1989-90 What if?

All the good thames shows were kept, Its been said on here before some of the content Thames made at peak times was crap and rose tinted spec have been used. Of course ALL ITV station have made crap.

The other problem is it was no longer up to the Big five to decide what was made or commissioned, that job went to ITV Control central and the blame clearly on the ejets running that place. Carlton come up with some cheap idea and those ejet appecting them.

Carlton in the mood to make money, so cheap idea and bingo loads of money to help pay £43million a year. You cant blame the 15 station, if you go to Ch4 and there approve the awful idea its no the indi fault its Ch4.

If we look at the overall picture, Yes the number of soaps episodes have increased but there only really filled the void of US dramas, while the rest of the schedule had alot more 30mins slots.

Eric and Ern was getting repeated on ITV towards the millennium or around that time, no idea why. Probably cashing in.

There'd have been nothing to have stopped all the other companies showing M&W on a weekend Christmas day, although it would have caused severe problems for ITV's national publicity machine etc.

In theory, what was (if anything) preventing LWT and Thames screening each other's major network productions ? (I know it never happened)

Do you have a definitive source for that?

They were in direct competition for the same advertising revenue. And 'willy waving'.

Of course, yes, but how in essence would a Thames prog on LWT, be any different to any other bought in show or movie ? Thames would have been paid by LWT to show the programme, LWT collected the ad revenue. I take your point about competing over ad revenue, though not within the same 'time domain'.
Unlike Capital and LBC for instance (two of them for broadly the same reasons)

It states here: http://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/economics-business-and-labor/businesses-and-occupations/carlton




Also, this 1989 Management Today article which features an interview with Green:
https://www.questia.com/magazine/1G1-7597355/behind-the-carlton-screen

It would be a bit like saying 'I've made this programme that's not good enough to go out in my airtime, would you like to buy it and transmit it?'.

It was always a given that LWT and Thames were chasing the same overall pot of advertising revenue in London, they were great rivals in that respect. If you remember LWT were often critical of the programmes Thames were showing in the lead in to LWT coming on air, that was better after 1983.

Yes, though during the era when the ITV companies sold the ad revenue on C4, there where
Thames progs at the weekend, and LWT ones weekdays. Same principle, each were making programmes, and
collecting ad revenue from showing the rival company's programme ?

The only difference was C4 were scheduling and commissioning the programmes, otherwise it was in essence 'ITV2' .

You could argue even today that University Challenge isn't considered good enough by ITV to show it on any of their own channels ? And didn't one of the XX-Up programmes that Granada had been making since 1964 end up on BBC 1 in 1999 ?

A lot of good Thames shows were ditched too, either because they were coming to the end of their run anyway, Rumpole for example, or the more worthy ones that were too expensive to make without a public service remit to uphold - documentaries and current affairs like This Week. And of course their regional output was scaled down in the year leading up to them finishing.

All good programmes, it's not as straightforward as saying 'ITV kept the good ones'


You're right in that there's a lot of rose tint about their output but that's true of all TV from the so called 'golden era' , no matter what channel

The other less known franchise splits were in the Midlands and the North - but they were both later dropped in the 1968 round, with the Midlands getting a 7 day company (ATV gaining the whole week) and what was the North was split into two regionns - the North West (which Granada retained and took 7 days a week) and the North East that ultimately went to what became Yorkshire TV.

Of course speculation is the only option available but even if the Midlands split had been retained and the two new licences in the north, a similar situation to the Thames/LWT rivalry could have been a factor in the Midlands as well, though of course this would have changed the history as we now know it. That being said, there must have been a reason to drop the non-London franchise splits in the first place.

In "Inside Story" Greg Dyke spoke about his idea for LWT and Anglia to buy Yorkshire/Tyne Tees. Had a LWT/TVS merger also took place I think it would have provided a great counterbalance to any Granada empire.

I believe TVS played a part in LWT considering becoming a publisher broadcaster in the late 80s also.