I remember trying to phone to donate to Telethon '88. All that happened was that I got into a crossed-line situation with various people from around the country. I had some very pleasant conversations from my South London home with ladies from Glasgow and Bristol. Various others joined the party from time to time, as we hung on to see if anyone from the Telethon was actually going to answer the phone, and if they did, how they would manage the multiple people who were on the end of the line at once, all eager to donate. As each new person joined our merry telephonic bunch, their initial elation when they thought a Telethon operator had actually answered the phone was soon quashed. They would excitedly open with "Oh hello, I'd like to donate...", only to be shouted down when we responded in unison with "Yes, we all would."! Personally, I never did get through to an actual operator that day as my dad was nagging me to "Get off the bloody phone", so they didn't get my fiver. I often wonder whether my new friends from Glasgow and Bristol had better luck giving their hard-earned money away. 🤔

I was a volunteer for Yorkshire TVs Telethon 90. Expecting to be there for the full 27 hours my mum dropped me off at the studios in Leeds. We volunteers were handed a T Shirt to wear and given a timeslot of when our volunteer time would start. My slot was a couple of hours on the following day. I had to catch a train home and get my mum to bring me back the following day.. In my 2 hours the only thing I did was take a piece of paper from one studio to another. It was a complete waste of time.

My grandad was part of the tech crew at Anglia TV for Telethon 88, I found a jumper in his wardrobe with "ITV Telethon" printed on it, I still have it

Thank God ITV no longer has the telethon as part of its schedule, Twenty seven hours of Ant and Dec is more than i could stand,

I was 15 in 1990, I’ve Cerebal Palsy, Telethon paid for my first ever Electric Wheelchair, They said they would pay in full if I agreed to stickers on it saying helped through Telethon, By 1992, I was at a residential College for the Disabled in Hampshire, it had to sites a college and a School. Michael Aspels son, was a pupil at the school

so appreciative of your sensitive and honest coverage of this. as a disabled person born a decade after this farce, knowing another part of my community's history reignites my passion for equity and the exact kind of normalcy you described- we're just people. some of us are on wheels is all.

"people clap out of confusion" is now one of the best subtitles I've ever seen

If you’re here from Tom Scott’s newsletter I highly recommend you have a good poke around this channel. There is so much great content here.

Dear Bob, Thank you for an excellent and thoroughly researched video documentary. I'm disabled myself, due to a car accident while I was rescuing another crash victim - he was fine, I came off pretty badly - in 1997. To be honest, I hadn't really seen any of these telethons, as I find all this stuff (ITV Telethon, Comic Relief, Children In Need etc etc) to be horribly patronising, whilst swallowing up contributions in the administration, rampant corruption, and the eventual UK outbreak of Compassion Fatigue. I grew up with disabled family members before my life changed in 97, and always found, as you so perfectly put it, that Radio 4's "Does He Take Sugar" was so very aptly named. Your documentary highlighted the dehumanising and patronising of the disabled, afflicted, and infirm. Shove a microphone in this kids face, shove a token "gift" in this kids lap, and the worst of all was the "cake presentation" to a chap who looked totally paralysed. Thankfully, times *have* changed. I am still driving, albeit with a slightly modded vehicle. I am treated as a person, an equal, just differently abled. This is a *societal* change, and nothing to do with "ITV Telethons". Thank you again for your excellent documentary. Your commentary throughout was absolutely spot on, and my wife and I were agreeing with you all the way through. I wish you the very best for the future, and your further endeavours. Your wit and presentation I cannot praise highly enough. It took us about an hour and a half to get through it - due to rampant PAUSE usage to discuss points you raised! 😂 From the Frozen Wastelands of The North, I wish you joy and happiness.

I remember watching the entirety of Telethon 88 as a 16-year-old WHO SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER EVEN AT THAT AGE, whose sole premise was to wait for the much-hyped Tiswas reunion. What I also remember was the moment that some faceless government official passing a cheque for £1 million to Michael Aspel, wondering what stopped this person's particular department from issuing that amount any other day in the year. Pity the poor Natwest sods that had to give up their weekend to man the phones for Telethon 92, while their pasty-faced chief exec tried and failed miserably to exude any sort of humanity in front of Mr Aspel and the mugs who had to watch so much as a flicker of that event. I dearly hope he wasn't chief exec for long.

I mostly remember Telethon 90 as a bit of fun, me and two friends went to the city (Norwich) and hung around Anglia TV for a while, I saw Sid Owen (Ricky from Eastenders), we said hello to each other as he came down a set of stairs, my claim to fame 🤣🤣 We then managed to get into the audience too, we were sat directly behind a six y/o lad that was a black belt in Karate, who done a demonstration for the show. So somewhere out there is footage of me and my two friends of 12-14 y/o's in the audience. I remember going back to school and quite a few people saying they saw me on TV too.

Wow, this ended up going somewhere I wasn't expecting. I was not aware of the opposition to the ITV Telethon, and certainly not of the fact that the opposition was so strong and vocal, even managing to get their protest into the studio. I remember the Telethon with fondness, even though not with any memory of enjoyment. As a kid, I'd dip in and out of it purely because it was there, it was inescapable, and it seemed like a bit of an exciting event. But it was a long-winded affair, with next to zero entertainment. I remember it being mostly Michael Aspel padding it out, with cutaways to various clips, but not much in the way of any real content. Of course the aim was to raise money for charidee, more than it was to be top flight TV entertainment. But even so, it was very thin on enjoyment substance. It would be a struggle to make a two hour show out of the bits that were actually worth watching, and this thing was going for some thirteen times that duration. It would never cut the mustard today, it didn't really even back then. But, like I said, I have fond memories of it just being a thing on TV.

Sky One's "Gold Heart Day" from 1995, has to be the most forgotten Telethon ever. I cannot find anything online about it, but it did actually happen. I remember my 14 year old self being annoyed The Simpsons wasn't on that night because of it.

Matthew, I would also make this point, one reason for the £24 million figure was, in 1990, some ITV companies, such as TVS and Tyne Tees, donated money from their own profits. Had it not been for that, the 1990 figure would've been less than 1988. As for the 1992 Telethon, I only watched bits of it, and was glad when the show ended on the Saturday evening, as there was International Rugby Union highlights after it, Australia v New Zealand! Being a Rugby Union fan, I wanted to see that more than the Telethon! One other thing, the claim made by Telethon was, all the money raised in each ITV area, such as Scottish, Tyne Tees, Anglia, stayed in that region. I'm not aware of any organisation in Fife, where I live, that benefited from Telethon. Also, I'm not aware of any mates of mine who raised money for Telethon.

Okay so as someone who didnt live in the UK at the time (In fact i wasnt even alive for two out of the three) but who has watched every episode of KYTV, the "Brown Nose Day" episode now makes SO much more sense to me now. Thank you...

I do remember these ITV Telethons. There was always an air of being a 'poor relation' abut them. Well done for the research into this now rather obscure and unmentioned slice of TV history.

I raise a glass to your Clive James. Spot on 😄

Over 30 years later, and that bloody annoying jingle is still haunting me.

Ha, I had a Telethon'88 t-shirt as a kid, got it from Wembley market if I recall. But there was a rumour that Terry Wogan always demanded an appearance fee for hosting Children in Need.

Cracking video! I remember being so excited to watch the first one due to it being 24 tv, which didn’t exist back then (at least not in the midlands). I had no idea of the protests and was oblivious at the time to the patronising nature of it all, but looking back, it’s painful

The ITV Telethon used the studios of LWT on the south bank, and those studios were actually superb. The London Studios as it later became known were far better than BBC Television Centre. Telethon used the largest studio, Studio 1, which became well known to viewers for it's audience seating platform used for shows like Game for a Laugh. They also had Studio 2, another large studio to help ease the pressure on Studio 1. This is the studio Cilla was using in the 1992 event.

The choice of the Bug as a symbol really underlines the lack of imagination involved. I had a collection of bugs at this time, they were a cheap and basic merch item that were commonly used by small businesses such as video shops/car dealerships/diy stores as promo items. Not surprised they didn’t sell, being so ubiquitous to most kids at the time. However I did not hesitate to get a Red Nose from Woolworths.

My memories of the 1988 Telethon: 1. My best friend sticking a cute Telethon bug to her Hianyu colour portable. 2. Linking up with Channel Television and seeing locals allowed on the normally private Zethou island. 3. Eating my breakfast on the Monday morning and not being quick enough to get a VHS tape in to record Scritti Politti '(Oh Patti) Don't feel sorry for loverboy'. Probably one of Green's last studio performances for about 30 years. Can't find it online anywhere😢.

Brian Rix did a lot for folk with Learning Disabilities - they were hardly ever seen on TV until the Let’s Go programme which featured people with similar disabilities as my brother. I know the terminology has now changed but Brian Rix did do a lot of good.

I've always found it odd that one of the "celebrities" on stage for the finale of Telethon '92 was Cynthia Payne, a woman most famous for running brothels. Makes more sense now, knowing the show was going down the toilet and perhaps struggling to attract many other celebs.

I remember donating to the '85 Telethon. I sent off the postal order and everything. Some weeks later I got a letter telling me that my donation was still outstanding. I was very confused. I was only nine. Thieving bastards.

What a great documentary - brings back so many memories! I was a Community Service Volunteer working for Barnardo’s in Bristol that year. There was a great CSV community there and we got roped in with fundraising, including a charity Bed Push and a celebrity cruise under the Severn Bridge on a paddle steamer. In return, we got tickets for a couple of hours in the Bristol studio for the local segments. We were in the second row, centre stage, and I was wearing a rather obvious rainbow jumper. Ironically, we also travelled to London to take part in the big Rights Not Charity demonstration in Trafalgar Square later that same year.

Thanks for making this. Inexplicably, ITV's Telethon came to my mind about three or four months ago and caused me to look up it's history and controvery. But your video fills it in a lot of the gaps and adds much more to the whole story. Even though I was too young to really watch it when it was broadcast, I remembered seeing ITV Telathon merchandise appearing in carboot sales and elsewhere, well into the 90's.

Excellent documentary- as a teenager I was unaware of the level of opposition.

I just about remember Telethon '90 & '92...not much but I remember it existing. As for HTV Wales' technical problems, don't judge our lot too harshly. Welsh Broadcasting never had that much money until Doctor Who started to be made here full-time. Speaking of which, as a Whovian even I embrace the spirit of destruction also for 'Doctor in Distress'

I’m not sure how much truth there is in it, but I believe part of the reason why the Telethon in 1992 was moved to July was because they expected the General Election to be in May/June, however as we know it ended up being in the first week of April. But I wouldn’t be surprised that both Thames and TV-am couldn’t be bothered. Great video as ever Matthew.

The Telethons did cause a blue gonk epidemic at my school, but they weren’t the official Telethon gonks. Those were far too expensive.

Oofft - you didn't miss many targets here. I was blissfully unaware of any controversy surrounding Telethon, other than it being a bit crap and an ersatz CiN/Comic Relief. I've no idea what KZfaq algorythm led me here, but I'm glad it did. 3:20 is a genuine LOL moment - funny because it's true and spat out with the venom he deserves. Excellent work - interesting and informative.

I recall letters to Bournemouth Echo that demonstrated how donations from viewers in Dorset intended for local charities or counted by individual itv regions were being split & was causing jealousy or confusion between charities because of the counties’ geography & location being shared or covered by 3 itv regions separately based in Plymouth Southampton & Bristol. Viewers across North & East Dorset whom received all available signals of TVS HTV West & TSW complained of not knowing which line to call to make donations ! Thanks for your work covering this subject . 🏴😁❤️🐢

I wasn't expecting to watch a 40 minute documentary on a telethon I barely remember but got sucked in (Only the blue bastard and my first experience of FOMO when my dad turned the TV off for the night during Telethon '92 and I felt I was missing out on the "party" that continued on in to the small hours). I do remember wondering when we were going to get the next one. I had zero knowledge of the controversy, and I guess as I got more understanding of the ITV network I presumed it was due to that merging in to one big monster. Anyway, facinating stuff!

wow I forgot all about this event! Thank you for jogging my memories, great flash back and great interesting info aloing with it ! Have a brilliant weekend, Sonique

That was brilliant! Never actually knew what the hell had happened to ITV’s Telethon, kind of embarrassed that I participated in the last one in 92 by going to laser quest in Manchester and playing loads of games of it with all the money donated to it! But at least I got to play against the legend that is Frank Sidebottom so I have something to treasure forever there!!!!

I remember being pretty hyper about this and hooking up an extension cable through to the bathroom so I could watch it on the portable TV. We didn't get the bank holiday so had to miss all the Monday daytime stuff and just get back for the end!

Telethon 88 was actually quite a good memory from my childhood. As far as I remember TV being broadcast all night was still quite new. My parents stayed up to watch and shockingly said I could too. Naturaly I fell asleep at about 10:30pm but we had it on all night and all the next day. My school did a fund raiser (A fun run) and as a child there was a feeling of doing something good I had no idea what was going on behind the scenes

It was a great idea in practice (I remember watching all three - as a 5 year old in 1988,7 year old in 1990 and a 9 year old in 1992) - and wondered why they ditched it. ITV should revive it - Text Santa was a great concept.

The ITV Telethon is reminiscent of Alan Partridge’s Christmas show.

My recollections of Telethon were that I was on holiday abroad in 1988 so I missed out. In 1990 I tuned in but was surprised and perhaps disappointed to see that Michael Appel disappeared in the early hours of the first day presumably to go to bed for a few hours before returning the next morning which surprised me because I expected he would be doing the full 27 hours. Telethon 92 was remembered for an on-air protest of people in wheelchairs who proclaimed they wanted rights not charity!. The amount raised in 1992 was very low and was the nail in the coffin. After the final total was revealed and as they were waving goodbye they revealed another amount that had increased by a million or so which presumably was ITV putting their hand in the pocket although it could probably impossible to find out the truth of how much was donated so it made a mockery of the entire Telethon saga.

This sure brought back memories! I don't remember much of the 88 and 90 Telethons but I do remember 92 featuring a pair of street entertainers talking for 27 hours, some poor couple snogging for 27 hours (pretty sure that could prove fatal - thinking back that was probably a joke) and some kids doing a very cringey rap with people dressed as cartoon characters heading through the audience with collection buckets. I was unaware of the protests at the time, but I can understand their frustrations. I initially wondered if the lack of Telethon in 1994 was down to network changes but I guess the fact that that style of show was rapidly going out of fashion was an even bigger part of the reason.

Telethon '92: gained an hour, lost a bow tie. Edit: When Barbara Met Alan is so good

Congratulations on this excellent retrospective.

Excellent work appreciated by a Londoner in Oz .. no telethons still running on the telly here at all these days.

Just got reccomended this video by KZfaqs algoritham today. Great video. Went and watched your BSB series and happy to see you go from 1.9k Subs to 2.01k over the day. You should have more.

Fantastic, as always.

I remember this like it was yesterday, but I was 5 in May 1988. I didn't pay much attention, being a neurodiverse child who didn't know she was neurodiverse yet meant I had the attention span of a 6-month-old. also being rare neurodiverse means I am "harder to deal with" Different time I know... but seriously... the use of the word HANDICAPPED should have been BLEEPED out.😡 Society is going BACKWARDS and disabled people are STILL treated like non-entities. I remember my former best friend who had a complex disability telling me that she was told by an "expert" that she didn't have a brain that was in 2002... I also remember learning in school in Modern Studies class that if a disabled person *dared* to try to travel by train they were put in the mail car!

Ive got Autism and ADHD, Im not in a Wheelchair...... I try to live my life as normal as possible and be nice to everyone Thank God for Block Telethon

ITV Telethon 88 helped to pay for our school swimming pool to be rebuilt. Our school was in an affluent Sussex town and in the wealthiest area of the town, the school applied to the Telethon for funds to build a new school swimming pool and we got the funding.

Many thanks for this, it’s really informative. I never realised there was so much controversy about it; I thought it stopped due to the new ITV franchises being in place for a 94 telethon. But I can see where KYTV got their telethon (brown nose day) ideas from!

Thank you for forcing me to remember Doctor in Distress. There's a rumour that it'll be played in the most ironic of senses as part of the Toymaker's plan in the 60th!

Very good piece of work. Appreciated.

I remember the 1990 & 1992 ones. I wasn't aware of the backlash the 1992 one recieved until later.

My friend Mik Scarlet was on the 1992 Telethon as a presenter

Given this was all before I was born, I never even heard of this, even from my parents, which I guess shows just how much impact it had. Yet I have fond memories of growing up with fundraisers at school for Comic/Sport Relief and Children in Need followed by coming home and staying up later than normal (until the watershed at least) to watch the show. Standout memories to me are when we changed our computer screensaver to a Pudsey one that we must have purchased at one point, where the white blocks that made up the logo would appear and disappear, and "Comic Relief in da Bungalow" with celebrities doing the ridiculous games that the kids would normally take part in in the regular episodes on Saturday mornings.

I remember all those ITV telethons, I was a teen at the time and I remember distinctly thinking it was a lot of patronising BS, chasing the success of the BBC. Very well done, very interesting and certainly a trip down memory lane that I’d forgotten.

I thoroughly enjoyed this! Great commentary and analysis of what appeared to be an unclear direction ITV and Telethon had. And a pleasant retrospective to corporate ITV and the very LWT-looking production especially of 1992 (looking like a templated copy of Surprise Surprise and Blind Date of the era - the title card transition, voice-of-God announcer and even set design!) Being a child of the 90s I only vaguely remember Telethon and remember the exciting spectacle that was Children in Need at the time; for the average viewer I can see how this was aimed to be bigger and shinier (very ITV vs BBC) with the sad VTs peppered in. Great video!

I always thought the reason that the 1992 Telethon did relatively poorly was because it was moved from the Spring Bank Holiday weekend to an ordinary weekend in July. Children in Need also had years when the total raised was lower than the previous year. My father, who was disabled for most of his life, did not agree with the criticisms of the ITV Telethons. He enjoyed watching them on TV (not all 27 hours!) and was appalled by the actions of the protestors. Through him I knew a lot of disabled people, most of whom also disagreed with those trying to stop the event. Were the protestors representing a silent majority of disabled people or a noisy minority?

Disability is a weird thing. The discourse is better now, but what frustrates me most is the rush to diminish how awkward things are in the name of seeing disability as an identity. You can't win. You can't obviously express pity, but platitudes like 'differently abled' is also cruddy because it erases the objective struggles of us with our bodies rather than with society in general. Society is much better, but in a perfectly accessible and understanding world there will still be things that don't work properly, in pain or a struggle, and no amount of right-on politics will make that better. The one absurdity I've encountered was someone demanding that a writer not write a story about a cancer patient seeking a cure. As a cancer widow, it actually erased my husband's very real pain and needs and covered up the way he had actually got something wrong with his body and needed it put right. Communities like the deaf do form bonds within such groups and that's great, but for me neurological disability has been nothing but a hardship and a limit on what I can do, and I'd imagine someone very ill like in some of those VTs you talk about may want immediate respite and financial aid rather than more abstract rights. Having to care for a loved one who's dying is a financial hardship for many people and those people need the cash. The advert you held up about the government booklet about benefits and so on surely was actually helping people access the services provided for them, just like the hospice looking after my husband helped him apply for his PIP. Even in the case of your home, the money may well have gone to fund a disability access ramp. While having the need for better home design (such as the current mandatory need for a downstairs toilet in new build houses), money is needed to bring older homes like mine up to scratch. (I broke my ankle badly and two years on am still crippled by it.) Also, while the social landscape is changing, real people actually need help: money for tools, for new treatments, for new research and so on. For someone struggling with, say, a pain condition making it hard to hold down a job, no amount of awareness or rights will actually help them feel betrer. Relieving actual suffering is as important as political change; the political change happens over time, but the pain and stress and financial hardship doesn't stop just because people are protesting about their rights. The patronising thing of today is people policing others' responses to language and that just because I have a broken ankle doesn't mean I claim it as an identity. The discourse is much better but it still centres able-bodied politics rather than acknowledging that we need as much physicsl treatment in the here and now as we do for self-righteous allies trying to whitewash the experience of being disabled, particularly when that disability involves pain or other mental discomfort, and the rights of carers to be able to be honest about their experiences. It's a problem of social justice paradigms which promote social identity over getting the right help to the right people and working in the here and now to help relieve suffering. Being there with fundraising to help fit a downstairs toilet or a wet room to someone who needs it isn't mutually exclusive with political struggle, but fundraising through charity is nonetheless important to ensure that people are practically liberated as well as emotionally satisfied.

'3 Line Whip' genuinely feels like an Eric Andre bit. Edit: I came for the telethon cringe, I stayed for the history lesson on disability rights activism.

Another excellent video Matthew, I'm smashing that like button just like the ITC rubber stamp thingy ;) Very informative, I vaguely remember the studio intrusion when I was watching as a youngster but having no idea what was going on with it only being when I was older and looking the Telethon up out of nostalgia that I got a better understanding of the protests against the programme.

Brillian documentary Matthew.

I was 11 when Telethon 90 was on… I have very little recollection of it, but I do remember the Italy World Cup that year… clearly where my priorities were at that age.. Interesting video this though, highlighting the way disabled people were treated. Thank you for putting this together, I loved your humour.

I was starting to think I had imagined these telethons over the years since. Well I was 4 in 1988 and not a lot registered at the time what was going on. But ITV only showing one show for as long as they did definitely registered at the time. Years later I did become an advocate and supporter of disability causes and I almost want to celebrate that they raised that much awareness and money for the cause. Can’t say I feel the same about it being done as an after thought though.

To be very frank, I don't think the telethon was arguably a bad idea, but ITV at the time saw it in the wrong way. What could've been an actual charity aimed to help the cause of disabled and disadvantaged people across the UK turned into just an arguable mystery of where that money was actually going. '92 was mainly just the peak of the downfall, as the ITV regions then were panicking, almost because they would lose their "license to print money" in the coming months anyway. Not with a bang, but with a whimper. I have ASD, or what used to be known as Asperger's, so even if this event did continue onwards, there would've been no way it wouldn't have just been seen as an excuse for ITV to scrounge up money for nobody to receive anything at all. I know my family are equally as critical of CiN and Comic Relief for these exact reasons, in belief that a lot of the money seems to just suddenly go back to the BBC. I think it was sad to see Text Santa axed as well, I thought that was a decent valiant attempt to raise awareness to disadvantaged children across the UK who didn't have homes or families to look up to. But at least with that, they didn't see them as a way to squeeze money out of the "awwww" crowd, but as a very serious and solemn cause.

Sport Relief is now dead and buried. Red Nose Day is now on every year. The last Sport Relief was in 2020, just a week before lockdown commenced.

God the feet on that horrible little blue thing would haunt your dreams! I remember there was a rash of little fuzzy gonks back then for all sorts of things. Complete tat.

Brilliant. Witty and purposeful

Another brilliant documentary Matthew and a serious look at disabled rights from a bygone age. You handled it with sensitivity and tact. After Telethon, GMTV did their own mini-Telethon thing with Get Up And Give, which as I remember, did the ITV Telethon thing of pointing cameras at disabled people going "AWWWWWW!!" That was quietly dropped after a few years.

I haven't thought about these in years. I have vague memories of the '88 one because some of the Central stuff was filmed in Sutton Park, which was in walking distance of my house. I don't think I remember anything about the other two though.

I remember the fact that they happened clearly enough but didn't actually remember any of the actual content. Which i suppose is indicative of the whole vagueness of the aim of it all. I didnt remember anything about the protests and like others assumed it stopped due to the changes in the franchises. Very interesting video indeed

I remember the telethons. In my region, Granada, they were presented by the station’s golden couple - Richard and Judy.

Really enjoyable presentation

_I Don't Like Mondays_ - presumably provided royalty free care of that iconic charity mugger and death magnet, Bob Geldof...sung by kids (for free.) Big hearted ITV. Worse than _The Sun_ releasing _Let It Be_ after the Zeebrugge Ferry Disaster.

In Ireland on RTE they had their People in Need Telethon in Ireland which actually lasted longer than ITV Telethon. First was in 1989, then 1990, & then it aired every 2 years from 1992 until 2000. It came back in 2004, 2007, the financial crash of 2008 meant the show was axed. A sort of telethon returned for Covid in 2020. Irish legendary host Gay Byrne was the host for the Irish telethons until 2004.

Very insightful documentary. Ended up here after watching Comic Relief last night and Lenny's last show and felt nostalgic!

I’m autistic and can’t tell how many time’s especially when I was in school mainly elementary school that I was treated like I was less than human and put into a room with a bunch of screening kindergartners and this took a sledgehammer to my mental health and from about the Third grade to about the fifth grade my mental health went down hill to the point that I contemplated committing suicide and I would have attempted if it wasn’t for my dog giving me the will to live thankfully I got the help I needed which saved my life but I still have flare ups every now and then, the trauma which now started to heal but the damage will be with me for the rest of my life I know that this is long winded but I had to get my experience out there

I watched this Itv 1 live as a young teen and 30 yrs later now. We tried one or 2 in Rep of Ireland 7 hours long. The People in Need Telethon in 1990s to early 2000s. Now Comic Relief and Children in Need tv part is only live for 3 hrs used to run from 7pm to 2am.

Thanks for this. Although I have a vague memory of these I'd forgotten what it was called. In fact the only thing that is stuck in my mind was the Detective crossover (92) (which thanks to this video I have now been able to find more information on) involving Sherlock Holmes, Van Der Valk, Taggart and Inspector Wexford. It's probably where my love of crossovers comes from. Apart from this I'd basically forgotten everything else about these telethons.

Kind of like the Roger Mellie cartoon "Challenge Roger".

My late father [God bless his soul] said about the 1992 I.T.V. Telethon. As a disabled person that you are you should only watch this if they are paying you £100 an hour into your account for each of the 28 hours. As they are not. I would advise you not to watch one second of this and for goodness sake do not give any of your money to I.T.V. Telethon 1992. I took to his word and I am glad that I did.

I really enjoyed this, thanks for your efforts. I remember having the blue ears when I was about 10. Probably giving off toxic gases from some landfill in the Philippines now along with a million more.

Excellent video! Found it through Tom Scott's newsletter, piqued my interest as I have an interest in old television and disability politics. Presented very well too.

Fascinating video. Did anyone write about the tumultuous Telethon '92?

Great analysis. Really enjoyed this. Thank you

I remember as a kid watching parts of '90 and '92 and bemoaning the lack of the usual Yorkshire TV schedule. Children in Need didn't bump my favourite cartoons off the schedule. I was unaware of the opposition to '90 and '88 but by '92 I was old enough to have contempt for the patronising culture of Children in Need and this. Except Telethon was worse; as you point out, nobody was sure where Telethon's proceeds were headed. Children in Need at least recapped the previous year's beneficiaries in the VT and seemed less patronising for the time. There was also a distinct lack of the Children in Need star power as I recall. Michael Aspel wasn't the worst choice to anchor it, but he wasn't and still isn't on the level of the late Sir Terry Wogan. ITV's problem was that Telethon was too American. Children in Need, Comic Relief and Sport Relief might have borrowed from the US telethon concept but they're presented in a uniquely British way that maximises interest in a compressed time frame. US style all day telethons aren't TV ratings winners.

Really good and nuanced documentary, Matthew. Being a late 90's child, I obviously missed all of this, but i must admit, i'm generally sick of the telethon format. Charity is good, helping those who haven't got the means to help themselves is good. But I would rather see what the money does to actually help people. I feel bad for any child who lacks bodily autonomy, but I'm not going to give because I saw a film about them. I want to see that child out in the real world with the assistance that charity provided them. Like other commenters, i consider myself disabled (I have ASD), and the protesters were right. We don't necessarily need money, we just need understanding and accomodation. If money gives us that, then great. If it's just about a quick high of 'helping others', then take it back

It was designed as a national project to raise funds in each ITV region - all the money raised in each region stayed in that region- the amounts raised were sent to the national centre - not the actual cash, just the figure - and were totalled up nationally - but the amount raised in each region stayed in that region - viewers in Plymouth were not funding organisations in Norwich or whatever - it raised funds for all sorts of charitable organisations - not just disabled or children’s charities or OAP charities - it was a combination of national and regional programmes, with neither encroaching on the other - although the national programme had reports shown nationally from the regions at various times throughout the show - you could have seen yourself on national television if you were at any of the events - or, rather, your family and friends would - but the opt-outs didn’t mean that you missed out on the national programme! There was another Telethon broadcast in the early 90s that featured a murder mystery being investigated initially by Sherlock Holmes, then it was taken up by other fictional detectives, including Van Der Valk - it somehow managed to get over to Amsterdam and Van Der Valk took up the baton - it was finally solved by Inspector Wexford!

fantastic content.

Every so often the telephon music comes into my head that’s over thirty years ago crikey

Thanks for this, a very good watch!

I do remember it. I remember in 1988 waiting fir the Tiswas bit, i was 17. It was like at nearly 1am. Years later i worked at a call centre in the miid to late naughties and we bacame a call centre for red nose day or children in need. I can't remember which.

Even without the protests, I don't think the Telethons would have gone ahead post 1993 without Thames, since that was the region that started the telethons. I remember the Day of Promise being advertised on ITV. But I never actually watched it (I was probably out with my mum that day), and the only thing I remember was that it was the day ITV first showed Digimon (which I didn't see). I think it was a May Bank Holiday but don't quote me on that.

The poor audio quality on Telethon 90' with opening countdown was actually on the broadcast!. Three Line Whip..... just what were they thinking?!.

I'm another one who really had no idea about the depth of feeling toward the mawkishness on display on the Telethons. I thought they were great because of the regional aspect, my view was they hit harder and had more relevance because the local community station was involved. Granted, this was probably more visible in those smaller, more community-minded franchise areas (my local station Tyne Tees had always made a point of ensuring that the local celebs were out and about anyway) but still.

Blue. Ears. Words fail me.

Channel 4's stand up to cancer is probably the only sustained success from independent tv. One of the reasons is obvious -the cause is right there in the title.

I remember going down to Granada Studios with my mum, Dad and my baby sister. I believe it was 1988. It was all very exciting Richard and Judy were doing a live segment and I remember my mum saying shout Hello to Richard and Judy😂😂 they did wave at me and was star struck. I was hooked and when we got home from Manchester Central I continued to watch it all until I feel asleep. I can’t believe there was all these issues with the event…. Such a shame, it could have been a winner.