Table of who paid whatfor ITV in 1991?

Well they bidded for each of three regions. Whether they got at least two of them would have been interesting and even if they got in with one region and then the relaxing of the rules of owning more than one ITV region, who knows!

Carlton also bidded for the TVS region. I wonder if they got in there and Thames still kept the licence, would Carlton still deserve a kicking? After all, Meridian is the same as Carlton but with less expectations to do as well due to a certain former station called Thames.

There were a lot of "what-ifs" going around in 1991.

Granada were part of a consortium bidding for the North East (NETV) and Tyne Tees were part of North West TV. I remember as a sixth-former we were convinced that Granada would end up getting TTTV and vice versa. Would have been an interesting climb-down for Granada management, staying in the ITV structure but with a much smaller patch -- would Coronation Street have ended up as a "North East TV Presentation", or would they have effectively sold their baby to their replacement for example?

Bear in mind that this was a very real possibility, even with the results as they came out. TTTV got through by the skin of their teeth; the ITC stated that if they'd bid much more, or had not been in bed with YTV, they'd have gone the same way as TSW who had similarly overbid (the same was true of YTV; the two stations effectively saved each other). And Granada I think only held on because they knew that ITV would have been rocked to the foundations if Granada *and* Thames had both lost -- that would have been about half their programmes gone. Losing Thames was bad enough. It is likely that NETV was a "get out of jail" card from Granada in case they lost the NW, and indeed they probably would have done except for the Thames and YTV situations.

To think, if I could go back in time and have a word in Ian Ritchie's ear (TTTV's MD at the time), they could have survived with a much smaller payout. This would probably have had the effect of sending YTV packing, and possibly have resulted in a shotgun wedding between NWTV (mainly backed financially by the YTV board) and Granada -- bearing in mind that the main reason NWTV lost was the financial weakness of its two main backers, YTV and TTTV, who themselves had nearly lost their respective licences.

How different ITV would have turned out....

I would have told TVS to bi £20 million LESS!

I think the rules at the time meant that only one company was only allowed to run one region fully, Carlton and CPV decided to bid for three, but Carlton only got one, and CPV got all their bids thrown out.

Imagine if the structure didn't change at all? What would happen if Thames and TV-am were still here now?

But saying that the inevitable would have happened anyway, in that we would have one company running most of ITV. In today's terms too having four ITV Studios in London (Thames X2, LWT and TV-am) wouldn't probably financially good either, so at least one or two there would have gone.

You could go on all night doing the If's....., but we got what we got and we have to live with it.

LWT was the better of the two London company's

Certainately LWT was far superior than Carlton, but I always thought Thames was alot better, they to me seemed the BBC of ITV, they made alot of ITV's output, and were excellent in Dramas and Comedies, which are still being shown today in the UK and around the World.

Though I'm not saying LWT is crap, they're just as good, it's just I like more of Thames' output rather than LWT's.

No

I mean: LWT was Better than Thames

yes, yes ,ok.

there is a limit to how much we actually care what you think

I still wonder what would have happened it STV get hold of borders TV and Not ITV?

I think it wasn't that Central found they had no rivals - but did a deal with their rivals in that they would become production providers for Central if they didn't bid.

Are there Still Pay X amount EVERY Year right now?

Ie

still GMTV still paying £34,600,000 a year

and is Yorkshire also paying £37,700,000 a year

and SMG pay Will Grampian Television £720,000 plus £2000 for STV?

Is ITV Still pay Over £100milllion pound a years?