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Was franchising the only option (July 2020)

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IS
Inspector Sands
james-2001 posted:
I think they didn't want to put the financial burden on the ITV companies either with broadcasting at unproven time of day, which as shown by the near collapse of TV-am within weeks probably vindicated that.

The financial burden for the existing companies would have been a lot less though. Adding a few hours to the broadcast day is a lot less expensive than setting up a brand new company and broadcasting facilities

Also programming from the existing companies might well have been a lot more watchable!


That's what happened overnight of course, a TVam style franchise for the nighttime hours wouldn't have worked, but the existing companies just doing longer hours did
NL
Ne1L C
Steve Williams posted:
Ne1L C posted:
RPut simply did the IBA have the option of creating a breakfast programme a'la the modern Good Morning Britain and Daybreak or was franchising the only choice?

I know that the politics of the time would have played a role so could the IBA have offered a "sweetener" to ITN, Thames and LWT to provide facilities, staff etc and ensure that the regions have local inserts?

This question has probably been asked before but I've never seen any threads neither has any research I've done clarified the issue.
.


There was certainly the opportunity to just do breakfast TV as a programme on ITV made by one of the existing companies, and of course before TVam most regions were regularly starting up before 9.25 (and there was Good Morning Calendar, of course).

But as Morning Glory points out, the main reason they did a separate breakfast franchise was to provide the opportunity for more competition in the network and greater plurality of news coverage. It was no surprise Peter Jay was involved because, alongside John Birt, he'd written a series of articles in the 70s about the future of TV news, the "mission to explain" and all that, and at the time there was a great deal of discussion about television news and how it should work, it became a bit of a talking point in the industry. So when the franchise round came round, a new national franchise at breakfast time offered more opportunities for a major new company to get involved, with a new news service and the chance to do things on a national scale. Which you wouldn't have got if it was just another programme on ITV with ITN doing the news, it would just be more of the same.

In addition, of course, a new franchise would stop endless fighting among the regions regarding who should make it and if they could opt out of it, and whether ITN should do the news and so on. However in the 1991 round, a couple of regions in their submissions did suggest that the breakfast franchise was a waste of time and they should broadcast for 24 hours a day.


I would have thought that a more coherent ITV breakfast setup would have been a stronger bulwark against BBC Breakfast Time. An ITN/Thames/LWT operation could have provided real clout.
BL
bluecortina
Ne1L C posted:
Steve Williams posted:
Ne1L C posted:
RPut simply did the IBA have the option of creating a breakfast programme a'la the modern Good Morning Britain and Daybreak or was franchising the only choice?

I know that the politics of the time would have played a role so could the IBA have offered a "sweetener" to ITN, Thames and LWT to provide facilities, staff etc and ensure that the regions have local inserts?

This question has probably been asked before but I've never seen any threads neither has any research I've done clarified the issue.
.


There was certainly the opportunity to just do breakfast TV as a programme on ITV made by one of the existing companies, and of course before TVam most regions were regularly starting up before 9.25 (and there was Good Morning Calendar, of course).

But as Morning Glory points out, the main reason they did a separate breakfast franchise was to provide the opportunity for more competition in the network and greater plurality of news coverage. It was no surprise Peter Jay was involved because, alongside John Birt, he'd written a series of articles in the 70s about the future of TV news, the "mission to explain" and all that, and at the time there was a great deal of discussion about television news and how it should work, it became a bit of a talking point in the industry. So when the franchise round came round, a new national franchise at breakfast time offered more opportunities for a major new company to get involved, with a new news service and the chance to do things on a national scale. Which you wouldn't have got if it was just another programme on ITV with ITN doing the news, it would just be more of the same.

In addition, of course, a new franchise would stop endless fighting among the regions regarding who should make it and if they could opt out of it, and whether ITN should do the news and so on. However in the 1991 round, a couple of regions in their submissions did suggest that the breakfast franchise was a waste of time and they should broadcast for 24 hours a day.


I would have thought that a more coherent ITV breakfast setup would have been a stronger bulwark against BBC Breakfast Time. An ITN/Thames/LWT operation could have provided real clout.


Given the era I do not think this would have been financially viable for the ITV companies. It was quite a few years later that the management at ITV and the representative unions set out some ‘sweeter’ proposals for manning and broadcasting for later hours. I suspect ITV, or the companies you mention, would have tried to set up a separate company to provide a breakfast tv service with more suitable working practices - in other words TV-am in all but name.
NL
Ne1L C
bluecortina posted:
Ne1L C posted:
Steve Williams posted:

There was certainly the opportunity to just do breakfast TV as a programme on ITV made by one of the existing companies, and of course before TVam most regions were regularly starting up before 9.25 (and there was Good Morning Calendar, of course).

But as Morning Glory points out, the main reason they did a separate breakfast franchise was to provide the opportunity for more competition in the network and greater plurality of news coverage. It was no surprise Peter Jay was involved because, alongside John Birt, he'd written a series of articles in the 70s about the future of TV news, the "mission to explain" and all that, and at the time there was a great deal of discussion about television news and how it should work, it became a bit of a talking point in the industry. So when the franchise round came round, a new national franchise at breakfast time offered more opportunities for a major new company to get involved, with a new news service and the chance to do things on a national scale. Which you wouldn't have got if it was just another programme on ITV with ITN doing the news, it would just be more of the same.

In addition, of course, a new franchise would stop endless fighting among the regions regarding who should make it and if they could opt out of it, and whether ITN should do the news and so on. However in the 1991 round, a couple of regions in their submissions did suggest that the breakfast franchise was a waste of time and they should broadcast for 24 hours a day.


I would have thought that a more coherent ITV breakfast setup would have been a stronger bulwark against BBC Breakfast Time. An ITN/Thames/LWT operation could have provided real clout.


Given the era I do not think this would have been financially viable for the ITV companies. It was quite a few years later that the management at ITV and the representative unions set out some ‘sweeter’ proposals for manning and broadcasting for later hours. I suspect ITV, or the companies you mention, would have tried to set up a separate company to provide a breakfast tv service with more suitable working practices - in other words TV-am in all but name.


Had TV-AM being stripped of their licence following the debacle of the Brighton bombing coverage its plausible to assume the IBA would have asked Thames/ LWT and ITN to provide an interim service.
IS
Inspector Sands
Ne1L C posted:

Had TV-AM being stripped of their licence following the debacle of the Brighton bombing coverage its plausible to assume the IBA would have asked Thames/ LWT and ITN to provide an interim service.

It's one option but I don't know why that combination of companies is particularly plausible.

There's lots of things they could have done - shortened the franchise and found a replacement, or restructured TVam and kept it going under new management/owners. They could have just given it up as a bad job...breakfast TV was only a few years old after all.

I don't think it's franchise was ever seriously in danger over Brighton was it? It almost didn't make it to that story in the first place though
RC
RegularCapital
If there was no national breakfast franchise, I think the larger regions would of eventually done their own thing and networked it out to the smaller ITV companies, out of this, an "unofficial breakfast franchise" would of naturally formed with the best version/region winning out. Central (and later Granada, but out-of-vision) handled the children's television block - CITV simply by contract, which was networked nationally to all regions and it wasn't a franchise (although it did featuring programming from the rest of ITV Network and other companies).

In the franchise bids, it should have considered that the franchise bidder must have news-gathering experience, the IBA should have recommended a joint-venture out of the original ITN and TV-am bids, or that TV-am must sign a contract with ITN to provide news.
SP
Steve in Pudsey
Ne1L C posted:
Had TV-AM being stripped of their licence following the debacle of the Brighton bombing coverage its plausible to assume the IBA would have asked Thames/ LWT and ITN to provide an interim service.


Wasn't it a requirement of the first Breakfast franchise that ITN couldn't be involved? It might have been much more viable if it could have outsourced the news service rather than doing its own.

Obviously for a temporary emergency replacement the IBA could have chosen to waive that rule.
BL
bluecortina
Ne1L C posted:
bluecortina posted:
Ne1L C posted:

I would have thought that a more coherent ITV breakfast setup would have been a stronger bulwark against BBC Breakfast Time. An ITN/Thames/LWT operation could have provided real clout.


Given the era I do not think this would have been financially viable for the ITV companies. It was quite a few years later that the management at ITV and the representative unions set out some ‘sweeter’ proposals for manning and broadcasting for later hours. I suspect ITV, or the companies you mention, would have tried to set up a separate company to provide a breakfast tv service with more suitable working practices - in other words TV-am in all but name.


Had TV-AM being stripped of their licence following the debacle of the Brighton bombing coverage its plausible to assume the IBA would have asked Thames/ LWT and ITN to provide an interim service.


But at what operational cost? People used to working 9 til 5 don’t just start suddenly coming it at 5am for the fun of it. I certainly didn’t.
Night Thoughts and tightrope78 gave kudos
BR
brekkytv
Steve in Pudsey posted:
Ne1L C posted:
Had TV-AM being stripped of their licence following the debacle of the Brighton bombing coverage its plausible to assume the IBA would have asked Thames/ LWT and ITN to provide an interim service.


Wasn't it a requirement of the first Breakfast franchise that ITN couldn't be involved? It might have been much more viable if it could have outsourced the news service rather than doing its own.

Obviously for a temporary emergency replacement the IBA could have chosen to waive that rule.


ITN also had a bid in during the 1982 franchise round for the breakfast service, with Anna Ford as it’s lead presenter, not realising she’d jumped ship to TV-am, so I’m guessing it was just a matter of TV-am was a separate company?
NL
Ne1L C
bluecortina posted:
Ne1L C posted:
bluecortina posted:

Given the era I do not think this would have been financially viable for the ITV companies. It was quite a few years later that the management at ITV and the representative unions set out some ‘sweeter’ proposals for manning and broadcasting for later hours. I suspect ITV, or the companies you mention, would have tried to set up a separate company to provide a breakfast tv service with more suitable working practices - in other words TV-am in all but name.


Had TV-AM being stripped of their licence following the debacle of the Brighton bombing coverage its plausible to assume the IBA would have asked Thames/ LWT and ITN to provide an interim service.


But at what operational cost? People used to working 9 til 5 don’t just start suddenly coming it at 5am for the fun of it. I certainly didn’t.


A valid point. The IBA could have created a temporary "cordon franchise" of ITN having a breakfast news hour between 8.25 and 9.25 until either a new franchise or a reconstituted breakfast service was created
RI
Riaz
Ne1L C posted:
Had TV-AM being stripped of their licence following the debacle of the Brighton bombing coverage its plausible to assume the IBA would have asked Thames/ LWT and ITN to provide an interim service.


Why Thames / LWT? Why not Yorkshire or even TVS which had plenty of footage of the Brighton bombing? Does a breakfast franchise have to be based in London?
NL
Ne1L C
AIUI TVS or Yorkshire couldn't help TV-AM at Brighton due to restrictions. No a breakfast franchise doesn't have to be in London. Look at BBC Breakfast from Salford.

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