ITV Nightscreen
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ITV Nightscreen is a scheduled programme on the United Kingdom's ITV television network, consisting of a sequence of static pages of information about ITV's upcoming programmes, features and special events, with an easy listening music soundtrack. The programme is used to fill the station's overnight downtime, where a closedown would have once been used at the end of programmes. It begins after the final programme in the night and finishes before the ITV Morning News at 5.30am.
It was first broadcast in 1998, and originally consisted of teletext pages from the ITV regional teletext services, with interstitial teletext-based animations (in a similar style to the former 4-Tel On View, and was produced by Intelfax). For a short time after, the screens were produced using Microsoft PowerPoint, although the automated nature of the playout system was prone to errors; on more than one occasion, PowerPoint crashed, leaving viewers looking at a Windows error message. More advanced playout systems are now used to generate the service.
Nightscreen has, in the past, been criticised for highlighting programmes which had already aired, and for some careless typing and spelling errors but now regularly avoids doing this. As well as providing focus on upcoming programmes, films and TV listings, it also offers some news from the world of entertainment. In the past it also viewed sports news and even on some occasions offered cooking tips and recipes.
The programme is currently produced by Gower Creative Communications.
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[edit] Origins
Teletext screens had been employed by BBC Television and Channel 4 since the early 1980s to fill airtime cheaply. Although in-vision teletext was only ever occasionally used on the ITV network (including an Oracle-provided service preceding TV-am broadcasts known as "Daybreak" during the 1980s), certain regions such as Yorkshire Television and Central Independent Television started showing teletext sequences with details of local job vacancies under the banner Jobfinder, a practice which began in the two years before 24-hour television began on ITV in 1988.
ITV Nightscreen could also be considered a direct descendant of a programme simply titled Freescreen, which was made and screened by Meridian Broadcasting in its early years. The Meridian version mixed the teletext pages with local news stories and short videos made and sent in by viewers.
[edit] Broadcasts
ITV Nightscreen is broadcast on the entire ITV Network, and sometimes simultaneously on their digital channels, ITV2 and Men & Motors. However, in recent times ITV2 has opted to show Teleshopping services instead of Nightscreen during its downtime.
In the 90s, Nightscreen would take up most of the early morning schedule, often starting at 2.00am or 3.00am and finishing before the ITV Morning News at 5.30am.
In December 2005, three months before the now defunct ITV Play began transmitting, a quiz show entitled Quizmania began broadcasting in the early hours on ITV. Subsequent programmes that followed were The Mint, Make Your Play and Glitterball. This resulted in Nightscreen being pushed back to just a half hour service between 5.00am and 5.30am.
In 2008, largely as a result of widespread scandal surrounding phone-ins, ITV Play was permanently axed, since when Nightscreen now regularly runs from 3.30am or just after.
[edit] Other similar services
[edit] Pages from Ceefax
[edit] S4C Closedown Screen
A similar programme is also provided by S4C, the Welsh equivalent of Channel 4, which runs for approximately 10 minutes before closedown (4.00am most mornings) and for 10 minutes before start-up (6.00am most mornings). This is referred to in electronic programme guides as the S4C Closedown Screen.
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