centre policies were and the method of distribution (see below).

On the point of regional variations, a colleague of mine used to work for Thames TV (& was then "tupeed" over to Carton from 93) and has confirmed that Thames (then Carlton) played out the show & then other regions either relayed this broadcast or recorded it then played out later. So perhaps Meridian made a shortened version themselves a year earlier & played this edit out following each episode that they picked up from Carlton's feed... The plot thickens, 30 years on! 

Edited by nenehcherry2
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I've heard this before about Thames/Carlton feeding the lunchtime ep to the regions and other regions making a copy of that feed to repeat in the early evening.

I actually saw a clip on Youtube of a H&A ending from June 1993, taken from Meridian and the credits were intact.  Maybe Meridian sometimes faded them out early rather than play them in full.

I'm sure I got told once that ITV's policy on credit lengths only applied to their own shows and not imported ones but the person who told me that may have been wrong.

Also, for anyone interested, in the HTV region the credits were being cut by Episode 1298 (the boat accident episode).

 

 

 

 

 

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13 hours ago, Martin2013 said:

I've heard this before about Thames/Carlton feeding the lunchtime ep to the regions and other regions making a copy of that feed to repeat in the early evening.

I actually saw a clip on Youtube of a H&A ending from June 1993, taken from Meridian and the credits were intact.  Maybe Meridian sometimes faded them out early rather than play them in full.

I'm sure I got told once that ITV's policy on credit lengths only applied to their own shows and not imported ones but the person who told me that may have been wrong.

Also, for anyone interested, in the HTV region the credits were being cut by Episode 1298 (the boat accident episode).

 

 

 

 

 

Great input, Martin, thankyou! 

My own regions (Anglia and Central, we lived in the overlap zone) would occasionally fade out the credits (or minimise them in the corner) in those years to promote something else. But definitely the exception rather than the rule.

The ITV policy applied to all networked shows. The way the networked shows NOT produced by ITV regions (eg Home and Away) were purchased & licenced changed with the gradual introduction of the Network Centre throughout 93. Before that, one region (usually Thames by default, as in H&A's case) would purchase the rights and then "sub-let" out to the other regions. There's a published dissertation from the 90s somewhere online which talks about this. The Network Centre, upon its establishment, became the purchaser & rights owner on behalf of all regions.

Interestingly, A Country Practice also cut credits from around the same time but this was not a networked show and was purchased locally by each of the regions separately. So, I've interpreted the ruling as applying to ALL shows. But then Shortland Street's credits were shown in full (albeit sped up) in most regions (again, not networked and airing at different paces in different places, rhyme intended!).

Back to H&A, great to know that 1298 had cut credits. That doesn't surprise me as I have a faint memory of watching an episode of Bobby & Greg arguing badly (presumably the affair fall-out) followed by cut credits. So, what we do know, is that they were definitely cut at some point between the final week of 93 and 1297 (possibly, from 1295 based on an earlier response).

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As I said a year go, my memory is they were phased in.  That said, the credits would get cut if ITV needed to edit in a longer recap (normally when the previous day's evening showing had to be shifted or dropped entirely.)

It's also very unlikely the credits would only appear at teatime due to the workflow in the regions, that is the evening showing was always played out locally, not from London.  The regions acquired their copy by taping the show as the lunchtime showing was fed to them from London.  So if the lunchtime showing had no credits, it would be impossible for the evening showing to do so as they'd recorded it with no credits at lunchtime.

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11 hours ago, nenehcherry2 said:

The ITV policy applied to all networked shows. The way the networked shows NOT produced by ITV regions (eg Home and Away) were purchased & licenced changed with the gradual introduction of the Network Centre throughout 93. Before that, one region (usually Thames by default, as in H&A's case) would purchase the rights and then "sub-let" out to the other regions. There's a published dissertation from the 90s somewhere online which talks about this. The Network Centre, upon its establishment, became the purchaser & rights owner on behalf of all regions.

Interestingly, A Country Practice also cut credits from around the same time but this was not a networked show and was purchased locally by each of the regions separately. So, I've interpreted the ruling as applying to ALL shows. 

Thanks for your response.   With regards to ACP I've had it suggested to me that Carlton did indeed start cutting the credits from around the same time as the H&A started to be and that Carlton supplied the series to other regions meaning that the cut credits got adopted as and when that ep was reached in each region.  HTV still seemed to be playing the full credits (albeit with an early fade) as of July/August 1994 but by April 1995 were showing their own cut down version.

3 hours ago, James Martin said:

As I said a year go, my memory is they were phased in.  That said, the credits would get cut if ITV needed to edit in a longer recap (normally when the previous day's evening showing had to be shifted or dropped entirely.)

It's also very unlikely the credits would only appear at teatime due to the workflow in the regions, that is the evening showing was always played out locally, not from London.  The regions acquired their copy by taping the show as the lunchtime showing was fed to them from London.  So if the lunchtime showing had no credits, it would be impossible for the evening showing to do so as they'd recorded it with no credits at lunchtime.

Thanks for your input.  I agree it doesn't make sense for the credits to have been shown on the evening repeat if they were being played locally.

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Yep.  The only way that the regions would have a full set of credits to play at teatime was if lunchtime had a full set of credits.

For the same reason, I can't see how the credit cut would be regionally phased.  If Carlton were playing it out without credits (Carlton hired LWT's playout facilities midweek after 1993, and eventually all network programmes were routed through the South Bank) then that's how other regions would have picked it up.  There's also the other elephant in the room that even if regions were privately line-fed a copy with credits, that would have complicated things massively because whilst the regions all did their own thing after Home & Away, they all still had to get to CITV on time.

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