Franchises

1/ When will be the next franchise rounds be held? I know recently all the contractors had their licences extended, does this mean we are stuck with the current crowd forever, until they decide they dont want the licence anymore?? Arrgghhh. This seems a little unfair to all the companies that preceeded them.
(Has `Teletext Ltd` also had their licence extended?)

2/ Where can I find out about companies that have actually bid for the licences and failed in the past. Will the applications still be available to view or have they been withdrawn for commercially sensitive reasons? I`m particularly interested in the Granada Region bidders and the orginal breakfast licence in 1983.
Are there any websites?

I remember for the 1993 contracts David Frost bid in several areas, `CPV-TV` wasn't it? He failed in them all and lost TV-am!! I remember he was very bitter, then who wouldnt be!

Any help would be appreciated, Thanks!
p.s this is an excellent forum!

The next franshise battles will be in 2008-2013 (Like 20 years ago when they were scedluled for 1988-1993,when they started in 1991)

And yes,there is a site,but it's closing down soon!

www.russ-net.freeserve.co.uk/index3.htm

From November 5th,it's on to this site-

http://www.realverdict.co.uk

(Edited by Billy Hicks88 at 7:50 am on Oct. 31, 2001)

Do Channel 4 and 5 have to put in a bid to run their channels?

Realverdict.co.uk? That was the name of that horrible thread on NotBBC that I never actually managed to get into.

Now, Granada have only realistically faced one serious thread to their franchise. This came from Phil Redmond and 'North West Television' - Redmond runs Mersey TV, producers of Brookside. During the 1993 franchise rounds Granada managed to hold on to their licence while most of the other major franchise holders, Thames, TVS, TV-AM, were losing their's. IIRC, TSW went to a European court to try to keep their franchise, but sadly failed and the contract went to the oh-so-uninspiring Westcountry TV, that's uninspiring in name and style. Anyway, the North West Television group was given a great deal of credibility, and Granada was at a fairly considerable risk of losing the North West. But NWT were ruled out on 'Quality Grounds' - ie Granada made too much programming for the ITV network for them to axe it as a franchise holder and risk falling out with them.
TV-AM lost their 1993 bid, to the Sunrise TV company. However, Sky had been using the Sunrise brand for their morning TV programme since 1989 - and it is still used today (although it's not used in the graphics any longer). So Sunrise TV became... GMTV. What a lovely story.

What goes around comes around. You could get into the thread, and only a select group of people worked out how!

Yes, CR:TV will be moving to Real Verdict on 5th November with a new look, but with all the usual stuff!

Oh go on, how did it work? I'm sure I could've worked it out if I'd bothered to try harder. But remember, only a select few are welcome in the Suiii thread... so there.

Well, each thread has a number, for example: http://www.tvforum.co.uk/cgi-bin/ikonboard/post.cgi?action=reply&forum=1&topic= 1059 . The thread before was numbered 68, so all you needed to do would be to change the address with the number 69 instead of 68.

It makes no sense to me either!