ITV Nightscreen

ITV Nightscreen is a scheduled programme on the United Kingdom’s ITV television network, consisting of a sequence of animated pages of information about ITV’s upcoming programmes, features and special events, with an easy listening music soundtrack. The programme is used to fill the station’s overnight downtime, where a closedown would have once been used at the end of programmes. Previously it began after the final programme in the night and finishes at 05:30 every day, but recently ITV have started airing The Jeremy Kyle Show at 4:30 am – 5:30 am, giving Nightscreen a shorter airtime with it starting usually at around 3:15–3:45 and finishing at 4:30.

It was first broadcast in 1998, and consisted of teletext pages taken from the ITV regional teletext services, with interstitial teletext-based animations in a similar style to the former 4-Tel On View, which had also been produced by the Intelfax). Since 2003 the screens have been produced using Scala InfoChannel3. In early 2009, updated systems were installed with the latest version of Scala5, with a dual redundant system to counter any issues of service. In April 2012, the system was upgraded again to a newer version of Scala5. This, amongst other minor presentational changes, allowed compatibility of the service to be transmitted in 16:9 widescreen for the first time, as opposed to 4:3.