I've just been wandering around the Companies House website, and was amazed to find listings for some old TV companies, in particular, ITV franchises that stopped broadcasting in 1992... at least I think it's them!
I have found listings for TV-am, TSW and TVS, which state they are still active, but what are the addresses they give? Are they just addresses for production/archive libraries?
Whilst I've never been a huge fan of people leeching off the heritage of others by buying their name and little else, there is an interestingly vague point on Dave Mason's Blog stating:-
Love his blog from March 23 as well. especially with reference to a certain Charles Allen. My thoughts about CA are exactly the same.
"23rd - sad day for radio - and the end of an era for Orchard FM. All commercial radio stations that were GWR / Capital / GCap / now Global all become Heart FM nationwide. What a tragic indictment of the state of what once was local radio in the UK. Not merely because I was part of Orchard and it had almost made 20 years - but all those stations - Plymouth Sound, 2CR, Wyvern, Invicta, 2TEN FM, and for the 100's of presenters booted out of radio over the last couple of years. In my view, one man is chiefly to blame - Charles Allen. As 'fatcats' go, Allen lives upto the moniker to the letter. A man who homogenised ITV and during his tenure there, stripping all the regional identities away. Only this week, Ulster tv's MD said strength remained in regionality and that consolidation was not the only answer - ITV's power had been its regional news and programming -now gone. Global's chairman doesn't care for regional broadcasting but only sees a bunch of transmitters as a means of selling a brand name, a set playlist and ratecard for ads in each area. I don't need local radio for that - we have BBC national radio from region to region..
Allen, a former food industry 'bean-counter', has all the care and creative flair of a tin of baked beans. Having wrecked ITV, leaving its share price decimated for Michael Grade to pick up the mess, Allen turned his attention to UK commercial radio, where localness and plurality was the main reason for listening to its distinctive flavour. Allen has presided over wrecking radio now - stations that in some cases have over 30 years of heritage and local branding, now, to offer up a food analogy, might as well be called McDonalds FM - always the same wherever you are - lowest common denominator, you know what you're gonna get...none of the Heart FM's have any true degree of local programming, doing a local brekky show and networking much of the output UK-wide from....Leicester Square, London. And he went unopposed, undeterred by Govnt or regulator - the Fred Goodwin of the broadcast industry, in effect.
Goodwin's greed and lust for banking consolidation of RBS / Natwest / ABN Amro came grossly unstuck. When the history looks back at commercial broadcasting in the noughties, some may wonder how Charles Allen was allowed to get away with single-handedly wrecking ITV and ILR as strong, proud British institutions. But hey, it's not all bad - the 'City' rates him!"
I've just been wandering around the Companies House website, and was amazed to find listings for some old TV companies, in particular, ITV franchises that stopped broadcasting in 1992... at least I think it's them!
I have found listings for TV-am, TSW and TVS, which state they are still active, but what are the addresses they give? Are they just addresses for production/archive libraries?
The former TV companies such as TVS, TV-am, TSW and Thames all exist as they either got bought - TVS is a long-forgotten part of Disney and Thames is part of FreemantleMedia - or they became used as shell companies and had other firms perform a reverse takeover into them
EDIT: the original TSW/UK Safety company is now in the hands of Grant Thornton - you can't link to entries on the Companies House website so look for it's company number 01466808) after going into administrative recievership. Doing a bit of Googling - UK Safety got taken over by a company called Bunzl PLC in 2003, presumably they picked up whatever was left after it went bust
TWW who lost their franchise in 1968 owned Dolland and Atchinson so still effectively exist as part of that company (although they recently merged with Boots Opticians)
Last edited by Inspector Sands on 12 July 2009 11:07pm - 6 times in total
What was the advantage of Crockfords buying Tv-am? Surely it would have been cheaper to set up a fresh Crockfords Ltd? What of the Ł12m tv-am assets were worth anything to a gambling company?
What of the Ł12m tv-am assets were worth anything to a gambling company?
As the article points out, TV-am was a quoted shell company ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_company ).
This was in August 1993 so by then the company's operations would have been long wound down, staff laid off and fixed assets sold or written off. It was just a dormant company with a stock market listing and Ł12 million in the bank. Crockfords would have got new investors (TV-am's shareholders), an injection of capital and TV-am's stockmarket listing.
As I mentioned above it later became part of a bigger gaming group which in turn got bought by a far eastern company. It's company number 01533947 on the Companies House website
Last edited by Inspector Sands on 12 July 2009 11:08pm - 2 times in total
Contrary to popular belief, it was
not
Granada who took over the Anglo–Welsh Channel Three network, in the race to take over all of the licenses, the underdog took the lead from behind and nabbed them … it was
Anglia Television
(
not
one of the former big five). Take a look at the Companies House website and search '00955957'—ITV Broadcasting.
Contrary to popular belief, it was
not
Granada who took over the Anglo–Welsh Channel Three network, in the race to take over all of the licenses, the underdog took the lead from behind and nabbed them all … it was
Anglia Television
(
not
one of the former big five). Take a look at the Companies House website and search '00955957'—ITV Broadcasting.
Contrary to popular belief, it was
not
Granada who took over the Anglo–Welsh Channel Three network, in the race to take over all of the licenses, the underdog took the lead from behind and nabbed them … it was
Anglia Television
(
not
one of the former big five). Take a look at the Companies House website and search '00955957'—ITV Broadcasting.
That doesn't mean that Anglia took over anything, it means that Anglia company was renamed to 'ITV Broadcasting'. Look at other parts of Anglia, now registered at 200 Grays Inn Road, but retaining their name: 00611130, 03482329, 02800803.
For more examples look at what some Carlton subsisuaries ended up as:
04842712, 02937518, 02937518.
What's happening is that they're just renaming companies that they no longer need for other purposes rather than starting new ones
Last edited by Inspector Sands on 14 July 2009 10:51am