Meg's Death- Looking for UK Broadcast Date

[Martin2013]

I have several VCRs.  A DVD/VCR Recorder combo and some standalone ones.

[shannon12]

I  used to  have  one of them.  Lucky  you  having  so many  videos.  Have you  ever  thought about  putting  them on  dvd. 

[Homeandawayfan.]

I think the Blake and Meg UK broadcast date of 20 Nov 1992 was H&A's highest ever UK viewing figures so I am told.

[Martin2013]

On 14/02/2026 at 18:27, shannon12 said:

I  used to  have  one of them.  Lucky  you  having  so many  videos.  Have you  ever  thought about  putting  them on  dvd. 

One day maybe.  

[James Martin]

On 15/02/2026 at 14:04, Homeandawayfan. said:

I think the Blake and Meg UK broadcast date of 20 Nov 1992 was H&A's highest ever UK viewing figures so I am told.

EDIT: No you're right.  In this thread started by you, there's a load of figures from The Stage. The "final sunrise" got 16.41m on Friday November 20th, but the aftermath on the following Monday beat it with an incredible 16.62m.

Click Me

It was regularly the second biggest show on ITV behind only Corrie. 

I'm almost certain, however, that those are aggregated figures for both showings added together.  But when you consider Emmerdale's all time record is 17m, just 13 months after that, it's impressive stuff.

On 14/02/2026 at 08:58, Martin2013 said:

Sorry for the delay in replying to you. I've literally only just seen this.

The episode actually appears on the same tape twice! Once from Thames and once from LWT which makes clear that it was a Friday and also suggests that the repeat of H&A was broadcast after Thames signed off for the weekend and LWT took over.

Fun fact about this: when the episode started at 5:10pm (I think it might have been at 6 at this point, moving back in 1993 when London Tonight started) Thames played it out, but would simultaneously line-feed it to LWT.  5 minutes in there'd be a non-sync glitch (which your VCR would be very sensitive too as you can see on any Thames/LWT handover on YouTube) and I believe a small transparent dot in the corner which would disappear after handover, this was so everyone concerned could look at any television and confirm LWT had indeed taken over.

Carlton and LWT shared playout facilities after 1993, meaning it was simply a shift change of the announcers and different tapes used to play the idents - no glitch as it was all coming from the same suite.

Edited February 26 by James Martin
I thought it was Ep 1010 in early '93. It's not!

[Homeandawayfan.]

Both Neighbours and H&A's figures were aggregated I think, to consider the afternoon showing and the evening repeat, which made them seem higher than they actually were. I think for one single showing (eg, afternoon or evening) they got on average about 9 or 10 million.

[James Martin]

2 hours ago, Homeandawayfan. said:

Both Neighbours and H&A's figures were aggregated I think, to consider the afternoon showing and the evening repeat, which made them seem higher than they actually were. I think for one single showing (eg, afternoon or evening) they got on average about 9 or 10 million.

Somewhere in the 90s it got split, because the BBC were massaging EastEnders' figures the same way with the Sunday omnibus. Eldorado, Emmerdale and Corrie all got daytime repeats for similar reasons.

There's a story somewhere else on the forum about ITV taking the lunchtime showing off for a week in order to air a snooker tournament (possibly the same one which got the lunchtime showing bumped to 5* in recent years) and the teatime audience absolutely skyrocketed to not quite the aggregated figure but fairly close.  People were actively seeking it out.

[Homeandawayfan.]

I once read that H&A actually beat Neighbours that night in the aftermath of Meg's death. This was from my local Norfolk newspaper the EDP, which said that H&A got about 100'000 more than Neighbours, but not sure how accurate that was. 1992/1993 was a time where H&A was giving Neighbours a true run for its money. 

It did often play second fiddle to Neighbours in the very late 1980s and early 1990s, but I feel 1992 and 1993 was when this started to change. I lived through that era and both shows were well spoken about by 1992. Even the teachers said "Did you watch Neighbours and H&A last night?". 

Edited March 2 by Homeandawayfan.

[Martin2013]

On 26/02/2026 at 02:33, James Martin said:

EDIT: No you're right.  In this thread started by you, there's a load of figures from The Stage. The "final sunrise" got 16.41m on Friday November 20th, but the aftermath on the following Monday beat it with an incredible 16.62m.

Click Me

It was regularly the second biggest show on ITV behind only Corrie. 

I'm almost certain, however, that those are aggregated figures for both showings added together.  But when you consider Emmerdale's all time record is 17m, just 13 months after that, it's impressive stuff.

Fun fact about this: when the episode started at 5:10pm (I think it might have been at 6 at this point, moving back in 1993 when London Tonight started) Thames played it out, but would simultaneously line-feed it to LWT.  5 minutes in there'd be a non-sync glitch (which your VCR would be very sensitive too as you can see on any Thames/LWT handover on YouTube) and I believe a small transparent dot in the corner which would disappear after handover, this was so everyone concerned could look at any television and confirm LWT had indeed taken over.

Carlton and LWT shared playout facilities after 1993, meaning it was simply a shift change of the announcers and different tapes used to play the idents - no glitch as it was all coming from the same suite.

Thanks for this interesting information.  I think I may have seen an example of a non-sync glitch during a Thames to LWT handover whilst H&A was on.   Wonder why Thames didn't just stay on air for another 5 minutes and get the handover out the way before having LWT taking over and then showing H&A as the first programme?

On 02/03/2026 at 13:22, Homeandawayfan. said:

I once read that H&A actually beat Neighbours that night in the aftermath of Meg's death. This was from my local Norfolk newspaper the EDP, which said that H&A got about 100'000 more than Neighbours, but not sure how accurate that was. 1992/1993 was a time where H&A was giving Neighbours a true run for its money. 

It did often play second fiddle to Neighbours in the very late 1980s and early 1990s, but I feel 1992 and 1993 was when this started to change. I lived through that era and both shows were well spoken about by 1992. Even the teachers said "Did you watch Neighbours and H&A last night?". 

Episodes 1571 and 1572 of Neighbours aired on Friday 20th November 1992 and Monday 23rd November 1992.  Nothing wrong with either these episodes but they couldn't really be classed as significant episodes.

I recently acquired another tape which has Bobby's death (Episode 1303) taped from the Carlton region. I'd already acquired two separate copies of this episode in the past 5 years, both on tapes largely with episodes of Neighbours (and both including the episode where Jim Robinson dies).    This suggests to me that fans of Neighbours made a point of tuning in to watch (or record) Home and Away for that storyline. 

Does anyone have any idea how the episodes surrounding Bobby's death fared in the ratings and how the ratings for Bobby's death compared to that for Jim Robinson's death on Neighbours? 

 

Edited March 5 by Martin2013

[Homeandawayfan.]

I or someone would have to check the UK airdates of Jim's death and Bobby's death, then look at The Stage editions on a newspaper archives website, often the ratings were published a week or so after airing for that certain week.