Thames/Carlton Takeover 1992/3

Hmmmmm, there were definately promotions for Carlton on air before 1993, though whether they only appeared on LWT or were paid for ads on Thames I can't remember.

Certainly in the last few days of Thames lots of the promo slots were taken up with cut downs of their closing montage

Yes, only LWT showed Carlton trailers.

They could very have well been paid for ads. Meridian had promos on TVS during Christmas 1992, except they often in the middle of ad breaks, rather than before or after.

Channel definitely opted out of the ten-minute Meridian launch show. I have seen the listings somewhere and ISTR something with a nondescript title like 'Happy New Year Channel Islands' was shown instead - presumably a pre-recorded filler of some sort.

I can't recall whether Channel showed the Thames offering before midnight but I'm sure they didn't take TVS's Goodbye show.

The reference to 'serving the Channel Islands' may have referred to the overnight service which was promoted as serving both regions. The Meridian in-vision announcer/presenter welcomed Channel Islands viewers to the new service later that morning. There was no Meridian branding on this overnight service though.

On the same subject, I stumbled across a customised TVS or Meridian promo which has the CTV logo flying across it. I can't find it now, not can I remember whether it was TVS or Mer.

They were certainly doing that with Meridian promos in the mid 90s - I'm sure there's an example on Youtube.

An example here at about 30 seconds in. And is the trailer 6 minutes in a Meridian one (that sun on the left looks like their symbol)?

Yeah, there were definitely Carlton trails in the last week of Thames along with those closing montages. I definitely remember a Superman II trailer ("New Year's Day on Carlton!") appearing on Thames on New Year's Eve - it might *only* have been Superman II because New Year's Day was a Friday so there wasn't much of Carlton to promote...

I don't recall any "we're Carlton and we'll be brilliant" style trails on Thames. Not sure if the London News Network "I'll be watching you" trail made it onto Thames, but it was definitely on LWT for two or three weekends, maybe more.

That's what I saw, well done that man !

While on screen they handled the crossover with some dignity, the mood behind the scenes was nasty.

Thames and Carlton (along with the rest of the network) had been at loggerheads throughout much of 1992 over Thames' programme rights. Apparently there was an agreement made previously which would have meant Thames couldn't repeat its programmes on a rival terrestrial channel for a ten year period (at the time Thames were bidding for Channel 5 so this could have been an issue). Thames retaliated by saying it wouldn't produce any new programmes for the network for the rest of its franchise, which would have left huge gaps in the schedule. In the end, the network relented.

They also tore up the rule book where it came to its local programming quota, and took the attitude of "what are they going to do... take our licence?"

Also, Thames had its share of the film rights for movies that were shown on the network, and it was a condition of its existing licence that they should be sold on to Carlton. Thames refused the offer that Carlton made, inflating the value by having Channel 5 Holdings (effectively Thames under a different name) offer £20 million for them, ,more than double what Carlton was offering. It went to court and Carlton ended up settling for around £14 million.

As a result of all this, where were just a handful of Carlton trailers shown in the last week of 1992, merely pointing to programmes that Thames would itself have advertised for the following week had it kept its licence.

In the opening promos of Meridian and Westcountry they feature people who 10 minutes earlier were waving goodbye to the old stations - Ian Stirling and Ruth Langsford, and Fred Dinage. I suppose they wanted to reassure the viewers that not everything had changed

Westward also pulled a strop in 1981 - they actually quit and TSW broadcasted under the Westward name for a few months until their franchise officially started.