the original hour-long format. The remaining ITV regions – Central Independent Television, HTV, TSW, Granada Television, Scottish Television, UTV, and Grampian Television – all started later, with UTV being the last to start in late 1989. Most of the ITV regions began scheduling the program on a day and time of their own choice and were at vastly different points in the storyline by the time the series was put on hiatus in a handful of regions for a new Australian series, Richmond Hill, which took the Wednesday and Thursday afternoon 14:00 slot from October 1988. When that series ended in August the following year, A Country Practice was resumed as its replacement (although some regions, such as Central and Granada, had continued to show it). By around May 1990 (regions do vary), the ITV network decided to adopt the method established by Yorkshire Television (from 1984) of editing each episode into two half-hour editions which allowed the series to be stripped Monday to Friday, usually before, or after, the lunchtime edition of Home and Away. This format also resulted in curtailment of the full closing credits in certain regions. Scottish Television was the only exception, and they chose various days and timeslots, but always screened A Country Practice in the original hour-long format. A substantial amount were withdrawn from transmission by some regions as the content was considered unsuitable for daytime viewing and this inevitably led to considerable chunks of the story being skipped. Considered a daytime soap and notably several years behind Australian broadcasts, A Country Practice was popular in the UK and achieved consolidated viewing figures of between 2–3 million. Some regions (HTV, Border, Grampian, TSW and Granada) moved the later episodes of the series to an early evening slot of 17.10–17.40. ITV regional broadcasts Originally starting in 1982, Yorkshire Television were the first region to break away from the network transmissions in October 1984 and began editing each episode into two half-hour episodes, screening on Mondays and Tuesdays at 15:30. This led to continuity problems as whenever a public holiday occurred (on Monday), the 15:30 slot would be unavailable. The series was moved back to an early afternoon hour-long format in 1988 when Sons and Daughters was aired five afternoons a week at 15:30. A Country Practice then replaced Sons and Daughters when that series ended in March 1989, again split into half-hour episodes and shown