26th Anniversary of the biggest shake up in ITV

If you read the original question then you would have noticed that LWT and Channel are excluded. Channel would probably be a very popular choice so long as one is aware that it exists. After all the Channel Islands are not officially part of the UK whereas Ulster is. LWT could make Thames stand out because of the weekday weekend split. If ITV has absorbed LWT then it can't own Thames.

TV AM could have been another popular choice because it already was national and it ran parallel with the other ITV companies by having its own dedicated time slot.

The good folk of Counties Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan would beg to differ...

I remember an episode of (Les Dennis era) Family Fortunes where one of the questions was 'name an ITV company'. I was unsurprised when the top answer, by quite a way, was Central

Not surprising at all considering it was probably printed at the top of the questionnaire.

I read somewhere that the people they asked for the surveys were actually the show's studio audience. So no wonder they'd pick Central seeing as they were at their studios!

It's an interesting selection, this lot. Thames doesn't appear, for one thing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztseBSHLNic

Includes a "different times" Les Dennis Scottish accent for STV which isn't replicated when Grampian comes up, presumably because he's no idea where that is.

Taking it at face value, it's not a huge leap to guess there will be a station called Scottish and people probably knew it from Taggart. Grampian sounds odd so probably sticks in the brain to the few people who knew it.

Les is particularly charitable accepting answers here tbh. York TV?

Isn't that still the case for Pointless?

No Pointless uses a polling company

Indeed, they wouldn’t allow York TV on Pointless. I’m not sure he should have given “South” either.

Thames not even being on the board is just bizarre, I’m sure to those people who were around at the time, their pre programme ident is still remembered even now.

Maybe that they didn't associate Thames with bring a regional ITV company? I know it had a geographic name but often the term 'region' is used to mean outside London.

That said, LWT was on the list

South as in TVS? Television South? South is close enough to be acceptable... unlike York, which should be Yorkshire.

Just blurting out “South” and Les then giving them the answer wouldn’t be enough for me.