In 1993, I fell in in love with David Lynch and Mark Frost’s “wonderful and strange” show by watching reruns of Twin Peaks on Bravo TV. But that Bravo TV was the cable channel found in the United States. Two years later in April 1995, a different Bravo TV began airing reruns of the show in the United Kingdom. Following a comment about a promotional items created for the 1995 airings in this article, I did some digging about the UK airings and discovered some awesome newspaper advertisements for the show.
TWIN PEAKS ON BRAVO TV IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
Bravo was launched in the United Kingdom on December 20, 1985 as a cable only channel. Created by United Artists Programming broadcasting B-movies from the 1950s and 1960s and vintage television shows.
Following a series of broadcast company mergers in the early 1990s, Bravo eventually rebranded itself as “Timewarp Television” and began showing vintage ITC Programming like The Avengers, Space: 1999, The Prisoners and more. Enter Twin Peaks.
In early March 1995, newspapers announced Twin Peaks was would begin airing on Bravo TV in the United Kingdom on April 4. This wasn’t the first time reruns were shown in the country. The BBC previously aired the show twice a week. But Bravo would make a rather big deal of the reruns.
Soon, newspaper ads featuring the show would appear in newspapers. This one from March 23 encouraged people to subscribe to cable to watch Twin Peaks on Bravo beginning on April 4. The advertisement read:
“Cherry pie and damn fine coffee. James’ motorbike and One Eyed Jack’s. Revisit the strange world of David Lynch’s intriguing Twin Peaks. Who did kill Laura Palmer? And what does the Log Lady know? Tune in to Bravo on Cable TV from April 4th.”
Additional articles, such as one from Andrew Pulver in The Guardian, would soon appear reminiscing about Lynch’s jump to television only five years earlier.
Tom Scanlon wrote a lengthy article reminiscing about the show on April 4 in The Daily Advocate, with a nod to the reruns beginning that day on Bravo TV. He mentions how the show never “caught on with mainstream America” but that it had (or is that still has?) “an almost frighteningly devoted core of fans.” I’m certainly glad to be part of that group.
Scanlon also mentioned the network aired the pilot on April 3 and that they would continue airing episodes in order through May 12. The timing seems suspect as newspapers continued advertising the show long into the summer of 1995.
Aside from a handful of mentions, Bravo TV aired a series of advertisements reminiscent of the black and white word ads that the ABC Television Network ran in 1990-1991.
BRAVO TV ADVERTISEMENTS FOR TWIN PEAKS
In early April 1995, Bravo TV published a series of ads in a handful of UK Newspapers including The Guardian, Daily Express, Daily Mirror and The Daily Telegraph, Evening Telegraph and Reading Evening Post.
There were five different word ads created for this campaign designed to get viewers to tune in on April 4.
One of the first ads I found from The Guardian on April 1, 1995. This full-page, black and white ad included the words, “Murder, Drugs, Prostitution, Incest and Damn Fine Coffee.”
A smaller version of the same verticle graphic was found on April 4 in The Guardian, Daily Express and Daily Mirror.
A landscape version of the ad appeared the Daily Express and Daily Mirror.
A second word ad for Twin Peaks – “Killer Serial” – was run on April 4 in The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mirror and Daily Express. While they appear big on the screen, these were small rectangular ads placed in various spots on a newspaper.
The third Twin Peaks advertisement – “Second Helpings of Cherry Pie” – is certainly a nod to Norma Jennings’ “best in the tri-counties” pie from the Double R Diner which Special Agent Dale Cooper consumes at a high rate. This ad appeared in the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mirror and Daily Express
The fourth ad was a nod to the “Welcome to Twin Peaks” sign which listed the town’s population as 51,201. The “201” is crossed out and a handwritten “200” is scribbled below. This is no doubt a nod to the murder of Laura Palmer. Viewers saw this ad in The Daily Mirror, The Daily Telegraph and Daily Express
The final word-play advertisement for Twin Peaks had the phrase “Peak Viewing,” a play on the idea of a time of day when most people are watching something. It certainly helps that “peak” is in the title of the show. This ad was also found in the Daily Mirror
A similar “Peak Viewing” ad appeared a few days later in the Salford City Reporter for Nynex Cable Television. This Nynex Cable ad would be repeated in multiple newspapers during the week of April 13 (Hat tip to fellow Bookhouse Boy Jared Lyon for helping me find the complete ad).
About a week later, the “Peak Viewing” ad appeared in the Reading Evening Post. It was accompanied by photos of Laura Palmer and Sheriff Truman and Special Agent Dale Cooper. Like the April 7 advertisement, this ad was for Telecential Cable.
The strange part about these ads is Bravo TV really only ran them once in newspapers. After April, advertisements for the show really don’t appear in any media outlets.
I did find several ads between 1995-1996 which included publicity photos from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me used to advertise the reruns on Bravo TV. This ad from the Coventry Evening Telegraph from April 18, 1995 uses the Palmer family image captured by Lorey Sebastian for Lynch’s 1992 film. Weird, huh?
TWIN PEAKS AIRS ON BRAVO TV UK
In 1995, Bravo TV only aired programming from 12:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. In this day of streaming services and “always on” television, it’s interesting to think there was a time when television networks stopped broadcasting for a period of time during a day.
This Bravo TV programming summary found in The Bolton News on Tuesday, April 4, 1995 details the shows and movies found before Twin Peaks aired at 9:00 p.m.
“9.00 Twin Peaks Feature-length episode of David Lynch’s cult drama starring Kyle McLachlan [sic], Michael Ontkean, Lara Flynn Boyle and Sherilyn Fenn. The murder of homecoming queen Laura Palmer shocks the smalltown community of Twin Peaks. 26378687″
The numeric code at the end was used for the United Kingdom’s version of VCR-Plus, a device that helped users record television shows with their VCRs.
The show was included on April 4 in a number of “Hot TV Tips” sections.
The show aired twice weekly on Bravo TV – first on Tuesdays at 9:00 p.m. and again on Saturdays at 10:00 p.m. This advertisement from the Evening Post on April 8, 1995 provides another synopsis of the show.
Here is the line-up of Bravo’s programming from Saturday, April 8 when the Twin Peaks aired again at 10:00 p.m.
VIEWERSHIP FOR TWIN PEAKS ON BRAVO TV IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
A few weeks later on April 19, 1995, the Evening Standard published an article by Geoffrey Phillips about “Top Programmes.” This was one of the only references I found to how Twin Peaks faired on Bravo. At the very end of the article, Phillips provides the number of viewers for Lynch and Frost’s show.
“Heavy promotion has helped put the rerun of Twin Peaks at the top of the Bravo chart and established the number of hard-core Peakies at 150,000.”
So five years after the show first aired on the ABC Television Network in April 1990, fans still continued enjoying the mysteries of the woods. I’d love to hear from you if you were one of the “150,000 Peakies” who watched the reruns of Twin Peaks on Bravo.
As a footnote, Bravo TV in the United Kingdom ceased all programming on January 1, 2011. Programming had greatly changed since the mid-1990s with the addition of sports like football and wrestling. During the last week in December 2010, Bravo celebrated its final week with a marathon of its most popular shows called “Bravo, We Salute You.” I have yet to discover if Twin Peaks was part of that marathon.
