ITV Overnight Services

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 2 am. Towards the latter part of the decade, Channel 4 had extended late night broadcasting hours and transmission staff for the ITV regional companies were required to playout the network’s commercial breaks, even if the main ITV 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 done with breakfast television (TV-am) in 1983. Within just over two years of ITV’s first overnight experiment (at Yorkshire Television in 1986), the entire network had commenced 24-hour transmission.

ITV’s first network night time service was provided by Granada, for all local services please see the individual ITV Regional company pages.

Night Time

In September 1988 Granada started a Network Night time service, for the the smaller ITV companies Border, Grampian, Tyne Tees and TSW, a month later on 3 October 1988 Ulster begin 24 hour broadcasting. Its more famous ident was that of the Eyes and the Black cat. In October 1992 Tyne tees switched to the Yorkshire service, while in January 1993 Anglia and HTV began taking the service. The service lasted until June 1995, when it was replaced with the Neon dancers from London.

ITV Night Time

Thames and LWT started a branded Night time service from April 1991 – 31st Dec 1992, serving Thames, LWT and HTV. The service expanded to included TVS/Channel in August 1991 and Anglia on 2nd September 1991. It’s easy to tell which clip is from which company, Thames had announcers, LWT had none.

Night Time & The Edge

In January 1995 Meridian began providing overnight service on Anglia. From January 1996 HTV and Westcountry switched from LNN service to Meridian service, however with these two stations the presentation remained local.

in September 1996, the night time presentation was revised to a new brand called The Edge.

The Edge branding was dropped for these Techno generic idents In summer of 1998. The idents were only seen in the Anglia and Meridian area, since HTV and Westcountry continued to used local idents instead.

By the December 1998 the idents were updated to have the new ITV logo on them.

ITV Overnight

On 13 February 1995, a new generic overnight service provided by London News Network was launched featuring neon-themed presentation. Initially the branding was only seen in the London and Midlands even thought the same schedule was was used by Granada service. It wasn’t until June when the Granada’s overnight version of Night Time switched over, to the neon presentation.

Many new original programming were also produced including Bonkers, Bushell on the Box, Carnal Knowledge, Club @vision, Cyber Cafe, Cybernet, Curtis Calls, Hotel Babylon, God’s Gift, Late and Loud, The Paul Ross Show, Pyjama Party, The Lads and Rockmania.Carlton and Central – from 13 February 1995. LWT – from 18 February 1995. Border, Granada and UTV – from June 1995. HTV and Westcountry – June until December 1995. Grampian – From June 1995 until Mid 1998. Tyne Tees and Yorkshire – from May 1998 onwards

A selection of promos.