1991: ITN MOVE STUDIOS from TV TIMES

This is a nice little three-pager from TV TIMES 12-18 January 1991 about ITN, news provider to ITV and Channel Four, moving from their old studios and newsroom on Wells Street to their new - and still current - headquarters at 200 Grays Inn Road.

Their old HQ is still at the top end of Wells Street, although its now been converted into flats.  When I attended university close by in the early 1990s, it was still empty and awaiting redevelopment.  It was still possible to see where the "ITN House" name had appeared above the door.

Now I work in offices close by and I still walk past the building most days.

As an aside, my university was undergoing redevelopment and renewal work whilst I was studying which meant that - come exam season, the usual exam halls were out of commission.  Their solution was to hire a local vacant office block to house them.  Whilst I was queuing outside the non-discript piece of sixties arcitecture I suddenly realised that it seemed a little familiar... and a bit of detective work soon revealed that it was the former Thames Television offices - vacated after they lost their ITV franchise - on Euston Road.  The block, and indeed its neighbours, is now long-since demolished and replaced by modern offices... but it's still cool to know I inadvertently have a very small association with Thames.

1982: THE BLACK HOLE in TV TIMES (ITV Publications)

Christmas 1982 was a vintage year for movies on ITV: MOONRAKER, SUPERMAN THE MOVIE, THE MUPPET MOVIE and - the big Christmas Day offering - Disney's THE BLACK HOLE!

It's hard to over-emphasise how big a deal this was at the time.  Home video was only just getting established and, in my case, it would be a good few years before we finally got around to renting a top-loader from Granada.  I'm not even sure that Disney, initially reluctant to embrace the new format in case it ate into their traditionally lucrative business model of re-releasing films every few years to draw the next generation of fans back to the big screen, had even released the film on tape.

After the initial cinema release (and any re-release), the only way to catch a glimpse of the film was in programmes like BBC ONE's Bank Holiday schedule-filler DISNEY TIME (clips from TBH turned-up in three editions between December 1979 and May 1980) and SCREEN TEST.  In fact, I can even remember looking forward to seeing Screen Test because I knew a clip would be featured.  I also recall that the programme coincided with either our TV developing a fault or there being a transmitter fault.  Probably the former.

These days, films seem to arrive on disc, download and TV within months of them being on the big screen (sometimes less) but way-back-when, it took years for them to reach TV.  If anything, TBH seems to have been fast-tracked (possibly by virtue of its under-performance at the box office) seeing as it had only been released over Christmas 1979.

Although it didn't make the cover of the TV TIMES Christmas double issue (the only issue we would buy, along with the festive RADIO TIMES, all year), it did have pride-of-place inside... complete with some absolutely terribly artwork of the cast which - I assume - are deliberately dire although its possible ITV Publications just hired a particularly crap artist.  At least V.I.N.CENT looks right.

I distinctly recall that BBC ONE had scheduled DEATH ON THE NILE up against TBH which - in those far away days of one household TV - led to family friction over which one to watch.

My school also recorded the movie and played it, I think over two or three days, as a lunchtime "movie club" on a TV in one of the classrooms.