TV Home Forum

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
WH
Whataday Founding member
His history is riddled with misfires and errors of judgement.


Oh, is it? Never mind inventing alternative comedy and producing some of the most acclaimed programmes in television history. You don't spend over thirty years in television if you're no good.

Pray tell, what are these "misfires"?


Red Dwarf fan, per chance? Wink

He didn't invent alternative comedy, but before we enter a deep discussion about his role as a producer, I was obviously talking in the context of being an executive rather than a producer, seeing as, well.. that's what we were talking about.

So here's a list:

Was Director of Programmes for Carlton Television at launch(!)

Oversaw the decline of Noel's House Party.

Turned down Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

Lost Ant & Dec to ITV. They are on record as saying at a lunch they had to discuss their future he was extremely disinterested, so they signed exclusively to ITV.

Oversaw relaunch of Blind Date and its audience fell by two thirds.

Hated Britain's Got Talent pilot, said it wouldn't work and reversed his predecessor's decision to pick it up. Subsequently Simon Cowell took it to the states and NBC picked it up immediately and it was a hit. Jackson still wasn't convinced but commissioned the show based.
BL
bluecortina
Yes I believe it was pretty much Meridian in all but name by that stage. (the farewell show was pre-recorded).


Which is why I've never really bought the 'disgruntled TVS employees interfering with the picture' myth. Besides, I'm pretty sure Meridian took most of the TVS staff on anyway. It was probably a single shift with the same workers, only legally becoming Meridian employees once midnight arrived.



I'm not sure. Certainly Southern to TVS, everybody (who wanted to stay) was TUPE'd across, I seem to recall that wasn't the case with TVS to Mer ? Although it would have made sense to have had the same shift working for TVS up until midnight, as for Mer after.


You're right. Everyone was made redundant from TVS and even the pension scheme was wound up. All the people I knew wanting to work for Meridian had to apply for a job with them. The 'lucky' ones got redundancy from TVS and a new job with Meridian.
:-(
A former member

Which is why I've never really bought the 'disgruntled TVS employees interfering with the picture' myth. Besides, I'm pretty sure Meridian took most of the TVS staff on anyway. It was probably a single shift with the same workers, only legally becoming Meridian employees once midnight arrived.



I'm not sure. Certainly Southern to TVS, everybody (who wanted to stay) was TUPE'd across, I seem to recall that wasn't the case with TVS to Mer ? Although it would have made sense to have had the same shift working for TVS up until midnight, as for Mer after.


You're right. Everyone was made redundant from TVS and even the pension scheme was wound up. All the people I knew wanting to work for Meridian had to apply for a job with them. The 'lucky' ones got redundancy from TVS and a new job with Meridian.


What about the people jobs at Maidstone?
WO
Worzel
If I look at a clock at 9:25am I always, without fail, think of the GMTV handover.

When I see 9:25, I always think of the greatest Saturday morning TV show…


*



You can buy that same alarm clock on eBay:

https://m.ebay.co.uk/itm/SONY-dream-machine-FM-MW-LW-Radio-snooze-Buzzer-Alarm-Clock-ICF-C113L/152650050838?hash=item238aa6ed16:g:niAAAOSwrSdZhE-6


I have one, although its since been put in the loft and replaced with a DAB one.
MA
Markymark

Which is why I've never really bought the 'disgruntled TVS employees interfering with the picture' myth. Besides, I'm pretty sure Meridian took most of the TVS staff on anyway. It was probably a single shift with the same workers, only legally becoming Meridian employees once midnight arrived.



I'm not sure. Certainly Southern to TVS, everybody (who wanted to stay) was TUPE'd across, I seem to recall that wasn't the case with TVS to Mer ? Although it would have made sense to have had the same shift working for TVS up until midnight, as for Mer after.


You're right. Everyone was made redundant from TVS and even the pension scheme was wound up. All the people I knew wanting to work for Meridian had to apply for a job with them. The 'lucky' ones got redundancy from TVS and a new job with Meridian.


A friend of mine's sister, was Southern's then TVS's senior personnel (sorry HR !) officer, she had been with Southern since the 60s, and she was the last TVS employee to leave, and filled in her own P45
:-(
A former member


I'm not sure. Certainly Southern to TVS, everybody (who wanted to stay) was TUPE'd across, I seem to recall that wasn't the case with TVS to Mer ? Although it would have made sense to have had the same shift working for TVS up until midnight, as for Mer after.


You're right. Everyone was made redundant from TVS and even the pension scheme was wound up. All the people I knew wanting to work for Meridian had to apply for a job with them. The 'lucky' ones got redundancy from TVS and a new job with Meridian.


A friend of mine's sister, was Southern's then TVS's senior personnel (sorry HR !) officer, she had been with Southern since the 60s, and she was the last TVS employee to leave, and filled in her own P45


Was that spring of 1993? reason for ask is Tech the company was still in operation until it was taken over by the IFC around march of 1993.
MA
Markymark

You're right. Everyone was made redundant from TVS and even the pension scheme was wound up. All the people I knew wanting to work for Meridian had to apply for a job with them. The 'lucky' ones got redundancy from TVS and a new job with Meridian.


A friend of mine's sister, was Southern's then TVS's senior personnel (sorry HR !) officer, she had been with Southern since the 60s, and she was the last TVS employee to leave, and filled in her own P45


Was that spring of 1993? reason for ask is Tech the company was still in operation until it was taken over by the IFC around march of 1993.


I think it took most of 1993 to wind up the company
VM
VMPhil
Wow two observations from that clip.

1. Only just noticed you can see the tape covering the Sony logo on the clock.
2. The fun fair ride in the Ambrosia sting is the same as in the ITV Hearts funfair ident.

Though surely the big DREAM MACHINE is a bit of a giveaway that it's Sony…
LL
Larry the Loafer
Watching that SMTV clip made me realise just how sub par Saturday Mash Up actually was.
SW
Steve Williams
Red Dwarf fan, per chance? Wink


Nope, don't like it. But I can appreciate what he did.

Oversaw the decline of Noel's House Party.


This was already declining badly when he arrived at the Beeb. Will Wyatt says in his book that he recalls having meetings with Noel at the time and suggests they spent far more time discussing who owned what on the show than anything that happened on it. Noel himself says it should have ended with the hundredth show in 1996 because they were running out of ideas. If anyone was responsible for the decline of the House Party it was Noel himself who was getting bored and distracted. You can argue the Beeb should have done more - they should have just straight up axed it rather than let it die a slow death - but you can't lay all the blame on Jackson's door.

Lost Ant & Dec to ITV. They are on record as saying at a lunch they had to discuss their future he was extremely disinterested, so they signed exclusively to ITV.


They talk about this in their autobiography. They say they signed exclusively to ITV because a) ITV were offering them a Noel's House Party-style show straight away whereas the Beeb wanted them to do more Friends Like These first before they thought about other things, and b) they'd have to give up SMTV which they loved doing. And really, given Slap Bang was a complete disaster, was Jackson so wrong? It all worked out in the end but it was a bit of a struggle first. And it was Jackson's BBC that first put them on Saturday night in any case.

Oversaw relaunch of Blind Date and its audience fell by two thirds


But like the House Party, Blind Date was in terminal decline anyway. The revamp was useless but it was a tired old show by that time anyway, it was heading for the axe sooner rather than later. And a bigger reason for the decline is that Pop Idol and Popstars were now big hits so Blind Date was no longer the priority and was stuffed into a series of off-peak slots.

I'm not saying Jackson's career has been hit after hit, but if you look at the career of any executive in British television you'd see the same number of flops and decisions that turned out to backfire. But that's television. It's certainly not unique to Paul Jackson, and I will say again, you don't continually get work in television for thirty years if you're useless.

And it is a fact that he was the first person to put alternative comedy on TV and he was responsible for so many of the most influential shows in that genre - and all those who worked with him were quick to acknowledge that, and continued to work with him for many years. And I think that's far more important than blaming him for the decline of House Party and Blind Date in which he played a peripheral role (the producers and stars of the shows can take more of the blame) and they were already well on the slide before he got anywhere near them.
BL
bluecortina


I'm not sure. Certainly Southern to TVS, everybody (who wanted to stay) was TUPE'd across, I seem to recall that wasn't the case with TVS to Mer ? Although it would have made sense to have had the same shift working for TVS up until midnight, as for Mer after.


You're right. Everyone was made redundant from TVS and even the pension scheme was wound up. All the people I knew wanting to work for Meridian had to apply for a job with them. The 'lucky' ones got redundancy from TVS and a new job with Meridian.


A friend of mine's sister, was Southern's then TVS's senior personnel (sorry HR !) officer, she had been with Southern since the 60s, and she was the last TVS employee to leave, and filled in her own P45


She probably interviewed me at some stage then!
MK
Mr Kite
You're right. Everyone was made redundant from TVS and even the pension scheme was wound up. All the people I knew wanting to work for Meridian had to apply for a job with them. The 'lucky' ones got redundancy from TVS and a new job with Meridian.


I'm sure that's true; especially considering that Meridian initially intended to be more like Carlton, a more slimline publisher-broadcaster than like TVS and more traditional ITV. I'm going off the top of my head here but I recall that them buying TVS' studios was far from certain in the early stages.

That being said, I still feel it's unlikely that there was a big swap over of personal at midnight. Clearly much if surely not most of Meridian's staff would've been from TVS considering for the TVS staff there would not be that many similar broadcasting jobs available that wouldn't involve relocating and surely it was in Meridian's interests to have continuity and a smooth changeover.

Even if there was this march of new people into the control room at the stroke of midnight: what were they doing when the outgoing TVS staff were messing about twiddling knobs (ooh, er, missus!)? Maybe a fistfight broke out and someone fell on a console causing the picture disturbances. It's fun to think of such shenanigans but I still feel there's probably more mundane reasons for the picture disturbances that night.

Newer posts