Network 7

Last updated

Network 7
Network7.jpg
Network 7 logo from Series 2
Created byJane Hewland, Janet Street-Porter
Directed byMatt Forrest, Andrew Gillman
Presented by Magenta Devine, Sankha Guha, Tracey MacLeod
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
No. of series2
No. of episodes44
Production
Executive producersKeith MacMillan, Jane Hewland
Producer Janet Street-Porter
EditorCharles Parsons
Running time2 hours
Original release
Network Channel 4
Release3 May 1987 (1987-05-03) 
23 October 1988 (1988-10-23)

Network 7 is a short-lived but influential youth music and current affairs programme screened on Channel 4 over two series in 1987 and 1988. The series was created by Jane Hewland and Janet Street-Porter, who was also editor of the first series. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

Overview

Network 7 was broadcast live on Sundays from noon until two o'clock and was conceived of as a 'channel within a channel', something young people could roll out of bed and watch the morning after the night before. Its mission statement was "News is Entertainment. Entertainment is News." It was known for its heavily self-branded, frenetic visual style with wild camera work, rapid cuts, very short items and "blipverts" — a dense combination of innovative graphics, and pop video style visuals explaining everything from Third World debt to bulimia.

Much of Network 7's innovative style can be seen as being inspired by a combination of elements such as the aesthetic of the Max Headroom drama 20 Minutes into the Future and the studio-based anarchy of Tiswas . The show's logo and distinctive brand and graphics (that predicted a desktop computer style) were designed by Malcolm Garrett and Kasper de Graaf's design studio Assorted iMaGes.[ citation needed ]

The show took place in a specially built 'caravan city' in Limehouse Studios, a deserted banana warehouse on the site of what is now One Canada Square. Presenters included Jaswinder Bancil, Magenta Devine, Sankha Guha, Eric Harwood, Murray Boland, Tracey MacLeod, Sebastian Scott, John Holdsworth, Caroline Roberts, Lisa Clark, Ali Jack, Lindsey MacRae, and Trevor Ward. [1] [2] Most presenters had previously worked in either television or journalism in a smaller capacity, but they all got their first major TV exposure on the show. Charlie Parsons was a presenter and also part of the production staff. [1] He later set up the production company Planet 24, which produced The Word and The Big Breakfast with his partner Waheed Alli.

Network 7 challenged the idea that youth programming could only be a niche concern in the television business. The series won a British Academy Television Award for Originality for Hewland and Street-Porter in 1987. [1] [4] The series has been credited with changing the language of factual television. [5]

Regular programme segments

Flesh + Blood was a mini-series running each week for 14 minutes within Network 7, written by Joanna Hogg and featuring Vladek Sheybal and Diana Quick in the main roles.[ citation needed ]

Dick Spanner, P.I. was a 6-minute Gerry Anderson claymation detective serial shown weekly during Series 1. [1]

Room 113 was a pre-recorded one-to one psychological celebrity interview conducted by Oliver James. [1]

True or False showed a pre-recorded bizarre real-life story, and the following week revealed whether the story was true or false. In Series 2 viewers could voice their guesses via a phone poll.

Film On 7 showed a short one-minute film made by students at London International Film School.

Memorable moments

The series premiered with a feature on cloning cashcards, where presenter Sankha Guha cloned a card and used it on live television to take money out of an ATM outside the Bank of England, going in depth on how it was done using a video recorder and strips of tape. [5]

It broadcast a secular gay wedding ceremony, organised by Gay Humanist Group (now part of Humanists UK) which provoked reaction at the time from the British press. [2] [6]

A live satellite link-up to Ed Byrne, a man on death row in the USA convicted of murdering his girlfriend. Viewers voted whether they thought he deserved to live or die, and a presenter revealed the results to him at the end of the show. [3]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ITV Central</span> Independent Television franchisee for the Midlands

ITV Central, previously known as Central Independent Television, Carlton Central, ITV1 for Central England and commonly referred to as simply Central, is the Independent Television franchisee for the Midlands. It was created following the restructuring of ATV and began broadcasting on 1 January 1982. The service is owned and operated by ITV plc under the licensee of ITV Broadcasting Limited. Historically Central made a major contribution to the ITV network schedule – especially in entertainment and drama – but today its main responsibility is the regional news service.

<i>Jeeves and Wooster</i> British comedy-drama television series (1990–1993)

Jeeves and Wooster is a British comedy-drama television series adapted by Clive Exton from P. G. Wodehouse's "Jeeves" stories. It aired on the ITV network from 22 April 1990 to 20 June 1993, with the last series nominated for a British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series. Set in the UK and the US in an unspecified period between the late 1920s and the 1930s, the series starred Hugh Laurie as Bertie Wooster, an affable young gentleman and member of the idle rich, and Stephen Fry as Jeeves, his highly intelligent and competent valet. Bertie and his friends, who are mainly members of the Drones Club, are extricated from all manner of societal misadventures by the indispensable Jeeves.

The Kenny Everett Video Show is a British television comedy and music programme that was made by Thames Television for ITV from 3 July 1978 to 21 May 1981.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Janet Street-Porter</span> British media personality, journalist and broadcaster

Janet Vera Street-Porter is an English broadcaster, journalist, writer, and media personality. She began her career as a fashion writer and columnist at the Daily Mail and was later appointed fashion editor of the Evening Standard in 1971. In 1973, she co-presented a mid-morning radio show with Paul Callan on LBC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UTV (TV channel)</span> Television channel in Northern Ireland

UTV is the ITV region covering Northern Ireland, ITV subsidiary and the former on-air name of the free-to-air public broadcast television channel serving the area. It is run by ITV plc and is responsible for the regional news service and other programmes made principally for the area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angela Rippon</span> English television presenter (born 1944)

Angela May Rippon is an English broadcaster, former newsreader, writer and journalist.

<i>Armchair Theatre</i> British TV drama series (1956–1974)

Armchair Theatre is a British television drama anthology series of single plays that ran on the ITV network from 1956 to 1974. It was originally produced by ABC Weekend TV. Its successor Thames Television took over from mid-1968.

Jesse Birdsall is an English actor, known for his roles as Marcus Tandy in the BBC1 soap opera Eldorado (1992-1993), Nick Beckett in the adventure series Bugs (1995–1999), football manager Roger Webb in Footballers' Wives (2003-2006), and Fraser Black in Hollyoaks (2013-2014) as well as for villain Ron Gregory in a few episodes of The Bill.

<i>The Grove Family</i> British TV soap opera (1954–1957)

The Grove Family was a British television series soap opera, generally regarded as the first of its kind broadcast in the UK, made and broadcast by the BBC Television Service from 1954 to 1957. The series concerned the life of the family of the title, who were named after the BBC's Lime Grove Studios where the programme was made.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eric Porter</span> British actor (1928–1995)

Eric Richard Porter was an English actor of stage, film and television.

Who Dares Wins is a British television comedy sketch show, an adaptation of BBC Radio 4's Injury Time, broadcast between 1983 and 1988, featuring Jimmy Mulville, Rory McGrath, Philip Pope, Julia Hills and Tony Robinson. It was one of the first TV outlets for alternative comedy and was broadcast by Channel 4 late at night in a first attempt at "Post-Pub television". It was eventually aired by the Playboy Channel in cable television outlets in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DEF II</span> Programming strand on BBC2

DEF II was a programming strand on BBC2, which aired at 6 pm on Mondays and Wednesdays from 9 May 1988 to 23 May 1994, to serve the teenage market. It was produced by Janet Street-Porter, and followed on from her influential youth TV show Network 7 on Channel 4.

Broken News is a comedy programme shown on BBC Two in late 2005. The show poked fun at the world of 24-hour rolling news channels. The title of the show is a play on the phrase "breaking news". It had six thirty-minute episodes. Having previously worked on programmes such as People Like Us and The Sunday Format, the show's production team worked closely with writer and director John Morton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CITV</span> British free-to-air TV channel for children

CITV is a British children's morning programming block on ITV2 and formerly a free-to-air channel owned by ITV plc. CITV, then Children's ITV, launched on 3 January 1983 as a late afternoon programming block on the ITV network for children aged 6–12. It replaced the earlier Watch It! branding and introduced networked in-vision continuity links between programmes. These links were originally pre-recorded from a small London studio up until 1987, when Central won the contract to produce live links from their Birmingham studios. In 2004, presentation of CITV was relocated to Granada Television in Manchester, which saw the demise of in-vision continuity. Nine years later, the operations moved to ITV Granada's MediaCityUK studios in Salford.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Music Box (TV channel)</span> Former pan-European cable and satellite music television channel (1984–1987)

Music Box was a pioneering pan-European 24-hour cable and satellite television channel that ran from 29 March 1984 to 30 January 1987, and was operated by Music Box Limited. It was originally one of three services that formed Thorn EMI's venture into satellite television as a British version of MTV, and later became part of Virgin Vision as one of Richard Branson's business ventures launched in 1983.

ITV Play was a short-lived 24/7 participation television channel in the United Kingdom owned by ITV plc. The ITV Play name continued as a strand on the main ITV Network until December 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jenny Hanley</span> British actress (born 1947)

Jenny Hanley is an English actress. She was one of the presenters of the ITV children's magazine programme Magpie. She currently presents a show on Boom Radio.

Motormouth was a Saturday morning children's entertainment series that was produced by TVS and broadcast across the ITV network for four series, running between 3 September 1988 and 4 April 1992. Each series generally ran from the autumn of one year to the spring of the next, as was common among many 'main' Saturday morning series.

<i>The Adventures of William Tell</i> British television series (1958–1959)

The Adventures of William Tell is a British swashbuckler adventure series, first broadcast on the ITV network in 1958, and produced by ITC Entertainment. In the United States, the episodes aired on the syndicated NTA Film Network in 1958–1959.

Monitor is a British arts television programme that was launched on 2 February 1958 on BBC and ran until 1965.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "BFI Screenonline: Network 7". BFI.
  2. 1 2 3 Mark Hooper (14 May 2019). "'We wanted to hack your television!' – how yoof TV changed the world". The Guardian.
  3. 1 2 "How 'Network 7' televised a revolution". Dangerousminds.net. 1 June 2011.
  4. "1987 Television Originality". British Academy of Film and Television Arts . Retrieved 13 August 2020.
  5. 1 2 Ian Jones (1 October 2001). "Part One: "I Want To Subvert Mainstream TV"". Off the Telly.
  6. "The Gay Humanist - Gay Love Affirmed On TV". Pinktriangle.org.uk.