When Granada bought LWT

I doubt they would have branded everything Carlton, altough I could imagine their hearts idents being on every region. I remember back in the late 90's, when Carlton was interested in buying Anglia and Meridian, I know at the time a lot of people were in favour of it, saying that it could improve Anglia (some of which were Londoners). However, Granada got it in the end, and ruined the region IMHO.

I wouldnt have been surprised if they had branded all the English regions "Carlton" had they taken over then. They did it to Central and Westcountry. It was only because HTV was partly in Wales they didnt rebrand that.

http://www.mediatel.co.uk/newsline/1993/07JUL/12/TELE02.HTM

If Carlton brought LWT in 1994, what happened?

That's all well & good but Carlton wasn't ever allowed to buy LWT & vice versa due to the monopoly of owning both London Franchises, that's why it took so long for Carlton & Granada to merge

As someone who was living in London in the 80s and 90s I can assure you that the arrival of Carlton was the first sign of the dreadful state that ITV has fallen to. Whether that is due to regulation or market forces historians will one day finish their row and find a conclusion. It's probably too soon to judge now.

Carlton's status as a publisher rather than producer of programming seemed to leave the London weekday franchise without a sense of commitment to programme quality - they just bought it in cheap and piled it high to use the old Tesco analogy.

The survival of so many Thames titles in the post 1992 ITV schedule in comparison to Carlton was telling. The quality threshhold simply hadn't been passed by Carlton. However was the concept of quality on ITV irrelevant in the commercial sector as multi-channel TV arrived?

Put simply, if a cheaper programme can get the same revenue as an expensive one there is little commercial sesnse in making the latter. The old ITA/IBA regulatory framework did add other non-commercial influences to that decision though, which you would say is the role of a regulatory body or government.

Much depends on whether you believe in totally free markets or not and that is often a matter of Party Politics.

The commercial TV market today, like so many in the current global economy is skewed in favour of shareholders' needs, not customers' and certainly not staff. In the past regulation tried to avoid this, whether you agree with it or not.

Would ITV have had World In Action, This Week, or Brideshead Revisited without the regulatory influence of the ITA/IBA?

Was it the dilution of such regulation that led to the depressing world of "Neighbours from Hell" rather than the loss of Thames and the acquisition of LWT by Granada?

Freeing up the commercial market has led to the domination of the schedules by cheap ratings-grabbers. Of course ITV had their share of those in the past but the balance is all wrong now.

Foolishly ITV has decided to tackle Sky by becoming more like it thus playing into the hands of someone who is far better at populist TV than they are. In effect they have walked straight into a Murdoch trap.

ITV's unique selling point was its regionality and its strength came from internal competition between the the regional companies, all packaged under the regulation of the ITA/IBA. Was the demise of this inevitable in a multi-channel market or was it a catastrophic decision by short-term thinkers?

Anyway, I hated what Carlton did to ITV locally and nationally - my goodness it even made LWT look good. Their Today programme may have been weak in the early days of Thames but it was far stronger than anything put out locally by Rediffusion or the BBC and Thames News grew into a very good local news service, replaced by London Tonight's sensationalist mix of showbiz and crime.

The one certainy was that Carlton would nor make "Death on the Rock" nor would it be likely to buy it in and perhaps that is what the government of the day wanted most - that the only awkward questions about government behaviour would come from just the one BBC source in future while ITV just let people gawp without being troubled by awkward things like thought.

As a viewer of Granada, Central and HTV, I've obviously seen the differing broadcasting styles of Granada and Carlton.

Lets start with Granada. The channel always felt cold and distant, and when regional announcements went to Leeds in 2000 (?), it was practically the end of Granada as we knew it, so the changeover to London in 2002 made no difference really. Their regional programmes were (and still are) the sort aimed at the over 50's, and never seemed to have any affection to the viewer. The regional news is another thing, with no effort really put into presentation and regionality of the programme. Granada's forte was Network production and always will be.

Central on the other hand, is brilliant. They've always felt loyal, local and enthusiastic towards the viewers. Come 1999 when the Central name was axed for Carlton, it still made no difference to Central's loyalty, with all of their announcements still in the region. Their regional programmes were (and some still are) more interesting than Granada's, and the regional news coverage is excellent with warm and professional presenters. Unlike Granada, Carlton advised Central not to dispose of its awards and such. Don't get me wrong - Central was just as alive in 2000-2002 than any of the Granada companies. Even though the Carlton name replaced the Central one, nothing really changed, just six letters but everything else remained as it was.

So all in all; Granada couldn't care less about regionality while at least Carlton kept their regions "regional", despite the Carlton name taking over. However as I don't know much about Carlton London - Central had a reputation to keep up but Carlton London was just nothing basically.

It was no later than October 1998, which was a shame IMO, as the Quay Street team did a great job, and as good as they were at Kirkstall Road, it was no match. I didn't know that at the time, the first time I found out was probably back on this site in the very early days, and there was also a time when Granada was acidentally shown a programme menu for Tyne Tees back in 1998 too.

Carlton London did have as few regional programmes from what I remember over the years: Videotech (which later became something else, the name escapes me), Carlton Country (the Carlton name was later dropped, I presume it is networked now), London Bridge (local soap, badly acted) & The Tube (which still runs, excuse the pun). There's also Dissapearing London but I'm not sure if the Carlton London name was still on air when that started.

LWT became what it did due to other regions, they did try it the BBC2 way when they first came on air but fell into difficulty so went down the "light entertainment" route.

Thames was an excellent franchise, but I can't name any regional programmes, mainly as I was 9 when they went off air

Does anyone remember LWT did a regional programme about history sex in London (Sin City I believe?)
http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/series/38150

According to that link, it says that it was shown on Yorkshire and Anglia as well.

I think I know which one your refering to although I'm not sure if that was the name of it.

Do you mean the one with Ken Andrew & Anna Richardson, when Ken Andrew had an Jordan obssesion throughout one series?

EDIT: Just clicked the link, don't remember that one although it could well be the programme, I never really payed much attention to it

I believe so, I think it was shown in 2002 as well.

that was a clone of heart of the country, the long running central series looking at rural life in the midlands presented by ex-bbc midlands man tony francis. is it my imagination - or was the london series made by the same production company (kingfisher)?