1980. TV-am was awarded this contract and given a provisional start date of May 1983. There had been other programmes previously, such as Yorkshire's Good Morning Calendar, which had shown that the public were interested in a breakfast service. As a result, TV-am and the BBC rushed their own services to the air. TV-am would broadcast between the hours of 6.00am and 9.25am (originally 9.15am) every morning; the somewhat obscure 9.25 close time came about in order to allow time to switch transmitters from the breakfast broadcaster over to the regional ITV stations, but for the first few months on air, the close time was 9.15 as the switching process had not yet been converted fully for the broadcast of breakfast television. Today this transition is seamless, though the 9.25 anomaly remained until 2020. TV-am launched as a serious news programme on 1 February 1983. However, it changed its format soon after to attempt to copy the success of the BBC's Breakfast Time. Channel 4 had launched on 2 November 1982, originally it built on the ITV network for its funding whereby the regional companies they selling airtime. This arrangement ended on 31 December 1992 after which a 'funding formula' continued, whereby the ITV companies would subsidise Channel 4 if it fell into the red. However, it never did, and the funding formula was withdrawn in 1998. During this 16-year period, Channel 4 and ITV would regularly cross-promote each other's programming, free of charge. Another expansion came on 14 September 1987, when ITV Schools programming was transferred to Channel 4 (and S4C), freeing up a large section of the daytime schedule for new shows. This expansion in programming, and in advertising time, helped give the stations a boost. 1987 also saw the companies beginning to move into night-time broadcasting. This began with individual efforts by individual companies, primarily the 'Big Five' (Thames Television, LWT, Central Independent Television, Granada Television and Yorkshire Television), before collaborative efforts resulted in the whole network operating 24 hours a day by the autumn of 1988. Notable efforts included Granada Television's Night Time (which also went out to Tyne Tees Television, TSW, Border Television, Grampian Television and Ulster Television), LWT's Night Network (which also went out to Anglia Television), TVS' Late Night Late (which also went out to Channel Television) and HTV's Night Club; later efforts included ITV Night Time from Thames Television and LWT (which