Carlton Television

In the media section of todays Independent, Carlton TV founder and former MD Paul Jackson admits this...

"My most disappointing moment was also at Carlton, because we didn't achieve what we would have hoped on the programming side. We did do some good shows: The Good Sex Guide and Hollywood Women were, in their own way, ground breaking. But that's not enough for the length of time we were on air."

Erm, The Good Sex Guide, Hollywood Women good programmes? They were the beginning of the end for ITV and for once in his life Bruce Gyngell did the right thing by refusing the show the latter.

That might be your opinion, but Paul Jackson said ground breaking.

I still think that the only half decent programme that Carlton London has ever made was Police, Camera, Action! and that was only thanks to the excellent Alastair Stewart.

Anything else they did was pants, anything with any credibility was either from an Independent producer with a good reputation or was either Central's.

Am I right in saying that Westcountry's productions were still branded as such?

Very interesting coming from a man who, apart from one gem shown recently, has built his career around trashy docusoaps.

London Tonight was quite a good production (for Carlton) but in an age of independent production that the post 1992 ITV became, Carlton were never going to be top producers.

That is indeed correct, but Westcountry made little or nothing for the ITV Network at that time, although if Simon is about I'm sure he'd be able to enlighten us on this.

London Tonight was made by the LNN, wasn't it?

Westcountry's (admittedly few) Network contributions were Commando, The LADS, a documentary about Dartmoor prison and a special Christmas Day service in 1996.

Up to and including 05/9/99 Westcountry productions were branded as such. Then it was all Carlton. However, there was one embarrassing slip-up that first week when the Westcountry W logo was shown on one programme's sponsorship bumpers.

Yes it was to do away with the whole Thames News/LWT News split (or Thames Weekend News as LWT News was known as for a while)

No, he built his career on programmes like: The Young Ones, Three of a Kind, Girls on Top, Saturday/Friday Live and Red Dwarf. He's responsible for 2 of the best sitcoms ever made in this country and kick started a whole new generation of comic talent, (see Boom Boom, Out Go the lights )