iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Not heard of that, will have a look

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Of course, it goes without saying that every issue you paid for over the last 12 years will no longer exist when the app closes.

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Zinio lets you subscribe for £129.99 a year (still less than half the print price). Readly is an all you can eat sub for many papers and mags for a similar price. But I’m also considering doing neither, which after reading RT for as long as I can remember feels a bit sad.

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It is a bit of a bummer for me as I’m on the same subscription as when it opened in 2014 (79.99 a year). At that point it was a modest saving. Given the print edition is today an astonishing £5.50 a week it now is/was a great deal.

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Radio Times closing their bespoke iPad app is an interesting move. The FAQs, which force you to work out what’s going on by reading a series of questions, direct you to Zinio and Readly.

Radio Times iPad app stating it closes 25/11

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I fear the real reason is a lot less logical…

Jonathan Bufton @jonabuft.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

I’d be interested to know why they stopped showing it on BBC2, given it is essentially free and they already have a kids block beforehand. The only thing I can think of is if they have cartoons they can use on CBBC but not BBC1/2, which was an issue back in the Bungalow days.

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I’d do anything for love. But I won’t!

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Jonathan Bufton @jonabuft.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

And always fab to see another P9 out in the wild. Better get updating my blogs!

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Jonathan Bufton @jonabuft.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Makes “attitudes night” look near the knuckle

Radio Times letter complaining about swearing on the cover

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Jonathan Bufton @jonabuft.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The promo alone was a work of art. The station was labour of love too - I doubt with the way funding is now they could do it. Though to be fair you could just repeat the lot!

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Or was he genuinely a fan of Today’s The Day

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Ha amazing. Was he thinking of Knowing Me Knowing You?

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Much as I loved TV Burp, some of the stuff that is still being repeated has been eye opening in how cruel comedy was back then. S1E1 had Rik Waller being fat, Pete Waterman being old and Hitler possibly being gay. All hilarious apparently

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The web URL plug at the end of each show this series. What were viewers being asked to contribute? Suitable clips they’d seen on tv?

Jonathan Bufton @jonabuft.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I remember when Radio Times had to print a correction about this. It said something like “Today’s The Day will return in the autumn. Contrary to our previous assertion, there are no plans for a new series of The Day Today”

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The #totp office, April 2000. “You know what’s better than new material from Hanson? New material from Hanson, acoustic version”

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Reposted by Jonathan Bufton

Andrew Orton @andreworton.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

As a little bit of context of the passage of time in #70Up / #UpSeries, here's an overview of some of the television programmes that were around the time each one was broadcast. Seven Up! (5/5/64) was shown in the week of the penultimate ep of #DoctorWho's Keys of Marinus: Sentence of Death.

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Jonathan Bufton @jonabuft.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

70 Up - bloody hell, what an absolute masterpiece. An emotional rollercoaster. A tribute to TV itself.

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Jonathan Bufton @jonabuft.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

We’ve got it this year. A leap forward considering until last year Leeds couldn’t do glass in home collections!

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Jonathan Bufton @jonabuft.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Yes and if we were half a mile down the road we’d be in the same boat, but postcodes give us the same status as someone living up near the Emmerdale set in the hills 🤷‍♂️ it’ll be fine, but has a feeling of not being able to win with the choices given.

Jonathan Bufton @jonabuft.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

This is us next year. Not looking forward to us. The choice comes down to the comp which is close and fine but not spectacular, the good school everyone moves to LS18 for except we’re just inside LS16 so almost certainly won’t get in, and the grammar a ridiculously long bus ride away. Dreading it.

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Jonathan Bufton @jonabuft.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

On the way home today we drove past Handforth of Jackie Weaver fame. Sadly there is no monument to Aled’s iPad.

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Reposted by Jonathan Bufton

Rhianna Evans 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🦋 @jazzyrhianna.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

It’s time for part 5 of the TV Burp Time Capsule and as we enter 2006, there’s a new rival show in town from the BBC. Now, I love TV Burp, but I also like Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe… but which was better? There’s only one way to find out… FIGHT! thatcomedyfan.wordpress.com/2026/09/18/t...

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Richard Norton wasn’t sure, he may just have had a better offer!

I need to look this up but didn’t Richard Marson’s book question how necessary it all was? Wracking my brain but wasn’t there some suggestion missing the first hour was a bit of a sop to Schofield’s star power and they could have insisted he started at 9.

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Yes, there was some speculation it wouldn’t return. But all of CBBC was being cut to shreds at this point and using the vacant old continuity studio was much cheaper than hiring MTV’s (or whoever owned it).

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Jonathan Bufton @jonabuft.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Had it been 5-10 years earlier when kids tv was still commanding huge audiences, it could have brought Leicester Square to a standstill!

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Is it just me or is a lot of rails advertising based around “it’s not driving”? That may well be the appeal for many but a) surely they know that already and b) is they the limit of the appeal of Northern/LNER etc?

I wonder what happened to Nicky Smith. She was all over the BBC kids mags. She turned up on the Live and Kicking Top 5 Tips feature in 1993/4 and I was more interested than most of the celebs they had on

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It’s interesting what they pick out for the kids. Wogan seems an unusual choice. Then you’ve got Radio 1 minus DLT. And “Saturday morning film” is a good hint there were maybe some printing deadlines getting in the way of proper listings

Fast Forward did seem run down by 1995 It was “edited” by a cartoon frog by the end, which I hated as I liked seeing the actual names of the people doing it.I got the last issue completely by fluke which sort of acknowledges it’s the end via a cartoon strip at the back. It felt a real waste of money

I think I vaguely remember Chatterbox. Girl Talk also launched around this time so the whole range was being shook up (and TOTP changed focus a few months after launch, more or less in line with FF closing).

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They’d got rid of this detailed listing by the time I was reading in favour of a few highlights but interesting it goes Wed - Tue rather than Sat - Fri, in line with when it was on sale. Almost like they needed to rely on Radio Times for the first three days, or maybe print deadlines…

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I loved it. I was reading a few years later than you but during 1994 it suddenly aimed towards a younger audience with the word count seemingly halved overnight. I can only assume this was to align with the new L&K Magazine taking the older kid/teen audience? But it was shit and ended a year later

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Yes you’re right, it was clearly part of the spec and works starting at any of those three points!

There’s a comment on that VT Old Boys site that describes NHP as the “live show from hell that could run over or under with a moment’s notice” or similar

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Yes me too, I was absolutely gripped by it. Loved it when telly went wrong!

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Yes it was usually on at 6pm for an hour. By the time you cut all the bits involving phone ins and cartoons that was probably all that was left

I think that could be summarised as “here are three different ways to not watch SMTV, please use one”

NOEL’S HOUSE PARTY (BBC ONE - Season 4: Episode 15 / 11.02.95)

This one came very close to the same fate a year earlier where the roller finishes during Grab a Grand Noel doesn’t seem sure if they’re on air or not at the end. Watching them scramble under the credit roll to fit it all in was one of my favourite bits to be honest! youtu.be/eDo-XGHZVMk?...

youtu.be

YouTube video by Noel's House Party

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The line appears to be drawn just after the time Noel is told to ask the questions, but they can’t get that message to him until he cues Tessa. The slight gap and wobbly camera when he does suggests that wasn’t suppose to happen. She also looks back on the balcony as if being called back

Very geeky observation but they also cue the full 60 second grab a grand theme rather than the 40 second one the caller had earned, so they screwed that up too.

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That’s always been my assumption. The lottery could only have been delayed so much? But watching the full ep uploaded it’s 49’20” long which doesn’t seem that over. Surely there would have been words after the show for making them look silly.

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