26th Anniversary of the biggest shake up in ITV

Thames had a bureau in Dartford at one point towards the end of its franchise (easy access to the M25 may have been more of a factor than a desire to cover north-west Kent/ outer SE London in great detail, mind...)

Yes you are correct, I had forgotten about that and as you have suggested it may the the good access they were after rather than a desire to represent the area as I do not remember any increase in any local stories during the bureau was open. There were also offices in Guildford and Watford, again good access points.
Personally I find BBC SE provides the most comprehensive service for the Dartford area but all that effort is wasted to a certain extent on it not being available on 101 via sky, most viewers are probably not aware it can be accessed on 963. How Sky determine which region is shown is a mystery to me but in many cases is seems to be incorrect.
I assume Virgin also mirror the Sky region allocation or do the decide independently?

It definitely made the south and south east region more attractive in 1980 (and effectively created the south east sub region) but by 1991 it was taken for granted to be part of the region. Network South had committed to using the Bluebell Hill transmitter to create a sub region for north Kent separate from the sub region for south Kent centred on the Dover transmitter.



South Essex (approximately the towns on the line out from Fenchurch Street station) was London ITV region, although Southend was disputed territory with Anglia, because most residents consider the area to have stronger connections with London rather than the rest of East Anglia. Therefore most TV aerials were directed to the Crystal Palace transmitter. When Bluebell Hill started transmitting it was (for some stupid unexplainable reason) allocated to Thames / LWT rather than Southern. It provided a stronger signal for south Essex than Crystal Palace so many TV aerials were directed / re-directed to Bluebell Hill. At the time many households were purchasing their first colour TV so by 1982 a significant proportion of UHF aerials in south Essex had been installed after Bluebell Hill had started transmitting. In 1982 Bluebell Hill was switched to TVS which unintentionally made south Essex primarily TVS territory. There is some anecdotal evidence that new and replacement TV aerials installed in south Essex after the Bluebell Hill switchover were directed at Crystal Palace because installers held the view that south Essex was still officially London region, so only direct the aerial at Bluebell Hill if the customer asks for it despite it providing the strongest signal. However, many existing aerials were never redirected and continued to receive ITV south east right up until the analogue switch off.

Take into account that large numbers of TV aerials were replaced after the storm of 1987. By then many residents of south Essex who previously watched TVS had become accustomed to it so may not have wanted Thames / LWT.

It's unclear if the change to Carlton and Meridian had any effects on redirecting TV aerials in south Essex.



That is a very strange graphic. To receive Southern in south Essex a TV aerial would have to be directed towards the Dover transmitter. One could confidently say that only a tiny fraction were as the signal was weak.

I lived in Southend as a child in the 90's, and still have a lot of family there now, and generally speaking everyone had Carlton/LWT, which would suggest that aerials were mostly changed back to Crystal Palace. In fact Crystal Palace and Bluebell Hill aren't too far apart from each other in terms of direction from Southend, so most people can pick up both. It's also the London region that's used by Sky and Virgin Media (and in the past Telewest on analogue cable).


The only people I know there who have Meridian only have it due to a large tower block blocking the signal from CP for some parts of the town.

As someone who watched Carlton/LWT in Southend, and then moved to the Anglia region, I always found it strange that Anglia would claim Southend as part of their patch. Most residents of Southend consider themselves more closely connected with London (indeed many work there), and I've never come across anyone in the town who watched Anglia, although I know some people with reception of all 3. It was only when all the regions were merged in to ITV plc that Anglia finally accepted (I presume told?) that Southend was the London region.

If I recall, since DSO, there is a relay in Southend that rebroadcasts Sudbury?

Rouncefall yes, not sure how much of 'Saarfend it covers, but yes. It's a 6 mux site, that operates
in a SFN with Sudbury, so there primarily to reinforce reception from Sudbury itself

http://tx.mb21.co.uk/gallery/gallerypage.php?txid=1827

Anglia would be after everyone once it lost Lincolnshire to yorkshire. Of course it mangend to get back north Norfolk back in 1981.

Since 'ITV Plc' I doubt any of the regions care what their coverage is, I suspect if there was any push, it came from the Beeb.

Very true but I was on about 1974- 1992 period

I thought Dartford, Gravesham and Sevenoaks postcodes have BBC1 SE on 101 (with ITV London on 103) on Sky and Freesat? There's a similar situation in East Surrey and North Sussex where they receive BBC London on Freeview from Reigate, yet South East is at the top of the EPG.

It should be added that Sky don't themselves determine which regions should be shown for what post codes, it's the broadcasters who tell them which regions should be used. Hence the situations London Lite talks about where the BBC has one region and ITV has another, as each broadcaster has come to their own differing conclusion as to the correct region for a post code.

Generally in overlap areas I've found the ITV regions to be a fairly accurate representation of what local viewers receive, whereas the BBC can be a bit more hit and miss. Certainly for a few years after ITV was added to Sky there was a lot of incorrect ITV regions based on what was the intended region for an area versus what people actually received, but over the years they have all been changed based on viewer feedback.

I have a friend in Dartford and he gets BBC and ITV London on 101/103 Sky