But that was because LWT, until the late-80s, didn't really 'do' news - their idea of Friday evening current affairs was the mostly entertainment-led Six O'Clock Show, while the weekend news bulletins consisted of the duty announcer reading out agency copy. This was because of the change of handover time on Fridays from 7pm to 5.15pm from the start of the 1982 franchise period which meant that Thames 'lost' their Friday evening news programme, so the IBA ordered LWT to screen Thames Weeekend News as part of the Six O'Clock Show. During the summer, when the 6 O'Clock Show was off-air, Thames Weekend News was shown as a stand-alone programme. The IBA were still concerned, though, and from LWT beefed up their news output by contracting it out, while the Six O'Clock Show was axed to make way for Six O'Clock Live with more of an emphasis on news than on entertainment.
IBA never order LWT to screen Thames news. But neither of the two London companies wanted to provide a 7 day joint service. In fact IBA had to backdown over this disagreement. LWT hated Thames sport programme at 18.30, which was blamed for the lack of viewers at 19.00. Six o'clock show, ended up being a big hit with the viewers, and this was by 1982. The show was kept until June 1988, 6 months after LWT started its own news service, contracted out to Screen News, once it was axed it was replaced with LWT news and Friday now. but that was axed in summer of 1989, then Six O' clock live was used.
LWT's approach towards local news was criticised by the IBA because of the Weekend opt, worse thing was LWT had over 90 journalists on the payroll...
Dunno about The Six O'Clock stuff, not living in the area, but surely LWT more than made up for the Fridays with the Sunday lunchtime Weekend World?
Thats current affairs not news, LWT was well know for its current affairs.