Earliest complete programming for a whole day

[Kelvin Walker]

Here is an interesting question, What is the earliest complete whole day of programming which exists for BBC 1, BBC 2 and ITV in the archives, official or in private hands.

Many thanks

[B Thomas]

I'm not sure there is such a thing, is there?

[John Wall]

A few years ago a complete ITV Sunday evening from the 60s was shown at NFT. This had somehow been telerecorded, complete with commercial breaks. It included a Sunday Night at the London Palladium.

[Eric Lawton]

On the same theme, but on a slightly different note. In my interest as a Radio show collector, I often record complete days broadcasts of radio stations. Normally Radio 1 and 2. Be interesting for future generations to listen to.
TV Wise, I often record around 8 hours continual broadcasts in Long Play direct to disc. Normally 5.00 pm to 1.00 am. Again, not just for programmes, but for links, ads, continuity, idents etc. Did a few recordings over Christmas in this fashion. I know its not a full days broadcast, but still, I feel it could be beneficial for future generations.
Not quite as keen as Bob Monkhouse was..........but still doing a bit for future generations I feel.

[Peter Elliott]

Feb 6, 2009 10:58:04 GMT Eric Lawton said:

TV Wise, I often record around 8 hours continual broadcasts in Long Play direct to disc. Normally 5.00 pm to 1.00 am. Again, not just for programmes, but for links, ads, continuity, idents etc. Did a few recordings over Christmas in this fashion. I know its not a full days broadcast, but still, I feel it could be beneficial for future generations.
Not quite as keen as Bob Monkhouse was..........but still doing a bit for future generations I feel.

Good on you Eric! It is great that some people out there do archiving like this and it's much better now it can be done digitally. I did try my hand at TV archiving myself between 1994 and 1998 but I'd simply pick shows at random and record them, so there are quite a few single editions of various series. I figured that though selective, I was archiving snapshots of the times. The most notorious one had to be episode one of "The Girlie Show"! I taped it purely because it was the first, but this was plagued by some sudden powercuts! As soon as the power returned, I frantically pressed the RECORD button again only for the power to go again... and again! The show was so bad it probably wasn't worth the time and trouble but it is there in my archive nevertheless to show just what an abysmal decision Channel 4 made in scrapping "The White Room" and replacing it with that! Unbelievable! I seem to recall it even got a second series!

[Deleted]

I don't know about a whole day but a whole telerecorded evening of ATV London output from March 1964 exists (about three and a half hours). All the links between programmes exist from BBC-1 from 17/11/69 (not all the progs though). I don't know about any others until 1988 when the BFI recorded the output of all TV channels for one day for 24 hours, which they then archived.

Not sure if there are any other official recordings of a whole day that have been made at any time although the largest chunks of output probably are whole parts of live general elections / moon landings coverage / big sporting events etc. Impossible to say who made home videos of whole days of output though (and indeed when they date from if so) unless the individuals concerned come forward!

[John Wall]

Feb 6, 2009 18:57:59 GMT @laurencepiper said:

I don't know about a whole day but a whole telerecorded evening of ATV London output from March 1964 exists (about three and a half hours). All the links between programmes exist from BBC-1 from 17/11/69 (not all the progs though). I don't know about any others until 1988 when the BFI recorded the output of all TV channels for one day for 24 hours, which they then archived.

Not sure if there are any other official recordings of a whole day that have been made at any time although the largest chunks of output probably are whole parts of live general elections / moon landings coverage / big sporting events etc. Impossible to say who made home videos of whole days of output though (and indeed when they date from if so) unless the individuals concerned come forward!

The evening from March 1964 sounds like what I saw at NFT.

[Phil Chappell]

There was the 'One Day In The Life Of Television' project when the entire days output of all the four terrestrial channels was recorded for posterity - 1st November 1988.
It would have been good to have done a 20 year look back at this last year - don't think there was one unless I missed it!

[Jeremy Williams]

I used to record huge sections of BBC and ITV in 1996, and have some complete CITV's from January 1996 and some complete CBBC's from 1995.

Think i have a complete evening from 1998 somewhere from BBC1.

[Nick Gilbert]

Doesn't the BFI record the main channels onto VHS as viewing copies for research purposes? Probably not VHS any more but I'm sure I read about it a few years ago. They started some time in the late 80s/90s I think.

[Ian Watlington]

Feb 6, 2009 1:21:15 GMT Kelvin Walker said:

Here is an interesting question, What is the earliest complete whole day of programming which exists for BBC 1, BBC 2 and ITV in the archives, official or in private hands.

Probably the recordings made for that 1988 "one day in the life of TV" thing.

Until they were forced to log their output 24/7 for legal reasons, the TV companies had no interest in recording and keeping an entire day of their own output, why would they want to? Plenty never even bothered recording examples of their continuity for archival interest. As for people recording an entire day on their VCR at home, chances are that if anybody did bother doing it, it wasn't until VHS tape became a cheap everyday commodity in the mid-80s.