Night Network, Night Time and Night Shift were names given to the overnight (usually between 12 and 6am) schedule of the ITV network in the United Kingdom. The first ITV company began 24-hour broadcasting in 1986, with all of the companies broadcasting through the night by the end of 1988. At first, individual companies created their own services; however, before too long, many of the smaller ITV stations began simulcasting or networking services from others.
From this, numerous services began each offering their own distinct take on programmes, with regions taking one of the services on offer. As each franchise was taken over, however, the services became fewer in number. Today, all of the ITV plc regions (except ITV Channel Television and UTV for legal reasons), show teleshopping, followed by repeats of daytime programming and then Unwind with ITV (previously the ITV Nightscreen service was shown until October 2021). STV broadcasts its own strand, Teleshopping and Nightvision.
History Up until the mid-1980s, all British television stations closed down for the night at around 12:30am, sometimes up to an hour later on Friday and Saturday nights. Some of the ITV companies wanted to expand their broadcasting hours in the belief there was an untapped market for television through the night. As early as 1983, London Weekend Television (LWT) was experimenting with extra hours on Friday and Saturday nights during its Nightlife strand, which pushed back closedown until after 2am.
And between November 1986 and December 1987, Central and Granada would stay on the air into the night for live world title boxing matches involving Mike Tyson, Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns. Thames would also air the coverage when a fight took place on a weekday.
By 1988, Channel 4 had extended late night broadcasting hours and transmission staff for the ITV regional companies were required to play out the network's commercial breaks, even if their station had already closed down. There was also speculation of a threat from the Independent Broadcasting Authority to franchise overnight hours to a new company, as had been the case with breakfast television.Who killed the continuity announcers?, Transdiffusion.orgIBA plans network shake-upPeter Fiddick Media Editor. The Guardian (1959–2003) [London (UK)] 23 Apr 1987: Within just over two years of ITV's first overnight experiment (at Yorkshire Television in 1986), the entire network had commenced 24-hour transmission.
Early experiments On 9 August 1986, Yorkshire Television became the first ITV company and the first British terrestrial television station to offer 24-hour broadcasting.Regional Television Variations. The Times, Saturday, 9 August 1986; pg. 32 This was achieved by simulcasting the satellite station Music Box for a three-month trial, as permitted by the IBA."Yorkshire to get all-night pop trial" The Guardian 10 May 1986: P3 The all-night simulcasts continued until Friday 2 January 1987 – shortly before Music Box ceased operations as a broadcaster. On 13 January 1987, Yorkshire became the second region to launch a teletext-based Jobfinder service for one hour after close-down (Central had launched a Jobfinder service the previous April) with a Through Till Three strand on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights introduced in April.
On 25 April 1987, Central began extending its programming hours to 3am on weeknights and 4am at weekends, airing its own schedule of films, series and hourly Central News bulletins entitled More Central. The station's Jobfinder service (launched a year beforehand) was expanded from a single hour after close-down to fill the remainder of the night until TV-am took over at 6am. Meanwhile, Granada Television took a more restrictive approach – during 1987, the station introduced a Nightlife strand, which saw programming hours extended until around 3am on Friday and Saturday nights only. A short-lived joint schedule was introduced by Central, Granada and Scottish Television when the companies began full 24-hour transmission on 13 February 1988, but was abandoned within a few months. During this time, all three stations provided local presentation. Central continued to air its own overnight service until 1994, when it briefly took Carlton's Nightime [sic] service (with opt-outs for regional programming until circa 2003).
In August 1987, Anglia Television, Thames Television and LWT began 24-hour broadcasting. Thames's Into the Night strand began in June 1987 with broadcasts originally running until around 4am, extending to a full service on Monday 17 August 1987. Anglia originally opted to air Night Network on weekends alongside its own overnight schedule on weeknights while LWT filled the post-Night Network slot with a short-lived Thru to 6 strand. Tyne Tees Television also experimented with 24-hour transmission when in December 1987, it began airing its own teletext Jobfinder service between close-down and 6am. This continued until Granada's Night Time service launched on Tyne Tees the following September.
TVS, which also aired Night Network at weekends, started its own Late Night Late strand on Monday 25 January 1988, gradually extending its broadcast hours until a full 24-hour service began on 30 May 1988 – the strand was the first to be simulcast on another ITV station, (Channel Television).
HTV Wales and HTV West began broadcasting its own Night Club service on 22 August 1988. Both Late Night Late and Night Club took on a different approach to the practice of in-vision continuity – incorporating viewers' letters, competitions and live studio guests – such features were also used by Thames and Anglia's regional overnight strands.
One constant of all the overnight services, regardless of their differing schedules, was overnight news bulletins provided by ITN, referred to as simply the ITN News Headlines. These were no-frills bulletins, originally proceeded by a variant of the ITN animation of the time set over a dusk sky background (as opposed to the usual light blue); these bulletins would lead into the ITN Morning News, and typically the anchor of that day's edition of the ITN Morning News would also anchor the short updates. The headlines were aired at different times depending on the schedule; both the bulletins and the Morning News debuted on 15 February 1988. Thames also briefly aired editions of CNN Headline News before the ITN World News in 1988.
Night Network
Night Network was ITV's first overnight programme, beginning on Friday 28 August 1987, originally for the ITV regions covered by LWT, TVS and Anglia, before expanding to other regions during 1988. The programme aired between 1am and 4am in the Friday and Saturday night schedules, and between 1am and 3am in the Sunday night schedule. On LWT and Anglia, the remaining time until 6am (the start of TV -am programming) was filled by US films and TV series in a strand called Thru To 6.
The show was produced for Night Network Productions and LWT by Jill Sinclair who had been the producer of BBC1's Pop Quiz and Channel 4's The Tube at Tyne Tees Television, aiming for a similar audience to that of these two shows. The format of Night Network was similar to Channel 4's Network 7, or even a late night adult version of Saturday morning kids TV, as it was a mixture of quizzes, celebrity guests, imported serials and bands. Hosting duties rotated but were most frequently undertaken by Paul Thompson and Mick Brown.
Feature segments included Street Cred with Paul Thompson, Video View with Craig Charles, Rowland Rivron in The Bunker Show, Tim Westwood's N-Sign Radio, Emma Freud's chat segment Pillow Talk, Geoffrey Cantor's video segment The Axeman, Barbie Wilde and Gian Sammarco's video reviews for The Small Screen, and quiz show The All New Alpha Bet Show hosted by Nicholas Parsons, whilst Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, The Partridge Family and Batman were also run, split across each show. Originally, on Sunday nights, recorded music performances were shown but this was only until the programme was expanded to other ITV regions on Friday 2 September 1988.
Although it proved a success, Night Network was never broadcast nationally as Central opted out of the entire programme from the start to provide its own schedule. With more programmes (be it imports, repeats or original output) competing for the overnight slots, the Sunday edition was eventually dropped in autumn 1988. Around the same time, the first hour of Night Network became a regional For London Only segment on LWT while the remaining two hours continued to air across other regions, albeit in differing timeslots depending on the stations' preferred schedules.
Night Network was broadcast for the last time on Friday 31 March 1989.
Night Time from Granada
On 2 September 1988, four of the smaller ITV companies (Border, Grampian, Tyne Tees and TSW – joined from 3 October 1988 by Ulster – began 24-hour broadcasting with the introduction of Night Time, a part-networked service provided by Granada Television's presentation department in Manchester and intended to help the smaller ITV stations who were unable to provide a service of their own.
This new late night line up consisted mainly of films, and syndicated American shows such as America's Top 10 (presented by Casey Kasem), American Gladiators (the popularity of which prompted LWT to commission their own equivalent series in 1992), WCW Worldwide (which would later be promoted to British wrestling's old Saturday afternoon slot) and Donahue. There was also a limited number of home-produced programming such as Granada's Nightbeat, The Other Side of Midnight (hosted by Factory Records' Tony Wilson), The Hitman and Her (and replacement BPM), Quiz Night, Movies, Games and Videos, Get Stuffed, Stand Up and LWT's Cue the Music.
Traditionally, Grampian would opt out of the overnight networked service by providing its own regional schedule on Hogmanay night into New Year's Day morning - with the exception of 1988 and 1997, as Grampian carried the network schedule through the night as normal after their hogmanay output had finished broadcasting to their region. Respectively, Border Scotland would also carry STV's hogmanay show on a yearly basis too, but didn't provide a regional schedule of their own afterwards, so they too carried the overnight network schedule as normal.
Granada's Night Time service was wound down during 1995 – with programming carried from LNN from January onwards before presentation was handed over to the London service on 5 June.
Night Shift from Yorkshire On 29 May 1988, Yorkshire Television reintroduced a full through-the-night service, this time consisting of films, imports, series and networked original programming including YTV's The James Whale Radio Show, simulcast locally with Radio Aire. Following Yorkshire's buyout of Tyne Tees Television in 1992, a new overnight service for both stations was launched entitled Night Shift, broadcast across both regions from YTV's transmission centre in Leeds with pre-recorded continuity from the station's announcing staff. Separate overnight presentation for the YTV and Tyne Tees areas was introduced two years later.
Both regions aired the same schedule of imports, films, local programming and Bollywood movies although for a short while, YTV refused to air more adult programming such as The Good Sex Guide and God's Gift – while such output continued to air on Tyne Tees. The service remained locally originated (despite the introduction of networked idents in 1997) until 18 January 1998. YTV continued to opt out of the network for its regular Jobfinder programme at 5am until around 2005.
ITV Night Time from Thames/LWT