ITV Schools

ITV Schools (full name, Independent Television for Schools And Colleges) was an example of public service broadcasting on a commercial television network. The service was set up in 1957 to broadcast educational programmes on Britain's ITV stations.

Beginnings

The service started with a small audience, limited largely to the London area via its weekday franchise-holder Associated-Rediffusion. The service expanded as stations were added to the ITV network, and continued for the next 30 years, broadcasting a schedule of memorable documentaries, drama and entertainment programmes aimed at children between the ages of 5 and 18. These were almost all made by the various companies of the ITV network, mainly the largest ones such as Thames Television, ATV and Granada Television.

The Broadcasting Act, 1972

Broadcasting hours were for some time regulated by the British Government. This meant that scheduled programmes were usually transmitted only after about 11am, and ran until early afternoon. It was quite normal for the whole ITV network to close down for a couple of hours in the afternoons after schools programmes, except perhaps to show occasional horse racing or news coverage. Following changes to the law in early 1972, the schools broadcasts were moved to a new timeslot running from Mondays to Fridays from 0930 to 1200 during term time. This enabled the ITV broadcasters to open up the afternoon schedule to sell advertising between programmes (advertising was strictly prohibited during schools broadcasts.)

The ITV Schools broadcasts gave teachers access to a broad spectrum of teaching resources, such as documentary film with which to illustrate their regular lessons, or songs and stories for children to learn and discuss, and could be considered an early example of multimedia learning. Activities and booklets based on the programmes were available to teachers via the Educational Officers based at the local ITV companies, allowing students to develop a relationship with the regular broadcasts. Typically, schools were equipped for schools television with a couple of large television receivers, sometimes housed inside a wooden cabinet atop a wheeled trolley which could be moved between classrooms as required.

Presentation

Schools programmes on ITV were generally between ten and twenty minutes in length. Unlike peak-time programmes (which were usually scheduled at times rounded up to the nearest five minutes), schools programmes were scheduled at very precise times, such as 10:03 or 11:32. Some individual regions, such as HTV Wales, sometimes showed their own programming instead of the network offerings, but would rejoin the network in time for the next scheduled programme, and so it was necessary to devise a flexible presentation system which would allow the network to effectively fill the time between programmes without resorting to showing a blank screen.

Between programmes, interval music was played and a holding slide shown onscreen, identifying the service as "Independent Television For Schools And Colleges" and thus differentiating the service from the similar schools TV service run by the BBC, which were listed as "For Schools, Colleges" in the Radio Times until BBC Schools broadcasting moved to BBC2 in autumn 1983 with a new title of Daytime On Two. This holding slide could be shown for anything from a few seconds to a few minutes, depending on the length of time required to fill.

Exactly one minute before the start of the programme, the slide was replaced by a clock showing sixty second-marks, which gradually disappeared until there were none left. This gave the teacher one final minute in which to calm the class down before the programme began. A suitably-timed piece of library music, changed once a term and often taken from the Bruton Music library, accompanied the animation.

The image of the 'schools countdown clock' has taken on something of a cult status, as referenced in programmes such as Look Around You, and produced a memorable image fondly remembered by generations of British schoolchildren.

Some examples of programming from the 1957-1993 era

* How We Used To Live, a history drama for children made by Yorkshire TV
* Good Health, a health education programme made by ATV/Central
* Starting Science, (later Science Start Here!) a documentary from ATV/Central introducing children to the world of science. Incidental music was composed by Ron Geesin.
* The English Programme / The French Programme / The German Programme (language tuition from Thames TV)
* My World, stories for children of infant school age
* Experiment, Granada's series of filmed biology and chemistry experiments for secondary school pupils and parodied in the first series of the BBC comedy series Look Around You
* A Place To Live, geography documentaries from Granada
* Living And Growing, a sex education from Grampian TV which was later repeated late at night for adults
* Stop, Look, Listen, made by ATV/Central and introducing children to social science. The programmes were narrated by Chris Tarrant.
* Story World made by Granada
* Picture Box made by Granada, later a co-production with Childsplay;
* Talk, Write and Read made by Central TV
* Seeing and Doing, made by Thames TV
* Basic Maths and, later, VideoMaths made by ATV and later Central TV
* Middle English Made By Thames TV
* Geography Start Here made by Central TV
* "'Scientific Eye/ Geographical Eye/ made by Yorkshire TV
* Time for a Story Made by Granada TV
* Place and People Made by Granada TV
* ReadAbout English Programme for Junier Pupils made by Yorkshire TV

ITV Schools on Channel Four Monday September 14th 1987-Monday 28th June 1993

After 30 years on ITV, the service moved to Channel 4 from September 14, 1987, allowing ITV to concentrate on building a fully commercial daytime schedule. Just two pieces of interval music were used after 1987: "The Journey" for a 3D holding device, and "Just a Minute" which backed a redesigned clock.

The transmission times were the same, 09:30 - 12:00, but at 09:28, the four ITV logos glided onto stage, followed by the first minute of The Journey, before gliding off stage. The 3D countdown clock spun onto screen at this point. For all other programmes the holding device would be faded up, and the music faded in at where it had reached. Once the tune had reached the end, the ITV logos glided off stage, and were replaced by the clock.

The very first programme on ITV Schools on 4 was "Enviornments", produced by Thames Television.

When Channel 4 introduced breakfast television in 1989, it was necessary to extend the first interval to five minutes at 9:25am. For the first three minutes, Channel 4 would play one of their own interval tracks over the ITV "rotomotion" between January 1992 and December 1992. From Winter 1989 until January 1992, a still of the 3D clock was used. In both cases, at 09:27.50 the music and image would be faded out, and then at exactly 09:28 the 3D logos glided onto stage.

On ITV, at the end of schools programmes, the regional ITV announcers would make their own closing announcements over a holding slide, before introducing the lunchtime programming. On Channel 4, however, at the end of schools programming, the ITV logos glided onto stage, with the first 10 seconds of The Journey. This was rapidly faded to black, after which the Channel 4 logo appeared and the announcer introduced the next normal programme.

In January 1993 the holding device was no longer used for the first programme, and the introduction cut into 40 seconds of the clock. The holding device did appear for all other programmes. This ended on Monday June 28th 1993, signalling the end of this particular era and style of schools television broadcast.

The two pieces of music used on Channel 4 were both written in 1986 by "James Aldenham", which was a pseudonym for Brian Bennett, former drummer with The Shadows, and who has, for many years, written TV themes, such as the BBC Golf theme tune.

Educational programmes for schools continue to be broadcast on Channel 4 to this day, although these are usually moved into commercially unviable timeslots, such as overnight, where they can be video-recorded by teachers for later consumption. The usual standard Channel 4 presentation devices are employed between programmes.

Links

* [http://tv.cream.org/lookin/schools/index.htm Schools TV remembered]
* [http://www.sub-tv.co.uk/mp3s/TheJourney.mp3 The Journey Tune]
* [http://www.cryptart.com/justaminute.mp3 The Just A Minute Tune]
* [http://625.uk.com/TV_LOGOS/flash/itv_schools_clock.asp An example of a schools 'junction' between programmes]
* [http://www.transdiffusion.org/emc/ident/history/moving.php Details of the changes in presentation from the move to Channel 4]
* [http://www.sub-tv.co.uk/itvschools.asp sub-TV ITV Schools Part 1]
* [http://www.sub-tv.co.uk/itvschools2.asp sub-TV ITV Schools Part 2]