Timeline of overnight broadcasting in the UK facts for kids

Have you ever wondered what happens on TV channels in the middle of the night? This article is a timeline showing when TV channels in the United Kingdom started broadcasting late into the night, and eventually, all day and all night! It covers what was on TV between midnight and 6 AM.

The Start of Late-Night TV (1980s)

In the 1980s, TV channels in the UK began to stay on air longer than before.

Early Experiments (1983-1986)

• 1983
  • LWT started a late-night section called Nightlife. This meant LWT stayed on air until about 2 AM on Friday and Saturday nights.

• 1984
  • From August 4 to 12, during the 1984 Summer Olympic Games, the BBC showed live coverage until about 4 AM. Instead of turning off, the BBC showed Ceefax Olympics AM, which gave news from the Games until Olympic Breakfast Time started.

• 1986
  • April 2 – Central launched a Jobfinder service. This aired for one hour after regular shows ended. It was the first time an ITV channel showed a teletext service on screen.
  • August 9 – Yorkshire tried out an overnight service. They showed the satellite channel Music Box.

Expanding Overnight Broadcasts (1987-1989)

• 1987
  • January 3 – Yorkshire stopped its 24-hour experiment and started closing down again.
  • January 13 – Yorkshire also launched a Jobfinder service, airing for an hour after shows ended.
  • April 23
    • Channel 4 began broadcasting into the early hours on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays with a new section called Nightime. One show was After Dark, a live discussion show with no set end time.
    • Yorkshire extended its broadcasting hours on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights with a Through Till Three section.
  • April 25 – Central became the first station to stay on air all night with More Central. Shows ran until 3 AM on weekdays and 4 AM on weekends, with Jobfinder filling the rest of the night.
  • June 1 – Thames launched Thames Into the Night, broadcasting until about 4 AM.
  • August 17 – Thames became the first ITV company to offer a full 24-hour service.
  • August 28
    • LWT and Anglia also started broadcasting 24 hours a day.
    • LWT launched the UK's first overnight show, Night Network.
  • December 7 – Tyne Tees began 24-hour broadcasting. They did this by showing a Jobfinder service all night until TV-am started at 6 AM.

• 1988
  • January 25 – TVS launched Late Night Late and slowly broadcast for more hours.
  • February 15
    • Channel 4 started broadcasting into the early hours every night, closing down between 2 AM and 3 AM. Before this, Channel 4 closed earlier on Sundays to Wednesdays.
    • A new 60-minute news show, ITN Early Morning News, started. It was only available where 24-hour broadcasting was happening. The first 30 minutes included ITN World News. Also, short news updates were shown through the night. This happened as three big ITV companies – Scottish, Central, and Granada – began 24-hour broadcasting.
  • May 30 – Yorkshire started 24-hour broadcasting again.
  • June 20 – TVS and Channel began 24-hour broadcasting.
  • August 22 – HTV started 24-hour broadcasting. This service, called Night Club, was shown on both HTV West and HTV Wales.
  • September 2
    • TSW, Grampian, and Border began 24-hour broadcasting.
    • Granada launched an overnight service called Night Time to help smaller companies broadcast 24 hours. TSW, Border, and Grampian used this service. Tyne Tees also switched to Night Time, replacing its all-night Jobfinder. Jobfinder became part of Night Time, airing regionally from 4 AM to 5 AM on weeknights.
  • September 17–October 2 – Channel 4 broadcast all night for the first time to show live coverage of the 1988 Olympic Games. BBC1 also showed all-night Games coverage for 16 days.
  • October 3 – Ulster began 24-hour broadcasting.
  • Autumn – The BBC started closing down later. Before, weekday shows ended by 12:15 AM and weekend shows by 1:30 AM.

• 1989
  • February 6 – Sky Television launched. One of its channels, Sky News, broadcast 24 hours a day from the start.
  • March 31 – Night Network ended after about 18 months.

Changes in the 1990s

The 1990s saw more channels broadcasting all night, with a focus on news and educational content.

New Overnight Services (1990-1992)

• 1990
  • January 24–February 3 – Like in 1988, BBC1 broadcast all night for a major sports event, the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland, New Zealand.

• 1991
  • January 16–March 2 – The BBC and ITV showed a lot of live coverage of the Gulf War, with extended news and special shows. All-night coverage was on both channels early in the war. ITV had an all-night news show, and BBC1 showed Pages from Ceefax for updates.
  • March – After the Gulf War, the ITN Early Morning News was cut in half and started at 5:30 AM. ITN World News was no longer part of it.
  • April – LWT and Thames launched a new overnight section called ITV Night Time.
  • April 28 – HTV stopped Night Club and started showing the general overnight service from London.
  • May 6 – Sky Movies and The Movie Channel began broadcasting 24 hours a day.
  • August – TVS stopped Late Night Late. It was replaced by a new ITV Night Time service from London.
  • September 1 – Anglia's Through the Night service ended. It was replaced by the general overnight service from London.
  • October – Scottish renamed its overnight service Scottish Night Time.

• 1992
  • January 21 – BBC Select launched as an overnight subscription service.
  • October 5 – After Yorkshire and Tyne Tees joined, they started broadcasting the same overnight service called Nightshift.

More Channels and Education (1993-1996)

• 1993
  • January 1
    • Granada’s overnight service began broadcasting on Anglia, HTV Wales, HTV West, and Westcountry.
    • The new ITV channel for London weekdays, Carlton, started a new Nightime service, shown Monday–Thursday nights and also by Meridian and Channel Television.
  • January 3 – 3 Nights launched by LWT as its overnight service.
  • January – On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, Meridian and Channel broadcast their own Nighttime.
  • January 19 – Schools programmes were shown overnight on BBC2 for the first time as part of Night School.
  • Instead of fully closing down, 4-Tel on View was shown throughout Channel 4’s overnight downtime.

• 1994
  • June 19 – More Central, Central’s overnight broadcasting name since 1987, ended.
  • Yorkshire and Tyne Tees started local overnight announcements again.

• 1995
  • January 9 – Sky One began 24-hour broadcasting, showing music videos called Hit Mix Long Play overnight.
  • February – Central stopped its own nighttime shows and carried the London overnight service.
  • February 13 – London News Network launched a new overnight service.
  • June 5 – Granada closed Night Time and replaced it with the new national overnight service from London.
  • October 9 – BBC Learning Zone launched, broadcasting education programmes all night on BBC2. It replaced BBC Select and Night School.
  • October 16 – After BBC Learning Zone launched, Pages from Ceefax was shown in gaps between regular shows and Learning Zone. This was the first time Ceefax was shown overnight regularly.

• 1996
  • January – Meridian's programmes were adopted by HTV and Westcountry.
  • September – Meridian relaunched its overnight service as The Edge.

24-Hour Broadcasting Becomes Standard (1997-1999)

• 1997
  • January 6 – Channel 4 started 24-hour broadcasting, ending 4-Tel on View.
  • March 30 – Channel 5 began broadcasting and was 24 hours a day from the start.
  • November 9 – BBC News 24 launched. From that day, BBC One showed the new news channel all night instead of closing down.

• 1998
  • January 14 – ITV Nightscreen launched as an overnight filler on ITV. It showed news and information about ITV as teletext pages.
  • Early 1998 – BBC2 stopped turning off its transmitters when BBC Learning Zone wasn’t on. Instead, BBC2 showed Pages from Ceefax during all overnight downtime.
  • January 26 – ITV Night Time launched on Tyne Tees and Yorkshire, ending their Nightshift.
  • November 2 – The SMG relaunched its own overnight programming for its two regions, Scottish and Grampian. The overnight section was called Nighttime TV.

• 1999
  • November 9 – ITV Night Time was rolled out to many more ITV regions. ITV started using general network branding for overnight shows. ITV Nightscreen began to fill more time slots.

The 2000s: Quizzes and Shopping

In the 2000s, TV channels changed their overnight content, with more quizzes and shopping shows.

• 2000
  • May – ITV Night Time began on Anglia, Channel, HTV Wales, HTV West, Meridian, and Westcountry.
  • BBC One started showing recent programmes with signing for deaf viewers in a slot called Sign Zone.

• 2001
  • August 29 – Many old overnight programmes were replaced with repeats of daytime shows, often with BSL signing.

• 2003
  • ITV Nightscreen stopped using teletext pages and switched to a new format.
  • Central’s overnight opt-outs from ITV Night Time ended.

• 2004
  • BBC Learning Zone showed fewer hours, so Pages from Ceefax got more airtime.

• 2005
  • December – ITV started showing quiz programmes like Quizmania and later ITV Play shows like The Mint and Make Your Play for much of its overnight hours.

• 2007
  • December 23 – Make Your Play ended, stopping all call-in quiz shows on ITV.

• 2008
  • January – After the quiz shows ended, ITV Nightscreen was broadcast for most of the night on ITV.

The 2010s: More Shopping and Farewell to Ceefax

The 2010s saw the rise of shopping channels and the end of a long-running teletext service.

• 2010
  • April 22 – The Nightshift launched on STV Central.
  • ITV launched The Zone, a block of gaming and shopping programmes.

• 2011
  • April 12 – The Nightshift began airing different versions in STV's four sub-regions.
  • Later in 2011, the sub-regional The Nightshift shows were stopped. They were replaced with one show for both Northern and Central areas, with regional news updates.
  • Towards the end of 2011, Channel Television's Channel Nightscreen ended.
  • December – The Nightshift was reduced to four nights a week (Thursday–Sunday).

• 2012
  • April 27 – The Store with JML launched on ITV, showing retail teleshopping.
  • October 22 – At 5:59 AM, the final broadcast of Pages from Ceefax ended.
  • October 27 – Instead of showing pages from the BBC’s digital text service, BBC Two launched This is BBC Two, which was a loop of upcoming BBC Two programmes.
  • December 21 – The final ITV News at 5:30 was broadcast. After this, ITV no longer had overnight news coverage, except for special events.

• 2013
  • The overnight showing of recent programmes with signing moved to BBC Two.

• 2014
  • February – STV's The Nightshift became a seven-days-a-week programme again for four months.

• 2015
  • July 1 – STV's The Nightshift ended its original run.
  • October 2 – After Midnight, a service of regional news and local programme highlights, launched as STV's new overnight slot.

• 2019
  • August 1 – Home shopping channel Ideal World began showing on ITV during part of the overnight period.

The 2020s: New Overnight Fillers

The 2020s brought more changes to what fills the overnight hours on TV.

• 2021
  • October 1 – ITV Nightscreen was broadcast for the final time after almost 24 years. It was replaced the next night by Unwind with ITV/Unwind with STV.

• 2023
  • July 3 – Home shopping channel Ideal World was dropped by ITV. The slot was filled with other programmes like Bling and repeats of Winning Combination.

See also

• Night Network
• Graveyard slot