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26th Anniversary of the biggest shake up in ITV

Formerly 25th Anniversary (December 2017)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
RI
Riaz
Another loss from the 1991 franchise round was Oracle.

The original intention by the ITC would be to 'end' Oracle at the end of 1992 then sell off the teletext pages individually. How exactly would this have worked in practice? Oracle responded to the proposal by lobbying the ITC to create a separate teletext franchise for ITV which they did, but ended up being outbid by Teletext Ltd.

The applicants for the teletext franchise were:

Teletext Ltd. £8.2m
Oracle: £6.7m
TV-AM Cable TV £6.4m
Carlton / Intelfax £3.6m
Update £3.6m

Does anybody have more details about the other applicants?
TR
TROGGLES
Si-Co posted:
A theory based on the Network South proposal

Following the YTV/Tyne Tees merger/takeover (delete as appropriate). Could such a combined network have been able to straighten out the transmitter situation eg. Oliver's Mount being used as a "South Teeside/Uppermost North Yorkshire service" with news from either York or Middleborough?


Today, thanks to the miracle of fibre optics etc, it would be easy (technically) for Oliver's Mount to transmit whatever region it likes. However, back in the 70s/80s/90s it would only have been economic to feed it off air from something else, and I don't think reception of Bilsdale at the site was that good ?


In some ways Oliver’s Mount being fed YTV from Emley seemed like an anomaly, as nearby places like Whitby and Filey received Tyne Tees from Bilsdale. However, people in Scarborough probably felt better served by local news about York and Leeds than about Hull, Grimsby and Lincoln - which was carried on Belmont from the early 80s. I’m not sure how well Scarborough was served by Look North Hull or Calendar East after the switch, the town being politically in North Yorkshire and not East Yorkshire/North Humberside.

I never knew that the Filey relay transmitted Tyne Tees. That is an anomaly given that it is south of Scarborough.
SP
Spencer
Si-Co posted:

Today, thanks to the miracle of fibre optics etc, it would be easy (technically) for Oliver's Mount to transmit whatever region it likes. However, back in the 70s/80s/90s it would only have been economic to feed it off air from something else, and I don't think reception of Bilsdale at the site was that good ?


In some ways Oliver’s Mount being fed YTV from Emley seemed like an anomaly, as nearby places like Whitby and Filey received Tyne Tees from Bilsdale. However, people in Scarborough probably felt better served by local news about York and Leeds than about Hull, Grimsby and Lincoln - which was carried on Belmont from the early 80s. I’m not sure how well Scarborough was served by Look North Hull or Calendar East after the switch, the town being politically in North Yorkshire and not East Yorkshire/North Humberside.

I never knew that the Filey relay transmitted Tyne Tees. That is an anomaly given that it is south of Scarborough.


I don't think it is anymore. UKfree.tv lists it as carrying Yorkshire. https://ukfree.tv/transmitters/tv/Hunmanby
HC
Hatton Cross
Riaz posted:
Another loss from the 1991 franchise round was Oracle.

The original intention by the ITC would be to 'end' Oracle at the end of 1992 then sell off the teletext pages individually. How exactly would this have worked in practice? Oracle responded to the proposal by lobbying the ITC to create a separate teletext franchise for ITV which they did, but ended up being outbid by Teletext Ltd.

The applicants for the teletext franchise were:

Teletext Ltd. £8.2m
Oracle: £6.7m
TV-AM Cable TV £6.4m
Carlton / Intelfax £3.6m
Update £3.6m

Does anybody have more details about the other applicants?


TV-am Cable was presumably Bruce Gyngel's back up policy (incase the unthinkable happened and TV-am lost the franchise, but it would be OK because they were too good to fail) by creating a revenue stream for the hours that TVam weren't on air with the TV channel.

Intelfax provided 4-Tel for Channel 4, so with Carlton trying to broadens their horizons.

No clue on who 'Update' were.
MA
Markymark

I never knew that the Filey relay transmitted Tyne Tees. That is an anomaly given that it is south of Scarborough.


That's because it (Hunmanby) never has. It was a Belmont relay originally, then was switched to be an Oliver's
Mount relay a few months before DSO

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/gallerypage.php?txid=810&pageid=598
RU
russty_russ
The teletext franchise was never awarded in October 1991 with the other franchises but was awarded in April 1992.



IS
Inspector Sands
TV-am Cable was presumably Bruce Gyngel's back up policy (incase the unthinkable happened and TV-am lost the franchise, but it would be OK because they were too good to fail) by creating a revenue stream for the hours that TVam weren't on air with the TV channel.

This was after they'd already lost the breakfast TV license. After that they seemed to be a part of, or thinking about being a part of, any bid going at that time. Trying to have something for their investors after 1992


They missed out on the teletext license but they were part of the winning bid for the license for INR2 - what became Virgin 1215. I'm sure I remember seeing them have a competition to win radio in their last year, making sure they mentioned that it had MW
SC
Si-Co

I never knew that the Filey relay transmitted Tyne Tees. That is an anomaly given that it is south of Scarborough.


That's because it (Hunmanby) never has. It was a Belmont relay originally, then was switched to be an Oliver's
Mount relay a few months before DSO

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/gallerypage.php?txid=810&pageid=598


I was basing my assumption on this Bilsdale coverage map:

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/mapsys/map.php?mapid=84

Though the maps from ITV showing advertising regions still show Scarborough and Filey as being in Emley’s patch:

*
MA
Markymark
Si-Co posted:

I never knew that the Filey relay transmitted Tyne Tees. That is an anomaly given that it is south of Scarborough.


That's because it (Hunmanby) never has. It was a Belmont relay originally, then was switched to be an Oliver's
Mount relay a few months before DSO

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/gallerypage.php?txid=810&pageid=598


I was basing my assumption on this Bilsdale coverage map:

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/mapsys/map.php?mapid=84

Though the maps from ITV showing advertising regions still show Scarborough and Filey as being in Emley’s patch:

*


That indicates reception of Bilsdale is broadly possible in Filey, there will be pockets screened off
from Bilsdale, (and Emley and Belmont), but in any case, looking at the Tx antennas on the Hunmanby
mast, its signal is beamed southwards, away from Filey, and towards Hunmanby village itself, so it doesn't serve Filey at all.

Picking a random street in Filey itself, everyone's using Bilsdale

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.213554,-0.2922242,3a,37.6y,288.8h,100.36t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sXxu60OZc8-0c81Qu43vLVg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en
BA
bilky asko

I never knew that the Filey relay transmitted Tyne Tees. That is an anomaly given that it is south of Scarborough.


That's because it (Hunmanby) never has. It was a Belmont relay originally, then was switched to be an Oliver's
Mount relay a few months before DSO

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/gallerypage.php?txid=810&pageid=598


Indeed, as the coverage map posted earlier shows the Hunmanby relay doesn't cover Filey (and is only a Freeview Light transmitter in any case). The point Si-Co was making was that the best signal in Filey is from Bilsdale and most aerials point there.
TI
TIGHazard

I never knew that the Filey relay transmitted Tyne Tees. That is an anomaly given that it is south of Scarborough.


That's because it (Hunmanby) never has. It was a Belmont relay originally, then was switched to be an Oliver's
Mount relay a few months before DSO

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/gallerypage.php?txid=810&pageid=598


Indeed, as the coverage map posted earlier shows the Hunmanby relay doesn't cover Filey (and is only a Freeview Light transmitter in any case). The point Si-Co was making was that the best signal in Filey is from Bilsdale and most aerials point there.


Tyne Tees knew that, as they used to cover Filey for both News/Weather

https://www.itv.com/news/tyne-tees/topic/filey/

Seems they stopped after DSO.

https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/topic/filey/
RI
Riaz
How much do you think that the teletext franchise was really worth?

The winning bid of £8.2m for Teletext Ltd. was higher than the winning bid of £7.82m for Westcountry; the (rather low) winning bid of £7.59m for LWT; and the highest (unsuccessful) bids for Northern Ireland of £3.1m and north of Scotland of £2.71m.

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