Thames/LWT handovers

The Thames/LWT handover has come up in various threads in the past, I can't find a non-archived one to add this to.

Transdiffusion has posted part of an interview with Geoffrey Lugg, who was the Head of Presentation at Thames, in which he talks about pres in general and specifically the handover to LWT.

Of particular interest to me, he mentions how for a while the Thames announcer would hand over to the LWT announcer by name, and the LWT announcer would thank him. I know I've seen a video of that, but I assume it's no longer online.

https://soundcloud.com/transdiffusion/the-geoffrey-lugg-tapes-001

Fascinating stuff, and apparently more to follow.

Talking of referencing competitors, I found a clip of a Thames closedown the other day where the announcer trails the following morning's TV-am. I wonder what the arrangement was there.

I don't think Thames saw TV-am as competition in quite the same way as LWT - since 1972 when the government lifted its restrictions on how many hours broadcasting could take place for Thames would have been quite at liberty to launch its own breakfast service (see also Good Morning Calendar) had they felt it would be profitable to do so. On that basis, I suspect Thames felt that TV-am were welcome to those hours, and had no problem with giving them an occasional plug.

There's a couple of those on YouTube from Thames - other regions mention TV-AM starting at 6:15am so I'm not sure if it was unique to Thames. Certainly all the Central ones I've seen just mention the following evening's programmes.

In the clips I've seen Thames generally name check LWT, but LWT never return the favour and just get going in their brash style.

Except for a strange period when LWT News launched when they would crash on air straight into news headlines and no welcome at all, which was very un-LWT.

But of course for years 1982-87 it was Thames, - LWT - Thames news - LWT first programme,

f course there were short on time back then during 1988, with the news headlines before going straight into Blockbusters, Connections or winner takes all: Which must have been on a delay fee? or did the network hold back for a min?

I'm pretty sure that wasn't the norm during that period. Though it did happen, as there are videos of it, it must have only happened for a while

Usually the only Thames News bulletin appeared at 6, either in the 6 O Clock Show, or in the summer, by itself.

When the handover was at 19:00hrs the scheduled network programme (at least as seen on Southern and ATV) would start at 19:01:00 or 19:01:30

I guess the fact that as nominated contractor Thames and LWT had a lot of influence on the exact timings of the network schedules helped there.

Yes, and of course back then, BBC 1 had a 'random' schedule, with Nationwide ending at any time between
18:40 and 18:55, so no real reason for ITV to promptly (or prematurely !) start anything bang on 19:00hrs

I'm probably not the only Londoner who grew up in the 80s/90s who still in the back of their mind thinks of 5:15pm on a Friday as the "official" start of the weekend because of this handover.

LWT made a huge thing of it when their start time moved to 5.15 (replacing Thames News with the Six O'Clock Show, of course) which pretty much helped stamp that on my mind. I doubt I was the only small child in London who thought the "ITV1" button should be pressed when Thames was on air and "ITV2" for LWT. Ahem.

It's a real shame none of those early handovers seem to have survived (or at least made it to YouTube). Would be interesting to compare them with the 80s/90s, especially the punning "you're off to the South Bank! Have a great London Weekend"-style 5.15 farewells.