UK Repeats of Thriller in the 1980s (1980-1984) - Overview

There had been an attempt to repeat Thriller in the summer of 1979, at least in the London region on Thames TV. On Monday 13th August 1979 a repeat of Murder in Mind was scheduled with Sleepwalker due to follow on 20th August. However industrial action led to ITV including Thames going off-air on Friday 10th August and so these repeats were cancelled and not rescheduled when service resumed in October 1979. Listings for both broadcasts refer to them being "ATV Productions" which suggests the original versions and not the new "movie" ones were due to air. It's not known if any other ITV regions had plans that summer or later that year to repeat the show.

Thriller did though get repeated - in its new ITC "movie" versions - by all ITV regions / channels in the early 1980s between September 1980 and June 1984. The first repeats came on Thursday 11th September 1980 at 11.05 pm when ATV and Grampian broadcast If It's a Man - Hang Up! and Come Out, Come Out Wherever You Are respectively.  These repeats were hugely important, not just in giving 1970s viewers another chance to see the show but also in introducing it to a new audience including those who were too young to see it back in the 1970s. By the time of these 1980s repeats ownership or rental of video recorders was also growing which meant that some broadcasts were recorded and copies of these were then important not just for re-watching but also in circulating for many years among fans who hadn't seen them. 

The joint-first 1980s UK repeat of Thriller on Grampian TV, Thursday 11th September 1980

Trying to track down the repeats of Thriller in the 1980’s is not an easy business. They occurred over a four-year span under the guise of their ITC movie versions and every region could show them when they wanted so there was no network broadcast of the same episode at the same time as had occurred originally. Some had been renamed which meant that some of the 1970s fans might not have realised that specific episodes were being reshown. Screenings were billed in a variety of ways – usually (and most helpfully) as Thriller and the new movie title, occasionally just under the movie title and - worst of all for the researcher - simply as Thriller. The fact that the word "Thriller" can refer to a genre and not just Brian Clemens's specific show could also have caused confusion as broadcast of other films in the broad thriller genre could take place in late-night slots. The loss of the original peephole titles and theme music and their replacement by the often peculiar new titles could have also led viewers initially unsure of whether they were seeing the original show although if they watched beyond the new titles to see the episodes "proper" matters would become much clearer.

These regional repeats were shown in a very irregular manner, frequently changing days, broadcast times and then disappearing for weeks, months and, in the case of Ulster, for over eighteen months. While this is frustrating for the researcher it would have been far more frustrating to the viewers back then who recognised the show as Thriller, liked what they saw and had to endure all these uncertainties.

Various national and local newspapers plus the TV Times ITV listings magazine are the source of these findings and of course have their weaknesses. Sometimes listings are unclear, inconsistent or incomplete, particularly for the Scottish, Welsh and Irish channels. Episode titles are sometimes incorrect, usually in minor ways, e.g. “The Eyes Have It” billed as “Eyes Have It”, "Once the Killing Starts" as "Once the Killings Start" but occasionally more significantly, e.g. “The Savage Curse” transformed into “The Savage Search”.  

Synopses were brief - usually a sentence a two with no critical comment. These were broadly accurate but there were ones rather less so. Some gave away much of the plot or gave a misleading version of the story. Diane Cilento's witch in "Spell Of Evil" was sometimes referred to as a "beautiful girl" while "The Devil's Web" refers to "three beautiful sisters" which certainly seems rather generous to one of them. 

Granada listing in February 1984 for Terror from Within with a curious synopsis

Newspaper listings are always prone to alteration and undoubtedly this affected the Thriller repeats. A number of episodes are listed twice or even three times for the same channel. Each movie version could only be shown once so this would seem to be a clear case of the earlier listed transmission being dropped and replaced by either another movie version or a completely different programme. Different newspapers can corroborate or correct listings but sometimes they just add to the confusion so the researcher has to make a tentative conclusion. After all this time definitive answers on matters such as unscheduled repeats are unlikely to emerge. Viewers’ memories from almost forty years ago can be flaky and paperwork from the stations is likely to be long disappeared. For the sake of consistency and certainty only broadcasts listed by the newspapers or TV Times have been included. 

All channels broadcast a majority of the Thriller episodes. However in only four of them - ATV / Central, Southern / TVS, Westward / TSW and Channel – were all versions shown although it is very likely that Yorkshire also did so. The former case is maybe not surprising given that ATV originally produced the series. It is though possible that more versions were broadcast by those regions which appear to be short (in some instances well short) of a full set. Late schedule changes are always a possibility, especially with late-night TV and some of the "missing" episodes could have been aired in such a way. For example Granada broadcast  Someone at the Top of the Stairs on Granada as a late replacement for a feature film in May 1982. This was picked up in some regional listings but even later replacements after papers went to press may have occurred.

Granada listing from May 1982 for Someone at the Top of the Stairs, a late change of schedule

The channels on which Thriller repeats fared worst were Ulster, HTV (Wales and West) and STV. All of these except HTV West would have accommodated national programming which may have squeezed out Thriller. Listings for the two HTV channels can be complex with them sometimes sharing broadcasts and other times departing. It is possible more transmissions have slipped through the net in these regions.

The different versions also varied markedly in number of broadcasts. Nine episodes are known to have been repeated by all fifteen channels. By contrast Spell of Evil and Sleepwalker were the least aired, each with only nine known appearances. Indeed Sleepwalker wasn't repeated at all between December 1980 and September 1982. Quite why the inequalities exist isn’t certain. However one notable pattern is that versions titled later in the alphabet appeared less often. Channels often showed blocks of repeats in alphabetical runs and this counted against those later in the alphabet with the ‘S’ and ‘T’ movies faring worst. These alphabetical runs suggest the channels knew they had a set of Thrillers, ordered by title, and just picked them in that order on the whole. Variations from alphabetical sequence may have reflected availability - stations may not have had all forty-three movies available at any one time and therefore had to wait for other stations to pass on copies.

There were some other striking patterns in episode repeats. File It under Fear had all but one of its thirteen broadcasts between October 1981 and November 1982. Cry Terror! only appeared once after August 1982.  Terror from Within was aired by four stations on Friday 2^nd September 1983, all at the same time so the closest to “networking” of a movie version! The Next Victim, Possession and Someone at the Top of the Stairs were all late runners featuring four times in 1984.

Time slots for the movie versions were generally an ample 80-85 minutes. However there were a few shorter ones which must have been very tight such as that for If It’s a Man – Hang Up! on Ulster in October 1980. These broadcasts may have over-run or had only one advert break or none at all. However there were also some long slots of ninety minutes or even more including as long as 100 minutes for Look Back in Darkness on Tyne Tees! In these instances Thriller was commonly the final scheduled programme and the listed end time is either in error or omits a later programme.

Only three channels (Grampian, ATV and Ulster) showed the movies in 1980 with the first two showing the debut repeats simultaneously on Thursday 11^th September 1980. Ulster though soon dropped away with no repeats at all between October 1980 and July 1982. ATV and later Central continued to be the top region for repeats and was able to finish its set by March 1983. After its strong start Grampian fell away after mid-1981. Most of the other channels showed a fair number of episodes in 1981 but Yorkshire showed none and Westward only one although that may have been related to its impending changeover with TSW. However a switch of channel did not deter Southern which set the pace for its successor TVS to follow in 1982 and 1983. Southern / TVS was one of the top regions for Thriller repeats and rounded off its set in July 1983. Yorkshire was a slow burner with just nine episodes by the end of 1982. However its repeats then took off and by the end it was just one movie (Sleepwalker) short.  

1982 was the peak year for repeats followed by 1983 and then 1981. However most stations were still airing Thriller in 1984. Monday and Friday were by some distance the commonest days for broadcast with Thursday and Saturday some way behind. Sunday started quite well but was unused after October 1981. Tuesday and Wednesday nights were scarcely used which is unsurprising as they are common times for sports coverage. The show appeared throughout the year although transmissions unsurprisingly didn’t occur around Christmas with the closest being one broadcast on 22^nd December 1981. However the movie versions did feature on some Bank Holidays including a New Year’s Day repeat on Yorkshire in 1983.

There were some very late slots in 1984 with Saturday night repeats on Granada and LWT often beginning after midnight. Indeed the latest slot appears to have been for the last ever broadcast when LWT showed The Savage Curse at 12.30am on Saturday night 30^th June 1984 (strictly speaking Sunday 1st July but broadcasts just after midnight are conventionally listed as part of the previous evening's schedule). This presumably was the last date before the repeat rights ran out. Since that time only Bravo in 1996 has broadcast Thriller episodes in the UK and that transmission of The Savage Curse is likely to prove the last sighting of Thriller on terrestrial TV.

Details of repeats on each regional channel to follow...