ITV Schools - ITV Schools On Channel Four and S4C

ITV Schools On Channel Four and S4C

After 30 years on ITV, the service moved to Channel 4 and S4C 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. 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. Presentation was handled by Channel 4 in London with announcements for support material pre-recorded and voiced mainly by Central TV announcer Ted May in Birmingham.

In the run up to the move to channel 4 and S4C, at the end of each schools programme on ITV, a tralier was run, warning schools of the change, and also mentioning it was the 30th anniversary of ITV Schools. It's claimed in some regions, these trailers were also shown after normal programming as well.

The very first programme on ITV Schools on 4 and S4C was "Environments", produced by Thames Television. On that historic first morning, Channel 4's trade test sequence was moved forward. Normally, they switched between test card, Oracle teletext, and 4-Tel (channel 4's own teletext service) every 15 minutes. The test card was normally ALWAYS shown before programmes, with music. However, that first morning, it was Oracle teletext that was shown. At 09:26;57 the pages crashed out i.e. they disappeared suddenly, and a blank screen was shown. This remained for a full minute, until at 09:27;57 the screen had the grey background, with a 4 logo in the right hand corner on a strip. The sequence with the ITV logos, as described above, then commenced.

When Channel 4 introduced breakfast television in April 1989, it was necessary to extend the first interval to five minutes due to the 9:25am finish time of The Channel 4 Daily. For the first three minutes, Channel 4 would play one of their own interval tracks - between April 1989 and the end of 1991 over a still of the 3D clock and throughout 1992, the ITV "rotomotion" between January 1992 and December 1992. 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 programme.

From Monday January 11th 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 28 1993, signalling the end of this particular era and style of schools television broadcast. The very last programme on ITV Schools on 4 was "The Technology Programme", at 11:41 am.

Since September 1993, the strand has been known as Channel 4 Schools, and is now Channel 4 Education.

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 continued to be broadcast on Channel 4 until 2009, although they were usually moved into commercially unviable timeslots, such as overnight, where they could be video-recorded by teachers for later consumption. The usual standard Channel 4 presentation devices were employed between programmes.