I remember hearing that during the last few years of local announcers, the Yorkshire announcer would do links for Tyne Tees and Granada too. The Yorkshire one would be live and the other two recorded just minutes before.
Not sure how true this is, but I heard that a great deal of playout for the likes of Gold, Dave and other channels is all computerised and just watched over by non-techies who aren't overly paid, which probably explains why a repeat of part one of a show is played out after the first break and sometimes goes unnoticed and sound levels can sometimes be all over the place.
On the subject of Ceefax and Oracle, I think the GPO had a rival service called Prestel which from memory was a kind of interactive teletext which hooked up to the TV and phone line - a kind of forerunner to the Internet I suppose. I don't think it lasted too long.
Yorkshire / Tyne Tees were the first to merge up - or "share resources" as it was put to staff and the public.
It was only a matter of time before someone with a calculator started number crunching and finding ways to reduce costs and maximize profits.
Yorkshire / Tyne Tees / Anglia tried to merge together in the 1970s - and set up one holding group called Trident Television.
Not seen many Anglia or Tyne-Tees programmes with the Trident branding on, but there are quite a few episodes of "Rising Damp" and "Only When I laugh" where the Trident name is included on the end YTV logo.
The IBA jumped in and stopped this merger as they claimed it would "affect the quality of the each of the companies output".
Carlton pitched for the ATV and Thames franchises in 1980 - and were kicked out by the IBA as it was felt that they (Carlton) didn't have enough experience or a decent plan for balanced programming.
I wasn't a big fan of the IBA - I found some of their ideas trapped in the 1930s - but in some respects, they were years ahead of everyone and in retrospect, they kept ITV in line.
The Granada / Carlton merger is a tale on it's own - headed by Charles Allen.
Between them - Granada and Carlton each merged the larger companies into their own (by doing shareholder buyouts, so they could get a majority) and then they both, each took over the smaller companies and merged them in.
Before long you had two large companies controlling about 97% of ITV - then all they needed to do (and did) was go cap in hand to the Monopolies commission - to get permission to merge the two companies together - which became the ITV as we know it.
That's it in a nutshell - I left out all the crap about closing studios, auctioning off / scrapping equipment, the 1000s of joblosses and the axing of expensive productions.
STV, Ulster and Channel TV stuck two fingers up and told them to F.O and kept themselves to themselves.
For a majority of the Freeview Channels - Challenge / Dave / Gold etc, the announcements are pre-recorded and automatically played over when needed.
On Challenge, the announcements were all recorded by Sarah Cawood.
The ones on "Dave" were recorded by Ralph someone or other.
I think both the BBC and ITV1 still do theirs live to some extent.
Though - ITV did go through a phase of having the announcer pre-record a few minutes before the announcement was needed.
