Heartbeat (UK TV Series) - Scheduling

Scheduling

When Heartbeat first began on 10 April 1992 it aired on Fridays at 9.00pm, but from series 2 it was moved to Sunday nights and latterly aired in the ITV Network Sunday evening 8.00pm or 7.00pm timeslot. All Heartbeat episodes are around 45 minutes long (one hour with adverts). The opening episode of Series 11 was planned to be the show's first two-hour episode, but it was eventually split into a two-part story, "Sweet Sixteen" and "She's Leaving Home". In 1994 a one-off feature-length episode was filmed, starring Lloyd Owen as constable Tom Merriweather.

Heartbeat repeats have appeared on ITV during the summer months (often billed on-screen as "Classic Heartbeat"), typically at 5.00pm or, in 2006, at 4.00pm. In 2006, episodes from the first few series were repeated again. These were originally designed to be screened with two commercial breaks, but were slightly edited for time to fit ITV's newer policy of having three breaks. Most of the swearing ("bloody", "bastard", etc.) that was present in the early episodes was edited out for these daytime broadcasts.

For several years (as of 2012) Heartbeat reruns from various series have shown on ITV3, formerly in the original two-commercial-break format and latterly with three breaks. These repeats run daily each weekday lunchtime, with a second airing in an early-evening timeslot. Episodes from different series are shown on ITV3 at weekends. Recently it would appear that the advert breaks have either been increased or lengthened as a show runs for about 63 minutes.