Prisoner Cell Block H TV listings

Prisoner is an Australian television soap opera which was set in the Wentworth Detention Centre, a fictional women's prison. The series was produced by the Reg Grundy Organisation and ran on Network Ten for 692 episodes from 27 February 1979 to 11 December 1986.

ITV Regional Scheduling
Prisoner was the first Australian soap opera screened late night in the UK. As in the US, it was billed in the UK as Prisoner: Cell Block H to avoid confusion with the well-known British series, The Prisoner, although it always remained as simply Prisoner on-screen. It screened on ITV from the mid/late 1980s until the mid/late 1990s, depending on the region. A great many sources incorrectly state that the series did not begin being run in the UK until 1987, but in fact the Yorkshire region had been showing it since 1984. However, most other regions didn't start to broadcast it until 1987 at the earliest, with it not starting in the Ulster region until late 1989. By June 1985, the series was "going like a rocket" in Yorkshire.

It achieved enduring success in the UK despite much negative criticism from reviewers, and the fact that the series never received a network screening on ITV. Some ITV companies such as Yorkshire Television showed the series once a week whilst others such as Central and Granada Television stripped the series across three nights. Most ITV contractors though screened it twice a week in as had been the pattern in Australia.

Because the series was shown on all ITV companies late at night (just before closedown at first, then as the first programme of night-time programming with the advent of 24-hour broadcasting in the late 1980s), it became a favourite of the local continuity announcers. The announcers would often joke about characters and plots before and after the programme and during the end titles.

On Central, Mike Prince was fond of satirical announcements linking the previous promotion to the Prisoner episode following, leading to announcements like "But Ayer's Rock pales into insignificance compared to the might of Joan Ferguson next tonight on Central in Prisoner: Cell Block H." Over the credits of an episode where Vera discovers Pat O'Connell communicating with her son a Granada announcer came to the conclusion that "Australia IS a VERY strange place." UTV announcer Julian Simmons, well known for his Coronation Street introductions, commonly referred to the "lusty big wee-men of Cell Block H" when introducing the series. Many other continuity announcers on the then-regional ITV stations made similar announcements before and after the programme, helping to boost its cult status.

This style of announcement was later borrowed by the UK's fifth channel to accompany episodes of Sunset Beach, with a similar effect. Channel 5 also repeated Prisoner in a late night slot from 1997 to 2001, granting the series its first ever networked screening on British TV. These broadcasts featured the same kind of jokey comments and reading of viewer's comments over the closing credits, usually from senior announcer Bill Buckley, whose camp delivery, but with an obvious fondness for the series, somehow suited the show perfectly.

Yorkshire Television was the pioneering ITV company to transmit the series in the UK at 23:00 on Monday 8th October 1984 in a weekly slot until episode 39 in October 1985. The series resumed in January 1986 in the same slot taking a summer break in May 1987. Just before Yorkshire halted, Central Television had started screening the show three times a week in a similar Saturday, Sunday and Monday late slot from April 1987. Central completed the series in December 1991, a span of just over 4.5 years. At the same time in December 1991, Yorkshire were still screening it weekly on Mondays and other regions had overtaken them. Yorkshire's first ever week with two episodes happened in January 1993 when a Thursday episode was added to appease viewers in the Tyne Tees region. Yorkshire and Tyne Tees reached the final episode in April 1997 some 12.5 years after Yorkshire's start. Other areas, such as Ulster, London region Carlton (formerly Thames), and southern region Meridian (formerly TVS) never reached the end of their respective runs of the programme - after much darting around the late night schedules, they eventually disappeared in the late 1990s (In the case of Carlton, the continuity announcer announced that the series would return after a break, but this turned out to be the last time it was shown). Meridian was the last region to show the series, they stopped in July 1999 at episode 586, 13.75 years after predecessor TVS started showing the series.

Although they can both claim to have screened the series until the final episode, both Border Television and Tyne Tees Television had to skip a number of episodes. In December 1992 Tyne Tees had to miss episodes 293 and 294 as Tyne Tees and Yorkshire arranged to screen ALL programmes simultaneously from 1 January 1993. Yorkshire had reached the Tyne Tees two at the end of 1992. From November 1993 Border Television brokered a similar arrangement with Granada and Border viewers had to miss episodes 477-547.

Yorkshire Television were very strict with cutting scenes involving hanging. Notably the attempt to hang Sandy Edwards and the successful Eve Wilder hanging were cut. This was mainly due to a local prison HMP Leeds in the Yorkshire region having an extremely high number of hangings in preceding years. Yorkshire also heavily edited the fight scene with Joan and Bea in episode 326.

When Granada TV screened the final episode in the UK, continuity announcer John McKenzie conducted an on-air interview via telephone with Maggie Kirkpatrick who played The Freak.

The ITV regions inserted two commercial breaks into each episode enabling three parts per show. The breaks were usually inserted at the point of the second and fourth break as would have been seen in Australia. At the end of the show the cliffhanger would lead straight into the end credits, unlike in Australia where a sixth break was inserted.

Central repeated the first 90 episodes from February 1993 to January 1995 at the rate of one episode a week late on Sunday evenings immediately after network programming had finished.


 * Although the first episode aired in the UK on Monday 8 October 1984, the Yorkshire region's edition of TV Times dated July 21 to 27, 1984 shows that the programme was scheduled to debut at 23:30 on Friday 27 July 1984 on Yorkshire Television. The station had ended another Australian drama, ABC's mini series The Timeless Land, two weeks previously in the same slot. Most listings for 27 July were later changed and replaced with US series Hotel although The Times still assumed that Prisoner was to be screened. Looking at the following week, a Network programme is in the slot which suggests that maybe YTV thought that having a two week wait after episode 1 was not fair to the series. Eventually the series did debut in the Monday 23:00 slot which had previously been occupied until September by Hill Street Blues until Channel 4 obtained the rights from autumn 1984.
 * In December 1994 Ulster Television agreed to a request by the show's number one local fan Mark Holmes, to screen episodes 326 and 327 back to back, the first time ever that a UK TV channel had screened two episodes back to back. (Belfast Telegraph Weekend Telegraph 3 December 1994).


 * When the series commenced on Yorkshire, Network 10 in Melbourne had reached episode 494 of the programme. Episodes 493 and 494 were screened as a double episode on 10 at 20.30 (end time 22.20) on Thursday 4 October 1984. Similarly in Sydney, Network 10 had aired episode 482 (single episode) on Thursday 4 October 1984.


 * During the period that Central screened the series in full (April 1987 - December 1991), the pioneers Yorkshire only managed to screen 169 episodes (86 - 254), less than a quarter of the Central output.


 * Only two regions were in the lead for the show. Yorkshire from October 1984 led the regions up until they had screened episode 94 on Monday 23 November 1987. Central screened episode 94 on Saturday 28 November 1987 with Central taking the lead the following night (Sunday 29 November) by screening episode 95 which was screened by Yorkshire on Monday 30 November 1987.


 * Many regions screened a one off Prisoner special half hour programme in late 1989 called Prisoner - The Inside Story, presented by Paul Lavers. This was made by Anglia Television and is probably now archived with all other Anglia material at Yorkshire Television in Leeds. The main transmission of this programme was on Monday December 18 1989 at 00.05 (Sunday night) screened by Granada in the Granada, Border, Grampian, Tyne Tees and Ulster regions. With the exception of Tyne Tees who screened a different preceding programme, this was screened immediately after their regional Prisoner episode. HTV screened the programme an hour later at 01.05. TSW also screened the special, but on Thursday 14th December in place of their Prisoner episode at 22.35. Anglia screened it at 23.30 on Monday 30th October after their Prisoner episode. Thames screened it at 01.20 on Friday 15 December after their 00.30 Prisoner episode. It is extremely likely that Central screened the programme as the show was extremely well received in the Central region.


 * Tyne Tees and Border showed an episode on a Wednesday night 23.10 8th April 1992 the eve of the General election. This was because from 22.00 on Thursday there were no regional slots available on the entire network until 15.20 on Friday afternoon after extensive election coverage had ended.


 * From autumn 1988 when all ITV regions offered 24 hour programming, several regions (Border, Grampian, Tyne Tees, TSW, Ulster) obtained a feed from Granada for their night-time programming from around 00:30. If network programming had ended around 00:15, then the regional Prisoner episode would not be shown in these regions as it would have meant that each company had to spend an extra hour on air to screen their episode. This did not affect STV or Central who both screened their own night time programming. Similarly Thames was not affected until in 1990, Anglia and HTV joined the Thames night time service and from this point the series would not start too late in these regions as they were all taking a direct feed from Thames (LWT at weekends) from around 00:30. Yorkshire provided their own night time programming and even though they could have screened the show whenever network programming had ended, they never did. This was probably due to the fact that since it started on YTV they had always used a slot around 23:00 or 23:30 and that they wished to maintain a regular timeslot for the programme. YTV never used a slot later than 00:00 (as used on 28/29 August 1988) until the new franchise era from 1993. TVS and Channel had a similar attitude to Yorkshire before joining the Thames service and then Meridian joined Carlton for shared night time programming. Initially Carlton would only screen the programme at 23:40 on Tuesdays. If that slot was unavailable the show would not air in that week. Following viewer complaints, Carlton agreed to screen the programme every Tuesday as soon as network porgramming had finished, sometimes being 01:00 on Wednesday mornings. This meant that one night a week (Tuesdays) Meridian had to remain on air with their own material (often Magnum P.I. or Island Son) extremely late whilst Carlton were busy placating Londoners. When Thames went off air in 1992, Anglia and HTV switched to the Granada night service in preference to Carlton's from January 1993 and therefore used similar slots for the show to Granada. The three companies STV, Yorkshire (Tyne Tees) and Central covering four separate regions each controlled their own night time schedules from 1993 as they had done previously. Westcountry followed their predecessors TSW with night time programmes supplied by Granada.


 * The only ITV company never to have screened the programme was London Weekend Television (LWT) who occupied the London franchise from Friday evenings until 06:00 on Mondays whilst Thames and then Carlton had the weekday franchise. This meant that the series could never be screened in London on Friday, Saturday or Sunday nights.

UK ITV End of Year Episode Numbers
x = Signifies that the last ep of the year was screened in the week between Xmas and New Year which was very rare for the regions to do.

Figures in italics show which region was the furthest ahead, of the regions screening Prisoner, in that year.