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Southern Television (sometimes abbreviated to just "Southern") first went on the air on 30th August 1958 covering the south and south-east of England outside of the London area. Although its influence on the ITV network was never as strong as some of the major players (such as Granada or ATV) its children's programmes did have a very strong profile within ITV. It carried Coronation Street from its very first episode in 1960 and, after beginning colour transmissions on 13th December 1969, started broadcasts of the programme in that medium from Episode 936 onwards.
The station failed to broadcast three episodes in 1978 (Episode 1856, Episode 1857 and Episode 1858) as they had been blacked out from 5.40pm on 27th October in a dispute with the ACTT (Association of Cinematograph Television and Allied Technicians) over a productivity claim. When the station resumed broadcasting on 7th November the station management chose not to transmit the episodes they had missed during the duration of the strike but instead to start the next episode of Coronation Street - Episode 1859 - with a recap of the events of the missed instalments.
Southern lost its franchise in the reshuffle of 1980 and officially ceased broadcasting on 31st December 1981. Episode 2165 was the final edition of Coronation Street carried by the station who were succeeded in the region by Television South.
External links[]
- Southern Television at Wikipedia.