Phillip Schofield to present 24 hours on ITV for Text Santa

Firstly the whole thing was sold on being a live 24 hour broadcast, so I guess they wanted to keep pre-recorded content to a minimum, hence the lack of VTs. Secondly it wasn't the telethon itself - it was there to promote Text Santa, not be Text Santa. As you say I suspect they'll reveal how much the event raised at some point on the night.

Yes the tower is chocka-block. But ITV still occupy four floors of GIR - I think it's more than ITN do, in fact - covering sales, online, technology, broadcasting and a few other bits, so it's still a fair presence even if diminished from the peak of 2007-9. 200 GIR was actually ITV's registered address until 2009, a hangover from the Network Centre days and a sign that the suits were all still based at GIR (with the notable exception of Charles Allen who stayed in his old Granada/LWT berth at the tower until finally shifting to GIR in late 2005 when he realised he might want to pay a bit more attention to commissioning and strategy). They did leave a bust of Sidney Bernstein behind when the big wigs moved to the tower, though, which is still there in the meeting room suite today - might try and get a picture next week.

Was it micheal grade who got most thing moved back?

I don't know about it being him personally - it was towards the end of his time, with the aim being to put commissioning and production under the same roof, a move that has worked when you look at the improvement in the output since then. You have to remember for many years the tower was seen as the "production" home with GIR the corporate base. There was a time, with departments being moved to GIR and others outsourced (such as transmission to Chiswick) that the general feeling was that at some undefined point in the future the South Bank tower could be vacated, perhaps just holding onto the studios (in a similar way to what has happened to TVC). Obviously that strategy has been reversed now. The tower being the de facto home of ITV plc is a more recent development and one that hasn't gone unnoticed on screen too. As a home for the company it looked superb on screen last Monday,

Yes, the lifts only go as far as the 22nd floor, access to 23 & 24/roof is via stairwell only. Nice place to see all manner of London firework displays.

Cin properties insisted on 2 occupiers with different 'business models' since they were concerned LWT may not be around after 1982 and the 'other' occupier would generate enough rental income to maintain the property until another tenant could be found.

The original 2nd occupier was the Inland Revenue, they gave way eventually to P&O Shipping Lines (there used to be some superb models of some of their fleet in the upper floor lift lobbies - we're not talking airfix kits here!). Post 1992 LWT managed to persuade Cin properties that they could be the sole occupiers.

Of course other related ITV companies were based there too. The building was never big enough for LWT, even in the early days, and various operations were spread around the immediate locality.

There used to be a fully fledged janitors flat on the 4th floor, not many people know that.

Partly the reason that LWT split into LWT Broadcasting and LWT Productions in the early 90s. LWTP ran the studios and marketed them as The London Studios.

The 5pm and 6pm parts on catch up are only half an hour so you miss him doing the weather
And you don't see him in the breaks on catch up as I guess they run their own add

You mean 6-7pm. I did take a few clips of his prep work at 18.42.

Yes, you don't see 530-6 or 630-7,loving the behind the scenes bits
Will find the weather clip on you
tube

LWT never knew what anything cost to make so they introduced a 'total costing' regime and split the various parts of the company up to find out - cross charging and all that in the late 80's not the 90's. With the 1992 franchise (licencing really) coming round they knew they would be up against publisher broadcasters but wanted to put in a bid based as a producer broadcaster. Bland and Dyke made it very clear that the physical production side of the business had to run at a profit, or break even at least, or it would be closed down and LWT would makes it's application as a publisher broadcaster. The rest is history as they say. LWTP and TLS were never 'around' at the same time. Originally a subsidiary called LWT production facilities was formed (the master company being LWT Holdings) and marketed the production facilities as LWT Production facilities, then they changed the name to TLS because it was felt the BBC was proving reluctant to make programmes at the South Bank with such an obviously 'ITV' name on it's credits. So, that how the name TLS came about, it wasn't LWTP marketing the studios under a different name. LWT broadcasting was formed to hold the broadcasting licence, and was the applicant company. I think it still exists and most likely still holds the actual licence to broadcast.

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I thought that that pretty much all of ITV plc's predecessor companies were 'dormant companies' with Anglia Television, renamed as ITV Broadcasting, now holding the regional licences for all ITV plc regions. Or something like that.