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JAS842,793 posts since 26 Aug 2010
Yorkshire Look North (E.Yorks & Lincs)
ttt posted:
None of the minor ITV companies (apart from Tyne Tees, which effectively busted themselves with the £15.5m bid and therefore had little choice but to sell up for a song in 1992) were of interest to the big companies until the two franchise rule was ended; you'd think that if there was a commercial advantage to buying these up it would have happened almost straight away as a defensive measure; Central had the same opportunity to protect itself against Carlton.
Would Tyne Tees have lost their franchise if they bid lower?
62305819,697 posts since 19 Aug 2005
STV Central Reporting Scotland
JAS84 posted:
ttt posted:
None of the minor ITV companies (apart from Tyne Tees, which effectively busted themselves with the £15.5m bid and therefore had little choice but to sell up for a song in 1992) were of interest to the big companies until the two franchise rule was ended; you'd think that if there was a commercial advantage to buying these up it would have happened almost straight away as a defensive measure; Central had the same opportunity to protect itself against Carlton.
Would Tyne Tees have lost their franchise if they bid lower?


That would have depended on how much lower: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ITV#1993.E2.80.932002

TT could have bidded up to £10million lower and still have won. TSW could have gottan away with £8.5million lower while TVS, That would have been £18million lower. Of course CPV-TV failed on quality grounds. Dare say because of Frost, and the fact news operations were linked to TVAM.....
Is the next post dreaded?
Hatton Cross2,293 posts since 4 Jan 2003
Central (West) Midlands Today
CPV-TV failed on the business plan and programme quality.

Or as Sir Richard Beard said shortly afterwards on Clive Anderson Talks Back, when asked why the bids failed.
"We F*cked up"

Although given that Sir Frosty had been involved in two previous franchises, and both having to be rescued near the point of collapse (not that was directly his fault in both cases) you could argue it was the ITC insuring against 'third time lucky'.
ITV "Occasionally it gives us something good, but for the most part, it is pathetic and puerile". Lord Taylor, House Of Commons, 1959.
Brekkie27,363 posts since 4 Jan 2003
HTV Wales Wales Today
623058 posted:
JAS84 posted:
ttt posted:
None of the minor ITV companies (apart from Tyne Tees, which effectively busted themselves with the £15.5m bid and therefore had little choice but to sell up for a song in 1992) were of interest to the big companies until the two franchise rule was ended; you'd think that if there was a commercial advantage to buying these up it would have happened almost straight away as a defensive measure; Central had the same opportunity to protect itself against Carlton.
Would Tyne Tees have lost their franchise if they bid lower?


That would have depended on how much lower: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ITV#1993.E2.80.932002

TT could have bidded up to £10million lower and still have won. TSW could have gottan away with £8.5million lower while TVS, That would have been £18million lower. Of course CPV-TV failed on quality grounds. Dare say because of Frost, and the fact news operations were linked to TVAM.....

The 1991 one franchise would arguably have been much fairer as a second bid auction (where the winning bid pays the price bid by the runner up). Considering how many regions had to negotiate lower prices for the 1991 auction it's even more remarkable they were able to hold on to them indefinately unchallenged. I suspect some of the runners up did at least threaten legal action when a company reneged on the amount it would pay but did anything end up in court. You'd have thought not meeting the financial commitments would have been grounds for putting the franchise back out to tender, but then I guess it was in the ITCs interest to have a stable ITV.
Shouldn't that have been posted in the "John Logie Baird has Invented Television" thread?
ttt266 posts since 15 Aug 2015
JAS84 posted:
ttt posted:
None of the minor ITV companies (apart from Tyne Tees, which effectively busted themselves with the £15.5m bid and therefore had little choice but to sell up for a song in 1992) were of interest to the big companies until the two franchise rule was ended; you'd think that if there was a commercial advantage to buying these up it would have happened almost straight away as a defensive measure; Central had the same opportunity to protect itself against Carlton.
Would Tyne Tees have lost their franchise if they bid lower?


As 623058 says, much, much lower.

TT were spooked by Granada coming into the only opposition they were anticipating, that of the Newcastle Chronicle. They felt that this group was too weak and would have lost on quality grounds (the same names present in 1980 were on the new bid as well), but Granada joining the consortium changed everything. They panicked, probably realising that Granada's ability to cut costs to the bone would mean they could get away with a high bid, and bet the house on Granada doing just that. Granada broke them, there's no two ways about it.

In the end Granada bid far more sensibly, and TT were forced into a merger as they would have been bankrupt within a couple of years with the bid they submitted. This is why the ITC allowed a very early merger to go ahead (YTV weren't in a great position themselves either due to the very high bid they themselves submitted).

Anyone thinking about what happened to TVS or TSW, and what might have been had they not lost on financial quality grounds, should probably take a look at the history of the three companies (YTV, TTT, HTV) who were just the other side of the divide between 'just about OK' and 'dead in the water' to realise that they'd have had a very bad time of things had they won. TSW in particular I think would have been in a very sorry state, with no obvious suitor to take them over.

"Winner's curse", I recall it was called by journos.
Last edited by ttt on 9 December 2016 1:40am
ttt266 posts since 15 Aug 2015
JAS84 posted:
If Tyne Tees were going to go bust, then that should've been grounds for them to lose, as happened to TVS. I guess, then, that the other bid failed and Tyne Tees only survived because they were the incumbent?


That was always my view. The ITC came close to rejecting both Tyne Tees and Yorkshire -- and when the latter attempted to change Tyne Tees to be pretty much what Granada had in mind for NETV in their submission (reduced regional hours, cancellation of the proposed 10:30 half-hour news programme, moving of most non-news ops to Leeds/Manchester etc), the ITC threatened to revoke the licence.

It's not proof by any means, but I don't think the ITC were keen on proposals that involved non-regional regionality in this way at this point in time. It's entirely possible that TTTV survived because the Granada bid failed on quality grounds and TTTV had an obvious merger path with YTV (and it's possible there were also issues with YTV's competitors).

The ITC were not mandated to disclose whether or not losing bids met the quality threshold.