"A very idle little fiefdom" -- TTTV in the 90s

I recently read Raymond Fitzwalter's book "The Dream That Died" on the tussles and strife at ITV, and for the most part it was a riveting read -- I recommend all TV followers to pick up a copy.

However, one subject has really been eating me, and that is when he talks about the goings on at Tyne Tees. In the book, TTTV is described as "a very idle little fiefdom", and a "neglected franchise, with a poor record".

In it, the author seems to make the classic assumption, as I have read in a number of articles, that Tyne Tees should have been making many more programmes for the network. I just don't get where this comes from -- I had family connections with the company at the time and I always viewed the company as a small player, comparable in size with TSW, that nonetheless managed to achieve much with limited resources -- they were a centre of excellence in Children's, Religious and Deaf programming and were, by some margin the smallest ITV region to produce regular networked drama. Regional journalism came in for particular praise, and the station had an affinity with the viewers that many would have killed for.

Yes, they were guilty of some complacency, especially in the area of technical modernity and especially in the early 1990s, but how exactly does this equate to a "poor record"?

Fitzwalter also implies a benevolent Granada out to do the North East a favour by bidding against Tyne Tees. How exactly was shutting down the studios in Newcastle, cutting out all network production and moving all but news production to Manchester supposed to produce an "improvement" for the lot of the North East?

He disingenuously states that Clive Leach at YTV sold Tyne Tees down the river, and this I know to be true. But ultimately, YTV's plans (which were stopped by the ITC) to close Tyne Tees in 1993 only really amounted to what Granada were intending all along.

I have, for many years laid the blame for the demise of TTTV squarely at the door of Yorkshire Television. But, reading this book from a Granada insider, it has become clear to me that they were directly responsible for the strife in the Northern regions, and subsequent dilution of this area's importance in the national media. By wishing to "integrate" the local companies in the North, and making a frankly arrogant assumption that the North East would be better served as an offshoot of the North West, they set in motion a trail of destruction.

I now realise that even the crippled, "bitch-region" that Tyne Tees became in the 1990s was far preferable to the alternative.

And then Fitzwalter has the audacity to bemoan the resulting panic-bids by TTTV and YTV (who had also been spooked by Granada muscling in on their patch) leaving their plans for Northern domination in tatters.

It amazes me that, nearly twenty years later, my hackles could be raised so much by a historical piece.

Damn Granada. Damn them to hell.

Anyway, regardless of my objections, a fascinating read. Recommended.

I have always had the following:

BIG: Central, Granada. London, Yorkshire

Medium: Anglia, TVS/Meridian, HTV, STV, TT
UTV is between two:
Small: Borders, Grampian, TSW, channel

With this in mind, Compare TT to other compaines in its place in the ITV company you could see where the person is getting the views from, TVS, Anglia, and STV all upped there game during the 80's and 90s to try and put more stuff on the network. I would also say TT was a lot bigger than TSW,

It has been document on here before (( *I hope someone will repost the info about this other Book * ))) That Granada was hopping to operate more like Carlton, this was in the late 80's early 90-s

TT still had its own CA until 96/ 97 ie the same time as Granada ops it head around the door

Tyne Tees lost all it's continuity earlier than that. From memory, it was early 1995 when they were switched to the system at Leeds we all grew to 'love', long before I think even Yorkshire saw a Granada bid on the horizon and were still looking to expand themselves as a major media player (the idea of the setup in Leeds was that it was supposed to be easily expandable when *they* took over others, not so much that Granada would take control and use it ).

As for articles like this getting your hackles up... well... that's what they're written for, not to make much of a point. If you don't put outrageously strong opinions on everything, then no one will care, read your article, buy your book etc. How do you think The Daily Mail survives.

Tyne Tees probably could have been a much bigger player in the network if they'd put their mind to it, but I think everyone knows that wasn't their business strategy. Someone like TVS always wanted to be more than a regional franchise, bigger, bigger, bigger... and that's what caused them to lose out in the end. Tyne Tees was always happy to just play along with the network in national terms, preferring to maintain status quo as an ITV franchise and focus on serving their regional interests more than in being a media conglomerate.

They had a larger population coverage than TSW, about 3 million, compared with 1.5 for TSW. The area was probably not as affluent, I don't know whether that was factor. To be honest I don't recall seeing that much from TT on the ITV network, apart from Razzmatazz. They came into their own, and put themselves on the map with The Tube on C4 of course.

I wouldn't worry about what ex TV execs think or remember about their past. The recent R4 documentary about Yorkshire TV was full of faulty recollections.

First off I have found that book:

The Dream That Died: The Rise and Fall of ITV

by Raymond Fitzwalter
Format: Paperback 296 pages



It all went pair shaped for YTV, In 1996, MAI merged with United Newspapers, this deal meant UMN now held a large shareholding (through the Yorkshire Post) in Yorkshire Tyne Tees Television,
A year later there sold the YTV to Granada. ( yet you want found that in the YTV wiki page!)

1996 was a very strange year for ITV, which could have seen many different outcomes. included HTV being sold to S. * HTV buying Westcountry. and even UMN keep hold of Yorkshire and taking full control, that would have put a halt to Carlton buy outs.

That was the factor, and a TV exec should have known it.

You have to look at turnover, rather than raw viewing audiences. TTTV had a turnover in the early 1990s of around £50m, compared with TSW's £40m. Ultimately you can't really turn over much more than your advertising revenues will allow -- so for all intents and purposes TTTV were only around 25% larger than TSW in real terms.

Horribly sorry for bumping an old thread with my very first post, but is this book worth buying, or are there any others that people would recommend about ITV (or indeed BBC) history. I have an interest on the more technical side of things, but I will consider anything really.

It is a fascinating read. Charles Allen doesn't come out of it particularly well, not that you'd expect he would - but when you hear some of the goings on at Granada in the early 90s...chilling reading!

In a coincidence to this thread being bumped, I've been researching ITV regional programming out of a personal interest.

Anyway, I've found Tyne Tees produced a real wealth of regional programming which spanned more genres than other ITV regional companies; local drama, local entertainment series, local current affairs, local sport, local arts, local religious programmes, local youth series; even up until around 2006 when all kinds of regional programme were wound down to a handful of identical programme strands and documentaries. I've found no other regional company of its size, nor any of the Big Five, who came near the standard of regional programming TTTV produced, which has put them up in my esteem.

Needless to say, the worst examples of regional programming I've come across lately tended to be associated with a certain London weekday franchise... which other company would commission series such as "Cage Combat" and "Ann Summers Revealed" for its local viewers? Yeah, they have a C, N and T in their name - and it's not one of the former "Big 5" they seized control of and squeezed out content and resources.

Well, if you want to know about BBC history you should get a copy of The Fun Factory by Will Wyatt, because he talks about being Head of Presentation Programmes in the seventies, Head of Factual Programmes in the eighties and Managing Director of Television in the nineties, so he was involved with loads of big BBC events - there are various chapters about dramas, including Eldorado, sport, including Des Lynam leaving and much else - and is brilliantly indiscreet.

Yes, all true, and I believe it is the reason I was such a staunch supporter of regional television. I grew up with this service, I know the effort the company put in, and it has to be said that a lot of it was of extremely high quality as well.

And it is also the reason I became extremely angry when I read this book, in which a representative of the company who did more than any other to smash (not completely successfully thankfully) the happy position we had in this part of the world, having the (frankly) bloody cheek to claim that the company had a poor record.

Yes, they took their eye off the ball in the late 1980s/early 1990s with regards to national programming, and they were never particularly strong when it came to presentation or branding, but they continued to produce regional product of a very high, and diverse standard, and that is all that should be expected of a regional broadcaster.

I only have 2 books on the techie/historical side of things, one is the The Official ITV50 book that was released in 2005, to accompany for the Story of ITV series, it's mainly just a look back through rose tinted spectacles, but there's a fair bit on the history side, the whole mess with the Unions and a fair look into the 1991 franchise round. The other book I own is called 'And Finally - The Story of ITN', which was released like the previous book in 2005, it's written by Richard Lindley and it's quite in-depth in it's length, but having read the whole book it's very formative and gives quite an inside look into ITN's history such as the creation and axing of News At Ten, why News At One could have been News At 12. There's loads more but my mind's a bit fuzzy as it's been a while since I read it, but it's a good read.