So did Points West, I can see a pattern developing I think
However, absolutely nothing from Points West on the programme itself. Nor anything at all from TWW or HTV in Bristol.
The only thing from Bristol was about forty seconds of RPM.
Sums it all up really.
To be fair to BBC Four, they had already given Bristol some considerable coverage in the half hour before, during 'Bristol on Film' which was a nice little show.
I wonder why there never kept the weekday and weekend spilt? I dare say it could have solve many an issue with having 14 compaines.
Surely it would cause more issues? More interests to argue their case, more complexity, more duplication of facilities. The biggest disadvantage would have been the lower revenue for each.
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I remember reading that the reason london was kept spilt was to make sure that there was NOT one big itv company that had control over the rest.
Not that so much, it was more that a single ITV company in London would earn too much revenue and therefore be too powerful
The only thing from Bristol was about forty seconds of RPM.
I remember the BBC West regional programme RPM (Rectangular Picture Machine), presented by Andy Batten-Foster. If I remember rightly, it was on Mondays circa 6:50pm.
That's not been on for years. Isn't there a demand for that sort of programme now?
As for this "Regional TV on BBC4" progamme last Wednesday, I never even knew it was on. If only I'd known. Any possibility of a repeat, or even seeing it on BBC iPlayer (my next chance to watch that will be next Saturday / Sunday)?
It has to be remembered that "ITV" in the sense we know it now, is only a recent creation. The Independent Television Authority appointed individual companies to individual regions. And they were each very different creatures, able to create their own schedules as they saw fit. Apart from ITN bulletins, there were huge chunks of the schedules where every region was showing something different, often for hours at a time. Take children's TV. Even smaller companies like Border and Grampian had, for instance, their own local version of "Romper Room". STV, of course, had the long-running Cartoon Cavalcade as part of its children's output. Then again, when STV were screening, say Flipper, Border might have Skippy and Grampian Stingray. Ditto across the other regions in the UK. In fact, although it never happened, any of the regional companies could have dropped, say, Coronation Street, from the schedule. Thames, in fact, did drop Crossroads for a time. In the 60s most local ITV stations had their own pop shows, gardening programmes, school quizzes etc. In the 70s the football highlights programmes on Sunday afternoons were regionalised, although Border took Granada's programme for many years, Tyne Tees in other seasons or LWT's the Big Match. (Grampian screened the Big Match as well in the early 70s). In other words each local company reflected the needs, interests and aspirations of "their" viewers. Cobntrast that with now when viewers in Peebles, around 30 minutes drive from Scotland's capital, get local news about Whitby, Sunderland and Durham!
This is one of those stupid ideas that I've just thought were stupid but I'll put it out there.
Isn't ITV stronger if it is different companies? Because then if one company goes under, the francise can just be re-advertised. With one ITV, if the whole company goes under, then that's it.
It has to be remembered that "ITV" in the sense we know it now, is only a recent creation. The Independent Television Authority appointed individual companies to individual regions. And they were each very different creatures, able to create their own schedules as they saw fit. Apart from ITN bulletins, there were huge chunks of the schedules where every region was showing something different, often for hours at a time. Take children's TV. Even smaller companies like Border and Grampian had, for instance, their own local version of "Romper Room". STV, of course, had the long-running Cartoon Cavalcade as part of its children's output. Then again, when STV were screening, say Flipper, Border might have Skippy and Grampian Stingray. Ditto across the other regions in the UK. In fact, although it never happened, any of the regional companies could have dropped, say, Coronation Street, from the schedule. Thames, in fact, did drop Crossroads for a time. In the 60s most local ITV stations had their own pop shows, gardening programmes, school quizzes etc. In the 70s the football highlights programmes on Sunday afternoons were regionalised, although Border took Granada's programme for many years, Tyne Tees in other seasons or LWT's the Big Match. (Grampian screened the Big Match as well in the early 70s). In other words each local company reflected the needs, interests and aspirations of "their" viewers. Cobntrast that with now when viewers in Peebles, around 30 minutes drive from Scotland's capital, get local news about Whitby, Sunderland and Durham!
Exactly. It wasn't just the 60s and 70s either -- Tyne Tees (and, I assume, other regions) had their own music programmes, gameshows and gardening shows, as well as documentaries, comedy programmes, religious stuff, sport, live debates and all manner of other stuff right up to the mid-1990s. The programme tried to claim that it all started with local news, then moved on to bits and pieces that occasionally fired up something different -- errr, that might have been the case for the BBC but on the other side much more effort had always been made.
TTTV cancelled half the night's primetime viewing for coverage of Newcastle's promotion celebrations as late as 1993....
