26th Anniversary of the biggest shake up in ITV

Wonder if that actually materialised though.

The other thing about thames is its Kids department, and why CITV happily paid for the US Series Scooby doo, yet didn't really want to repeat of Dangermouse, Count duckula nor Victor and Hugo... Which could have lasted for couple of more years on the repeats.

What materialised?
If you mean the Sky News rerun of Breakfast With Frost at 10.30am the answer was, yes, because I had to watch it, as I needed it because the old Hospital Radio station I 'worked' for (bless it) used Chiltern Radio SuperGold for the IRN news, which broadcast via an audio sub-channel on Astra, using the Sky News frequency.

Ahh happy days - watching Sir Frostie interview some minor cabinet minister, whilst some odd gravitational pull dragged his bottom lip towards the floor, whilst I chewed on a biro top in a panic stricken state working out back timings to the top of the hour..

Men Behaving Badly still had a bit to do with Thames after it moved to the Beeb - it alway said "in association with Thames" in the credits, right up until the end, and the videos were released on Thames Video. For what it's worth I prefer the Enfield series to the first Morrissey series, Enfield says he wasn't very good in it but I think his slightly hesitant performance makes him seem quite natural and real, compared to the slighty cliched figure, later toned down, Morrissey's character was in his first series. The biggest problem is that Gary and Dermot are probably a bit too similar.



Indeed, and that piece also mentions that the Beeb were also interested in partnering with Sky to do a news channel, and at the time I used to get my parents to buy the Telegraph on Saturdays for the Young Telegraph, and I also used to read Jane Thynne's media column, and I remember her saying that the Beeb wanted to launch a news channel but because there was only limited space on Astra, the only way they could do it would be to share with Sky News.

I assume the BSB repeats of Frost on Sunday were dropped when the Now channel closed down, rather than continuing on Sky News. Frost did a bit for BSB at the start, he presented their opening show and was in their adverts as a BSB "face". I don't know when it stopped being shown on Sky News, I don't think it lasted very long.

The final series and episodes changed the association with Thames to association with Pearson Television as Thames had been bought by Pearson at the point. I assume Fremantle who now owns Thames still has a stake in Men Behaving Badly.

I think they should do a one-off with the original cast or perhaps a sequel series. They seem more receptive to the idea now then they were in the past

I recently read in The Stage & Television Today archive (now part of the British Newspaper Archive) that TVS received three bids to buy 800 hours of their programmes after their franchise loss (but while they were still broadcasting - this report was from April 1992), but with the recession all were below £2 million, which was less than they thought their archive was worth, so they turned them all down.

Despite the good work of certain YouTube channels, it's tempting to wonder how much more material would be available on DVD - and, indeed, even exist in broadcast quality at all - had any of those bids been accepted, especially if they'd been from another ITV company which became part of ITV plc and so Network could have had access to their archive.

Alas, my holy grail - a Maidstone Coast to Coast from the miners' strike (which would be owned by ITV plc if it exists, like the football programmes ITV4 showed) - hasn't appeared on YouTube yet; everything from that era is from the Southampton version. There's a full ITN News at 5.45 followed by a partial Southampton Coast to Coast up from 27th June 1984, and if that had been the Maidstone version from that day it would almost certainly have had a lot about the miners' strike (which was all over the ITN bulletin), and if it had been the Southampton version from a mere five days later it would, surely, have had a lot about the Tolpuddle rally and Len Murray being in hospital in Poole after collapsing from heat exhaustion. But no, it's just a boring report of royal visits.

I think the news archive is safe and was passed to WestCountry?

Meridian actually. And yes, I'm pretty sure that's in the hands of ITV plc now. I think some sport & local stuff is there too, it's mostly the network output that's in limbo.

Pretty sure the news archive and local stuff was absorbed and is available, pretty sure ITV have used something from TVS during whatever that show was they did relatively recently that used reports from various regions in the past for some reason.

As to the viability of TVS on DVD, there is no doubt some of it would have gone to Network for a DVD release had things panned out differently. However the inclusion of various clips on some TV shows that are clearly not direct rips from YouTube tells me it is not totally off limits. I suppose it depends who offered to buy things in 1992 as to what happened to those companies as to how events could have panned out. I'd like to think it would have been more positive but it is what it is.

I know the Game Show Story documentry a few years back had some clips from TVS Catchphrase that were clearly from neither YouTube or VHS, so the master tapes are clearly out there and someone knows where they are, even if the programmes can't be broadcast.

I sometimes wonder if the situation's just been blown out of proportion. Yes its documented and known the paperwork for the archive grew legs and walked off but that was well after TVS went off the air and we know some of that material was still on the air on Challenge as late as 2001 so presumably that was at least a five year agreement, maybe slightly longer. While we know Disney have effectively acquired it purely by accident, I would not be surprised if the entire physical archive is somewhere at ITV - I'm presuming with this logic the Game Show Story documentary was an internal ITV Studios production and not an Indie.

Ive always believe the tapes are somewhere in the UK, and were never sent to USA. Of course the local programmes, current affairs and news all went to Meridian, it's just the network stuff that a big question. But of course Ruth rendell stuff is still being played..

Then how is Fraggle rock missing? and why does Henson or disney have the UK rushes? Both of them are just as guilty in this case.

Where is the very last series of TVS Catchphrase which was put on to the network by Merdiean? Surly ITV would hold those rights?