4 Schools 1993 – 1997 Branding

Channel 4 continued to provide morning schools broadcasts from 9:30am – 12:00pm, but by 1993 night-time slots also appeared. Party conference speeches were also broadcast by Channel 4 but John Major favoured the ‘big speech’ on Friday mornings – so his speech replaced schools broadcasts from 10:45am. The displaced programmes were shown on the Friday late night slot during the first year, but this practice doesn’t seem to have been repeated. Commercial interests were starting to become important to Channel 4. When Channel 4 won cricket rights, the schools television service went temporarily to night-time. If a programme broke down in the 9:00am – 9:30am slot, then pre-1993 it would be curtailed and faded before the end – an example of this was when Channel Four ran a discussion programme about women’s issues (broadcast Autumn 1992) which developed a fault. Post 1993 would show a holding slide. If the fault was bad then the programme would be broadcast in a night-time slot. There was not curtailing. It was simply abandoned. The themes for this era were composed by Nick Amour and Andy Carroll @ Amber Music.

In January 1993 Channel 4 became independent from ITV (due to changes in the Broadcasting Act). ITV companies still supplied schools programmes but the ITV Schools Education Officers (based at each regional station) were no more. As a result teachers requiring programme support material had to contact the newly formed organisation that was the Educational Television Company (ETC), which was the same as ITV Schools 1987 – 1992 but now a seperate company. While ITV was no longer the sole controlling operator of Channel 4 Schools, it still had an obligation to provide continuity, programmes and material until September 1993. Popular programmes were promised to be further developed as well as new programmes from both ITV and, for the first time, independent companies. Another major change to the service was the presentation and continuity between programmes. The sophisticated 3D ITV Schools logos still continued into 1993, however they were cut (some roughly) down to smaller segments. It also set a benchmark that signalled the end of long continuity segments (perhaps to increase programme output). The brief remaining time using the “3D Holding Device” saw it used with junctions up to one minute. The 09:25 – 09:28 holding slide / animation was mothballed and replaced with adverts. A customised forty second introduction was created using the 3D ITV Schools on Channel 4 clock (somewhat unpolished). Channel 4’s new continuity was a thirty second junction. Six minute continuity was a thing of the past. New presentation incorporated new age style theme music with fluidic atmospheric video junctions.

Understanding The Junction – At A Glance Designer: Jo Roman (Channel 4 in-house) Sequences: 1x 10 second opening junction &rarr 1x 30 seconds (max) countdown &rarr 1x 10 second closing junction Running: September 1993 – June 1997

Teachers’ Notes and Contact Details Image 1: Contact details pre British Telecom (BT) number change from 0… to 01… (before 1995). Image 2: Teachers’ Notes. Image 3: From 1996 with new website details (and strange URL). Image 4: ETC rebranded “Channel 4 Schools” along with change to website URL.