For some reason Family Guy Series 1 is flagged as HD on ITV2 next week. Bordertown isn't. I suspect its nothing more than somebody's put the HD tag on the wrong EPG entry.
For some reason Family Guy Series 1 is flagged as HD on ITV2 next week. Bordertown isn't. I suspect its nothing more than somebody's put the HD tag on the wrong EPG entry.
No episodes of Bordertown are listed in HD on DigiGuide, whereas they all are for Family Guy.
Oh okay. Wonder why that is? Family Guy was 4:3 for its first eight or so seasons so I presume (or hope!) we get proper pillarboxing ala BBC Three, not the horrible mess we get with Mr Bean.
Even worse with The Simpsons - they spent money remastering the grotty video transfers with odd colours ( green Simpsons at times!) - and then cut away half the picture!! Somewhere there was a lovely 4x3 copy.
I have a feeling that even without the cropping I wouldn't like the Simpsons remasters. At times it looks as though someone has drawn over the outlines with a Sharpie.
Not sure which thread is best for posting this. Mods please feel free to move it, as you see fit.
Some discussion about BBC Breakfast's 9.15am finish time in another thread got me thinking...
Why does ITV still have the peculiar 9.25am start time in this day-and-age?
I understand that the "National Breakfast" licence/franchise has always been fixed at a 9.25am finish time, but why was that ever the case to begin with? Something to do with transmitter switching and/or Start-Up Routines? Or what?
Schools Programming I think, first programme was always 09:30:00, with the two minuite countdown sequence, from 09:28:00,
I presume the demarcation point with TV-am was selected as 09:25:00
It is perfectly possible to rationalise the actual programme schedule to 9.30am, even without changing the licence terms. Instead of having a commercial break at the very end of the "National Breakfast" airtime, Lorraine's show (or whatever) could go right up to 09:24:59.
That would deprive ITV of breakfast licence airtime (i.e whole UK) ad revenue ?
It used to be that TV-AM ended at 09.15, then there was 10 minutes for BT to repatch the transmitter distributions to be fed from the various regional companies. This was automated after a little while, so TV-am got the extra 10 minutes.
Back in ye olden days, ITV companies used to come on the air with a startup sequence. These were no longer compulsory when the breakfast franchise was introduced, but that odd 5 minutes was useful for stations to either run a start up should they wish to continue doing so, do a regional news bulletin, or simply preview the day's programing.
It is perfectly possible to rationalise the actual programme schedule to 9.30am, even without changing the licence terms. Instead of having a commercial break at the very end of the "National Breakfast" airtime, Lorraine's show (or whatever) could go right up to 09:24:59.
That would deprive ITV of breakfast licence airtime (i.e whole UK) ad revenue ?
How about the same total advert minutage as currently accommodated between 06:00 and 09:25, but distributed in such a way that one of the breaks isn't literally right at the end of their airtime?
Lots of effort for no real benefit. Plus when running repeats of Jeremy Kyle they'd have to edit them down, not to mention having a mix of 60 & 65 min episodes being repeated on ITV2 and elsewhere.
Jeremy Kyle has a running time without ads of 48 minutes, which is a little over a regular one hour programme which runs for about 47 so it could fit as it stands in a one hour broadcast slot if needs be, possibly a promo only break to replace one (of course that won't happen but the theory is possible).
The 9:25am startup is as we all know is a legacy point in the schedule that dates back to the 1980s, and the event at 9:25am to pad until 9:30am was dropped altogether when schools programming moved to Channel 4 in 1987, and ITV pretty much went straight from TV-AM eggcups to "This is <ITV region>, now it's time for Crosswits."