What was your favorite regional ITV station growing up?

From God's own county but remember the listings for Granada and Tyne Tees. I wondered for years what the hell Aap Kaa Hak was until YTV started showing it

@dvboy. Like you tuning to another itv region was wondrous.

Everyone has an attachment to their own region, however Granada Reports and North West Tonight are clearly the most superior regional news programmes. It’s not even close.

Grew up able to watch a very fuzzy HTV Wales and always thought the pres and local news was a bit too stuffy.

The only one I could receive... UTV!

Always thought Northern Life seemed very relaxed.

A three region household here - Central wins by a mile when it comes to presentation but Granada had better programming. Mainly used HTV Wales for local news and sport.

A three-way eh Seriously though you must have been in a transmitter sweet spot.

The late Bob Monkhouse used to live in an area where he could (technically) get four regions. Not all at the same time mind you...

(he lived in Eggington, near Leighton Buzzard which was right on the transmission border of Central, Anglia and the two London franchises).

I lived in a three way ITV area. Southern, London, and Midlands

Growing up in London, while I later knew the qualities of Thames, as a kid that was always the "boring" one and LWT was the "fun" one.

Helped of course that you'd associate it with the good part of the week, but after yawning your way through Thames News every night the difference was clear when you then had Danny Baker and co mucking around on the Six O'Clock Show. I still have it somewhere in the back of my head that the weekend "officially" starts at 5.15 on a Friday.

I had a discussion with friends back in the early 1990s about which were the best and worst ITV companies. The 3 best (in no particular order) were Thames, TVS, and Central. The 3 worst (in no particular order) were Border, Tyne Tees, and Ulster. Nobody had much experience of STV, Grampian, or Channel so we couldn't pass much judgement on them.

It was a shame that 2 of the best lost in the 1991 franchise round but all 3 of the worst made it through.

For some reason or other I had a fondness for TSW. It came across as being very homely. Shame it also lost in the 1991 franchise round. Have any TSW (or Westward) programmes ever been shown on TV since 1993?

I have never met anybody from the mainland who liked UTV from back in the era of regional ITV.

Why did you and your friends come to the conclusion that those companies were "the best" or "the worst"? On what basis did you all come to such conclusions?

Neil, you’ve missed the most important question. Where can you find friends that will rank ITV companies with you?!