STV's parent company, SMG, used to own Pearl and Dean, the cinema advertising agency. And on that note, Carlton used to own their own Screen advertising firm as well.
I think the York shop (and the local newsroom above it) was initially a YTV operation until the merger with Tyne Tees, and was largely intended to show the people of York (who had a choice of TT or YTV) that Yorkshire considered it their patch.
Not just York - I seem to remember hearing about YTV running adverts on Radio Tees during the 1980s which said "Real Yorkshire people watch Yorkshire Television", aimed at the TTTV/YTV overlap in North Yorkshire. TTTV' opened a York office in response to this. I'd be tempted to say that York was officially in the YTV broadcast area.
I wonder why those station never got any proper rival bids? yet place such as Wales, Top of Scotland and south west ( some of the smallest station had a real fright)
I would guess for Central although profitable and big area it is, it at the time was rather high mateinance with 3 sub-regional news areas to look after for, with 2 of them being Network production centres. You could say the same for TVS, difference here being that Central were a damn sight financially stronger. Border's reason probably being the opposite in that it's the smallest ITV station on the mainland and isn't as profitable as others, with little or no network output. Although I must admit I'm quite bemused as to why no-one went for STV either, but that's all in the past.
You had 2 groups of bidders really, ones like Granada and Carlton who went in bidded in places basically for money, and those like Mersey TV because Phil Redmond was rather dissatisfied as to what Granada were offering.
Indeed, whoever took over Central would probably have had to buy at least or rent at least part of Central's property portfolio for it to make any sense, and nobody could have possibly got a better deal on Central's studios than Central!
Sorry for the confusion regarding my question. What I meant was, I've seen comments somewhere on the ether that Blockbusters was a victim of the Broadcasting Act, but I can't understand how that could possibly be so given Central were arguably the biggest winner of the system, both surviving and paying almost nothing for the privilege.
Regarding the landgrab which followed the relaxation of takeover rules, I often think about how much Granada would be worth today if they had sold their TV business and concentrated on their other interests rather than selling off all their other interests to fund further ITV buy-outs.
Does anybody know of any interesting non-broadcast related side-interests ITV companies had?
Granada had hotels, motorway service stations and theme parks amongst other things
Border owned a company called "Green Star" who operated rides at Blackpool Pleasure Beach
UTV continues to own an Art Collection
When I was young, I used to think that Granada service stations were only in the Granada region, as the only one I was aware of (complete back then with north pointing G logo) was at Birch, just on the Granada side of the pennines, whereas the next service station on the M62 on the Yorkshire side wasn't a Granada one.
Wonder if Granada's TV rental arm had to pay Granada TV to advertise on their region!
I'd expect they had to if we're talking of a time when the ITA/IBA were involved!
Interestingly, one of the complaints levied against Granada when they owned The American Adventure Theme Park near Ilkeston, Derbyshire was they didn't spend enough on advertising! I don't know if Camelot (another park of theirs) near Chorley faired any better being inside their region.
^ Didn't ITV retain that until all their money problems?
They got rid of Carlton Screen advertising a while after the merger, but that was part of their disposal of non-core assets rather than directly a money making exercise
^ Didn't ITV retain that until all their money problems?
They got rid of Carlton Screen advertising a while after the merger, but that was part of their disposal of non-core assets rather than directly a money making exercise
In Eire, its still called carlton, it was renamed in the uk. Also many of the original itch companies owned cinema chains.
In Eire, its still called carlton, it was renamed in the uk.
They are different companies, the 2 operations were split up in the sale
Quote:
Also many of the original itch companies owned cinema chains.
I assume you mean ITV companies?
Yes, TV then was a big threat to the cinema industry (and it's only in the last 20 years that the industry has grown but it's still no-where near how it was in the 50's) so they wanted in on it.
Granada and ABC were both cinema companies. Granada chose the north of England because it's cinemas were mostly in the south. Granada cinemas were still around in the 80's, my local cinema when I was a kid was one. The ABC name was brought back and then lost again a few years ago.
Southern was part-owned by the large film company, Rank alongside Associated Newspapers, another industry that would have seen TV as a threat. ATV and STV were part founded by people from the theatre insustry
:-(
A former member
Yes I ment itv,doing this on the phone has a mind of it own. Stv was started by Roy thomson for Canada, until 1968 when thing started to go pear shape for all
JJ
jjne
Tyne Tees was part of that as well -- George and Alfred Black were variety impresarios, in an industry that also was changed fundamentally by television.
