TV-AM for example bid I think it was about £15m for its breakfast licence, Sunrise (later GMTV) bid somewhere around £35m and won it. They later went cap in hand to the ITC and won a reduction in this figure, which IIRC ended up lower than the £15m-odd figure TV-AM had originally bid in the first place, which kind of defeated the entire point of the auction in the first place as far as the money was concerned. I believe this wasn't unique to GMTV, as some of the other high bidders had their fees reduced too.
Not true - GMTV's fee was reduced to a figure that was still above TV-am's bid.
Spot on
Quote:
In 1998, the company returned into red, with losses of £12 million and a turnover of £80 million [27] In November 1998, GMTV finally received a windfall: the ITC reduced the amount the station had to pay to the treasury from £50 million to £20 million - the most dramatic reduction of all the licenses. The ITC believed this would allow GMTV the money to invest in more programming
:-(
A former member
That Dam weird its coming up on the front page, yet if you look on here its NO where to be seen,, so this is the second try to get this working,
TV-AM for example bid I think it was about £15m for its breakfast licence, Sunrise (later GMTV) bid somewhere around £35m and won it. They later went cap in hand to the ITC and won a reduction in this figure, which IIRC ended up lower than the £15m-odd figure TV-AM had originally bid in the first place, which kind of defeated the entire point of the auction in the first place as far as the money was concerned. I believe this wasn't unique to GMTV, as some of the other high bidders had their fees reduced too.
Not true - GMTV's fee was reduced to a figure that was still above TV-am's bid.
Spot on.
Quote:
In 1998, the company returned into red, with losses of £12 million and a turnover of £80 million [27] In November 1998, GMTV finally received a windfall: the ITC reduced the amount the station had to pay to the treasury from £50 million to £20 million - the most dramatic reduction of all the licenses. The ITC believed this would allow GMTV the money to invest in more programming
Redmond *did* outbid Granada, but despite the backing of one of the country's largest independents, as well as two ITV licence holders (Yorkshire and Tyne Tees), it failed on programme quality. Much of the blame for this must have been Redmond's frankly silly promises regional content - it was all spread too thinly.
Oh, how ITV would look different now if Granada had lost their franchise... That would've changed the fate of Yorkshire-Tyne Tees and the UNM stations.
The whole sorry mess with the northern franchises was completely avoidable. There was a gentleman's agreement that ITV companies didn't run tanks on the lawns of other contractors... until Granada decided to bid for Anglia as they were after an empire. But apparently Anglia had board members who were ex Granada staff and they persuaded Granada not to bid against them so Granada turned their sights on the North East. The decision by Yorkshire and Tyne Tees to go for Granada was retaliation... if Granada had not been so aggressive, it's unlikely that either North West TV or North East TV would have been taken seriously, and around 25 million quid wouldn't have been taken out of the ITV system in the north. It's also likely that Yorkshire would have failed on financial quality without the prospect of the Tyne Tees merger, and this would have had the effect of the Leeds licence also being much cheaper. I think it's fair to say that Granada unleashed a massive self inflicted wound in 1991.
I think Granada were attempting to take over the whole of the northern bloc in 1991 by weakening Yorkshire fundamentally. It's quite telling that when Granada launched its hostile takeover of LWT, the latter responded by trying to seal a deal with YTV instead. This would have meant Tyne Tees being sold on to Anglia, but the latter took one look at the state of the Newcastle station by this point and walked away.
I think Granada probably saw the small stations either side of YTV as potential merger targets for YTV and so wanted them out of the picture. It was pretty obvious that Granada's ultimate aim was control of both large northern areas.
Although Border managed to retain independent until 2000, it entered into an agreement with Granada to share transmission facilities together with some programming, and this saw Border air the likes of Granada Sports Action and Granada Soccer Night along with a few late-night discussion shows. Granada also established the Border Scotland opt-out, IIRC.
There was an evening in 1997 or so when Granada opted out of the network for a regional telethon (can't remember the exact show), but certainly remember it being shown on Border as well as Granada.
Shows quite a lot of detail about the bidders in the south - even some of their logos.
With an emphasis on some...
It does seem uncanny how at 6:45 the camera zooms in on the TVS application sitting on a desk. Had the winner already been determined?
Bruce Fireman of TV S & SE is questioned "What's top of the list of your priorities? Making money and profits or making good programmes?". His reply includes "You won't make money unless you make good programmes!". Was there concern that TV S & SE was more interested in making lots of money rather than providing a high quality service for the region. Another Carlton?!
I have wondered this too. It's a news-related question really, but how likely is an IoM story to get the lead on Granada Reports?
Off-topic even further, but is IoM covered half-decently by BBC North West Tonight? I remember a while ago the Douglas transmitter was fed by Caldbeck but was switched to Winter Hill just for local news and opt-outs.
Border was close to not submitting an application in 1980 because they were financially struggling. After deciding to re-apply they won by default because nobody else contested their region. If Border had decided not to re-apply then would their region have been deemed economically unviable by the IBA resulting in its transmitters being re-allocated to surrounding regions?
Border was close to not submitting an application in 1980 because they were financially struggling. After deciding to re-apply they won by default because nobody else contested their region. If Border had decided not to re-apply then would their region have been deemed economically unviable by the IBA resulting in its transmitters being re-allocated to surrounding regions?
Is that part of the main reason for switching the barrow area over to border from granada agiast the public will. I dare say IBA would have run the station.
It would have been interesting if there was a third applicant for the North West region in both the 1980 and 1991 franchise auctions that was not based in or strongly connected with Manchester or Liverpool - say Preston or Blackpool. Could it have won on the basis of equal treatment of viewers in Manchester and Liverpool even if it wasn't a particularly strong application?
Even more interesting would have been a 'Network North West' applicant who proposed splitting the region into several micro regions with their own transmitters - one for Manchester, one for Liverpool, one for central Lancashire, etc.