This is a timeline of overnight television broadcasting in the United Kingdom. It focuses on programming between midnight and 6am and includes details of when channels began into the night and 24-hour broadcasting.
1980s 1983 LWT becomes the first station in the UK to begin broadcasting into the night when it launches Nightlife. This sees broadcasting continuing until around 2am on Friday and Saturday nights.ITV Nighttime
1984 4–12 August – For the second week of the 1984 Summer Olympic Games, the BBC extends its live coverage until around 4am, as opposed to ending coverage between 2am to 3am during the first week. Rather than closing down, the BBC fills the gap with Ceefax Olympics AM which provides news from the Games to fill the gap between the end of live coverage and the start of Olympic Breakfast Time.
1985 No events.
1986 2 April – Central launches a Jobfinder service which is shown for one hour after the end of the day's programming. It becomes the first in-vision teletext service to be seen on ITV. 9 August – Yorkshire launches an experimental overnight service, simulcasting the satellite TV channel Music Box. YTV carries Music Box until 6am, and not until the start of TV-am because 6am was when the national breakfast franchise hours began, regardless of whether programmes were actually being broadcast. Therefore, there was a short programming break because in this year, TV-am wasn't starting its day until 6:15am (weekdays) and 6:55am (weekends).
1987 3 January – Closedowns reappear on Yorkshire when its experiment with 24-hour television is put on hiatus. 13 January – Yorkshire becomes the second ITV region to launch a Jobfinder service and, like Central, it broadcasts for an hour after closedown. 23 April Channel 4 starts broadcasting into the early hours on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays when it launches Nightime.C4 / Channel 4 Nighttime first TX & Closedown -1987 One of the programmes is the discussion show After Dark which was broadcast live and with no scheduled end time. Yorkshire extends broadcasting into the early hours on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights by introducing a Through Till Three strand. 25 April – Central becomes the first station to keep its transmitters on air all night on a permanent basis when it launches More Central. Programmes are shown until around 3am on weekdays and 4am at the weekend, with the rest of the night filled by its Jobfinder service.TV Ark" Central 1 June – Thames launches Thames Into the Night, broadcasting until around 4am. 17 August – Thames becomes the first ITV company to launch a full 24-hour service. 28 August LWT and Anglia begin 24-hour transmissions. LWT launches the UK's first overnight show Night Network. 7 December – Tyne Tees begins 24-hour broadcasting. It does so by launching a Jobfinder service which is shown each night from its usual closedown time until the start of TV-am at 6am. Tyne Tees broadcasts Jobfinder in silence, as opposed to other regions which accompany their Jobfinder programme with music.
1988 25 January – TVS launches Late Night Late and gradually extends its broadcast hours over the next few months. February – British Medical Television is officially launched, ahead of it commencing broadcasting later in the year as a subscription service during BBC1's overnight closedown period.BBC Select: A Failed Subscription Service 15 February Channel 4 starts broadcasting into the early hours every night, closing down between 2am and 3am. Previously, Channel 4 had closed down on Sundays to Wednesdays at between midnight and 1am. An early morning 60-minute news programme, ITN Early Morning News, is launched but it is only available in areas which have 24-hour broadcasting. The first 30 minutes includes a full broadcast of ITN's international news bulletin ITN World News. In addition, brief news summaries are broadcast at various points through the night. The launch coincides with three of the major ITV companies, Scottish, Central and Granada,Night Time from Granada beginning 24-hour transmissions. 30 May Yorkshire recommences 24-hour broadcasting. TVS and Channel begin 24-hour broadcasting.TV Live - Late Night Late 22 August – HTV begins 24-hour broadcasting. The service, called Night Club, is broadcast on both HTV West and HTV Wales. 2 September – TSW, Grampian and Border begin 24-hour broadcasting. They carry a new overnight service produced by Granada called Night Time which Granada designs to make it easier for the smaller companies to introduce 24-hour broadcasting. Tyne Tees also takes the service, which replaces its all-night showing of Jobfinder. Regional Jobfinder services are part of Night Time and they are broadcast between 4am and 5am on weeknights. 17 September–2 October – Channel 4 broadcasts all night for the first time to provide full live coverage of the 1988 Olympic Games. BBC1 also provides all-night Games coverage, and consequently broadcasts non-stop for 16 days. 3 October – Ulster begins 24 hour broadcasting. Ulster had planned to commence 24-hour transmissions a month earlier but it was delayed because of a last minute decision to take the overnight service provided by Granada and not that provided by Central. This means that, from this day, all ITV regions now offer a 24-hour service. Autumn – The BBC takes its first tentative steps into later closedowns. Previously, weekday programmes ended no later than 12:15am and weekend broadcasting had finished by 1:30am.
1989 6 February – Sky Television launches and one of its channels. Sky News broadcasts a 24-hour service from day one. And for a while, Sky Channel broadcasts teletext pages during its overnight downtime. 31 March – Night Network ends after a little more than 18 months on the air.
1990s 1990 24 January–3 February – As it had done during the 1988 Summer Olympics, BBC1 broadcasts throughout the night to provide live coverage of a major sporting event, this time to cover the 1990 Commonwealth Games in Auckland, New Zealand.Radio Times listings 25 March – British Satellite Broadcasting launches. None of its five channels broadcast around the clock but, apart from Now, the channels do broadcast into the early hours. A test card is shown during the channels' downtime.
1991 late January – The BBC and ITV broadcast extensive live coverage of the Gulf War, both in terms of extended news bulletins and special programmes. All-night coverage is broadcast on both channels during the early stages of the war. ITV broadcasts an all-night news programme and BBC1 broadcasts Pages from Ceefax to keep viewers up to date. This through-the-night coverage had ended by the start of February. 3 March – Following the conclusion of the Gulf War, the ITN Early Morning News is halved in length and now goes on the air at 5:30am. From this day, the ITN World News is no longer broadcast as part of the bulletin. April – LWT and Thames launch a new overnight strand called ITV Night Time. 28 April – HTV closes down its Night Club and replaces it with a simulcast of the overnight generic ITV service from London. 6 May — Sky Movies and The Movie Channel begin broadcasting 24 hours a day. Previously, they had been on air from early afternoon until the early hours of the following morning. August – TVS stops broadcasting their own overnight strand Late Night Late and is replaced by a new ITV Night Time service from London, provided by Thames from Monday to Thursday and LWT from Friday to Sunday. For the first time, both London companies utilised the same on-screen branding throughout the week, the only notable difference being LWT's near non-use of a continuity announcer at the weekend. 1 September – Anglia's Through the Night service ends. It is replaced by the generic overnight service from LondonTV Ark: ITV Overnight Services which is also broadcast on HTV. October – Scottish rebrands its overnight service as Scottish Night Time and removes the overnight in-vision continuity.
1992 21 January – BBC Select launches overnight on BBC Television as an overnight subscription service, showing specialist programmes for professionals including businessmen, lawyers, teachers and nurses. However, the first series, The Way Ahead, made for the Department of Social Security, is distributed free. Includes link to YouTube clips of BBC Select programmes. 5 October – Following the merger of Yorkshire and Tyne Tees, the two ITV companies begin broadcasting the same overnight service called Nightshift.
1993 1 January Granada's overnight service begins to be broadcast on Anglia, HTV Wales, HTV West (from 1 January 1993) and on Westcountry which had replaced TSW as ITV's South West of England contractor. The new ITV franchise holder for London weekdays, Carlton introduced a new Nightime service, from Monday–Thursday nights and simulcast by Meridian and Channel Television. 3 January – 3 Nights is launched by LWT as its overnight service. Output includes some of LWT's local programmes. January – On Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, Meridian and Channel broadcast their own version of Nighttime, presented in-vision from Southampton by ex-Late Night Late presenter Graham Rogers. Both Carlton and Meridian/Channel services utilised the same on-screen branding and presentation throughout the week. Programming largely consists of output from the other services as well as imports including French soap Riviera and in the case of Meridian, regional programming, including World Of Sailing and Freescreen, an experimental series featuring viewers' videos and social action features. 19 January – Schools programmes are shown overnight on BBC2 for the first time as part of a new experiment called Night School. The broadcasts are generally either subject blocks or series blocks. Instead of fully closing down, 4-Tel on View is shown throughout Channel 4's overnight downtime. The teletext pages are accompanied by a continuous tone with music only being played in the final 30-or-so minutes prior to the start of the next day's programmes.
1994 19 June – More Central which had been the brand name for Central's overnight broadcasting since it began nighttime transmissions in 1987 ends. It carries Carlton's Nightime service from Monday–Thursday nights and broadcasts its own version of the service on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. Yorkshire and Tyne Tees resume local overnight continuity. After two years of sharing transmissions, the schedule and the overnight brand name of Nightshift is retained by both regions. December – The final encrypted BBC Select broadcasts take place although the service will continue broadcasting unencrypted programmes for the next ten months.
1995 9 January – Sky One begins 24-hour broadcasting, filling the overnight hours with music videos under the name Hit Mix Long Play. February – Central ends its own nighttime programming and carries the London overnight service, although opt-outs for Jobfinder and other regional programming continues. 13 February – London News Network (a subsidiary of Carlton & LWT) launches a revamped overnight service featuring new neon-themed presentation without any station-specific branding. Following the launch of the LNN service over much of the ITV network, Meridian's overnight service expands to seven days a week and begins transmission in the Anglia region. Overnight continuity links were dropped in favour of announcer-less idents and presentation. 5 June – Granada closes its Night Time service and replaces it with the new national overnight service from London. Consequently, Border, Grampian, UTV, HTV Wales (5 June–31 December 1995), HTV West and Westcountry all take the London service. September – The BBC Select name is used for the final time.