1989-90 What if?

The thing is that peacock report wasn't worth the money it was written on, And the fact people kept on forgetting Cable and Sky/ BSB make you wonder why ITV would make loads of £££? IBA/ITC should have know this and if there weren;t sure should have held off for a few years.

Yep, in fact its mentioned on the 1987 accounts on that companies house record, after the floatation, Thorn EMI and BET (via Rediffusion) ended up 28.75% each

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/00810228/filing-history/MDAyNjY4MTM4M2FkaXF6a2N4/document?format=pdf&download=0

Yes, but the Peacock Report actually came back with the conclusion that no-one in the industry expected.

Everyone expected him to conclude (in part because Margaret Thatcher personally chose him to write the report - and as she was no fan of the Beeb) that the licence fee should be abolished and other revenue funding streams should be sought (as Peacock was a free marketer - read '100% advertising') however, he instead identified that commercial television - at the time he was writing the report- was an unmilked cash cow for the treasury, was the snapshot view he came up with.

Satellite television was a way off, and not really on anyone's radar (bar the IBA) - UK based commercial television via an ariel was the main focus.

It's tricky writing a report on the current state of anything, but trying to second guess (or put comprehensive future proof passages in it) for anything even 5 years down the line - let alone 20 is a thankless task.
Peacock was looking as far as the end of his nose (and what Thatcher asked him to) rather than get a telescope and see what the long range future of television would be.

Difficult to say. The option for an ITV company to be a publisher broadcaster adds a new dimension into the 1991 franchise round that was not there in 1980.

I think it’s safe to assume that any applicant which failed on quality in 1991 would also have failed if the franchise round was purely based on quality and ideas. Therefore Richard Branson would not have received a slice of the ITV cake.

TVS was vulnerable and could have lost to Meridian because of MTM turning into a toxic financial asset.

TSW probably would have survived.

There’s a temptation to say that TV-AM would have survived.

Could Merlin or C3W and White Rose have defeated HTV and Yorkshire? Anybody able to elaborate on this?

Any ideas whether TVNI (which failed on business grounds with a bid of £3.1m a year) would have defeated Ulster TV with a bid of £1m a year?

It’s still possible that Thames could have lost to Carlton although it may have required Carlton to be more committed to production even if it intended to commission well over half its programmes from indies.

ORACLE probably would have survived.

There could have been more applicants enter into the franchise round that were deterred because of the bidding.

On the subject of Rediffusion/ABC/Thames, I've never seen this version of the promo before:

They had several versions that were played over the last week, different lengths and with different end captions. A nice touch even if ABC never broadcast in London
(I'm pretty sure the text covered up by the time code is 'London region')

ABC did broadcast in London... briefly

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/logopedia/images/2/28/24234832357825725839725389.jpg

Shame it was plastered on like they were announcing breaking news in the middle of a programme.

Rediffusion and ABC were namechecked in the final Thames News on New Year's Eve (it's on TV Ark).

Thames was on air as a broadcaster for 24 years and five months. This June will mark 24 years and five months since it went off air. Quite an achievement to be so fondly remembered.

I always try and find myself thinking... what did Carlton actually make? Discounting stuff they made via their takeover of Central the only thing I can think of that had any success was Catchphrase- and that was just continuing what TVS had been making for years. I can think of a couple of other poor quality shows around 1993/4 that vanished pretty quickly, but they really weren't much of a contributor to the network. It feels almost embarrasing that the London Weekday contractor was such a weak provider to the network, when it had pretty much been the flagship company prior to 1993.

Well they didn't make anything. All the programmes that had a Carlton endcap were commissions. They didn't have any production facilities.

A stark contrast that the public still hasn't got over the shock of - or else we wouldn't be discussing it today.

Still no answer to my question on page 7 as to whether – after factoring out news and popular networked programmes at prime time – Thames provided a good local service for their region.

It's impossible to determine with any confidence whether Death on the Rock resulted in the death of Thames as an ITV company, either as a decision by the ITC or an order from the Government, but the commitment to and quality of local service was definitely and undeniably a factor when assessing applicants at the franchise round.

It's possible that Carlton exaggerated in their application when it came to the variety of programmes they planned on commissioning from indies, or other factors made it difficult to commission programmes they wanted, but I have not had the opportunity to read through their application yet to determine this.