As the song goes, it was twenty years ago today…

Central is ITV. Lovely. #itv70

Even the toilets are celebrating at work

Special breakbumpers on ITV1 today to mark 70 years of ITV. #itv70

A love letter to the past - full kudos to ITV Creative for this beauty. (Can neither confirm nor deny there’ll be some full outings later)

Loved this, particularly as they had to cut out the line “I don’t need no TV, I don’t need no news”

Happy birthday ITV. Been scheduling it for nearly 20 of the 70 and today was a lot of fun for reasons that will hopefully become apparent!

Been waiting since 1976 for this #totp

Hepburn: I Quit www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Looks like they’ve got the memo about the presenter never appearing to be in the same place as the acts though. They also superimposed Zoe Ball on top of one of the pre-records and even did a fake pan via a pillar at one point #totp

I will admit I quite liked Bus Stop’s Kung Fu Fighting at the time. It’s fun and doesn’t take itself too seriously, unlike a lot of the acts on the show #totp

#OnThisDay 1985: 40 years ago today, the block of childrens programmes on BBC1 was branded as Children's BBC and for the first time,dedicated idents & an in-vision presenter was used in a place affectionately known to us as the Broom Cupboard.

That classic genre

The arrival of this logo means I’m officially a grumpy teenager and things aren’t as good as they used to be #totp

He’s not gonna do a Harriet Jones is he…

Enjoying the slightly bleak daily puzzle on what’s left of the BBC digital text service

We are sad to report that longtime Blue Peter Editor Biddy Baxter has died at the age of 92. We salute a true pioneer, who navigated changing times in the television industry with instinct, tenacity and style.

Not what I’d call a book about Yorkshire but there you go

Keeping Up Appearances….on a steam train! 🤷🏻‍♂️

Genius new campaign for the Golden Arches - spot on gaming imagery, acknowledging the guilty pleasure angle, and bringing back a 90s banger to boot youtu.be/qT4G7Vj6kKM?...

A little Saturday bonus... Here's what happened when Live & Kicking moved from BBC ONE to BBC TWO on 11 November 2000 to make way for coverage of The Lord Mayor's Show... #saturdaymornings

I’m not sure with my 108 followers this will help much but there’s a real chance the Goodnight Sweetheart kickstarter might not reach its target and this simply will not do. 7 days to fund the new adventures of time travelling bigamist Gary Sparrow! www.kickstarter.com/projects/idi...

Nice reference for the parents/grandparents in the new Beano

Easy to see why there was a degree of panic around TOTP at this point in time

As corporate brand hashtag content hashtag engagement this is pretty poor, but it doesn’t even make sense. Alcohol is permitted on board

England v Wales on the big telly, Netherlands v France on my childhood B&W portable. Alfie unmoved by either.

The National Lottery Live today in 1996, and we can't decide whether the best part is the big doors getting stuck, Drawmaster John Willan's feat of brute strength or Alan Dedicoat's remarkable use of the second mention.

The restoration on #liveaid is incredible. You’d never know it wasn’t made in widescreen.

Turns out Live Aid wasn’t 7 hours of Freddie Mercury strutting up and down the stage, who knew

My new TV is getting sassy

I was saddened recently to hear of the death of Stephen Hope-Wynne at just 63, who a few years ago enthusiastically took part in my mad project to research Parallel 9, telling me at length about his role on the programme.

Evening

Radio X Oasis’s programmer has just stuck on All Around The World, so they can now clock off for the afternoon

Meanwhile on 2…

This documentary on the Cold War is as you would expect, great, barring the fact that nuclear Armageddon appears to be ushered in with the ‘Noel Edmonds Gunge Tank Siren’, which rather takes the edge off it and suggests that, out of shot, Daley Thompson is now covered in slime.

Every week I’m slightly fascinated by the dour presentation of the kids’ puzzles in the Guardian

I’m surprised this isn’t pointed out more often as it’s an ace fact, but the shiny gold/brown backdrop on the Live and Kicking titles is reused from the “colourbars army” opening used for the final series of Going Live, meaning it was on Saturday mornings for 8 years youtu.be/uiXF0nsteQ8?...

Got so sick of the ask Siri pop up thing accidentally coming up I thought I’d ask it a simple question, to which I got a factual answer, but the artwork it provided is sublime

Final local programming from here tomorrow after 44 years

Woke up in the middle of the night with what I vaguely recognised as the theme tune to something that was on BBC Choice yonks ago. “I must remember that” I thought. Of course, completely gone when I woke up again. I love how my brain has been hanging onto that for c.25 years to chuck out randomly

Big old night last night!

Please make it stop

In memory of Yo Yentob… youtu.be/sUf95Tr6xJY?...

Even though I was very much a moody teenager by this point I remember being peed off by #totp 1997 only playing about 30 seconds of the Teletubbies. It’s number 1, you play it, you don’t get to opt out because you don’t like it

Time to teach the kids about real music

Well I’m glad I took RTD’s advice and watched it early…wow… #doctorwho

Watched the first Location x 3 last night. Was it really the done thing in 2000 to knock on doors with skips outside in case they are selling to get in there early? I know it was a long time ago but it was genuinely presented as a “top tip”.

What a time to be alive

Just discovered that Nick Wilton who plays Mr Lister the market inspector in EastEnders was the “Nick tell them what they’ve won” prize voiceover on Double Dare. What have you done with your Tuesday?