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When the new franchises were advertised at the end of 1966 the general assessment was that the new company, Yorkshire, was being introduced to dilute the power and profitability of the four major companies, and perhaps to make life more difficult for them; thereafter, change for the sake of change would bring in two or perhaps three new regional contractors.

The real problem facing us at ABC Television was how to find a new area to replace our ‘lost week-end’ as Peter Black of the Daily Mail called it. The company’s reputation stood high with the Authority, but it would now be homeless. London was our objective. Like the other companies, we thought that the Authority would be content with simply weakening Rediffusion by lopping off the Friday evening. We at ABC therefore decided to apply for the London two-and-a-half day week-end contract, and, as second choice, the seven-day Midlands contract. The boards of directors of all the companies had studied their potential revenue and costs figures before reaching decisions. There was little difficulty in convincing our own Board that although the extra evening’s programme in London would be costly, the resulting revenue for the week-end would provide a profit at least equalling ABC’s current £3,000,000 [£55,000,000 today, allowing for inflation] and perhaps more if we worked hard enough at it.

The Authority had been doing its own arithmetic. It was on the assessments of their canny Director of Finance, Tony Curbishley, that the Authority had divided the five contracts as evenly and as fairly as they could. Curbishley, who had access to all the details of every company’s finances, had worked out the potential revenue of each area, deducted the running costs, and he calculated that the net profit on each of the four major companies would be £3,000,000, with smaller Yorkshire below this level. It was Curbishley who had been responsible for re-dividing London’s revenue and he calculated that the total income would be evenly split if the London week-end contract began at 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. on Fridays. According to his figures both of the London companies should show a profit of £3,000,000. This confirmed the figures we had worked out and presented to our own Board. The fact that London Weekend failed to achieve such profits in the early years reflected their early difficulties and miscalculations.

And perhaps now was the opportunity for new blood to be infused? It soon began to leak out that certain BBC executives were being nominated by would-be new contractors and were, in fact, appearing at the Authority’s Brompton Road hearings alongside the new applicants. Then, ominously, Michael Peacock resigned from his job as Controller of BBC1 to join Aidan Crawley’s London Weekend Television consortium. Whilst other BBC executives were known to have allowed their names to go forward, to be revealed only to the Authority, we decided that some sort of assurance must have been given to Peacock before he would venture from security into the unknown. It was discovered that he had been nominated as Managing Director of the proposed company, and other BBC names began to emerge: Humphrey Burton (music and opera), Doreen Stephens (head of BBC children’s programmes), Frank Muir (supervisor of comedy shows) and also John Freeman and David Frost. Such expertise and renown would be almost irresistible to Lord Hill.

By this time there was confusion and suspicion in the ITV boardrooms and on the third floor at the BBC. For everyone concerned, the final pronouncement by Lord Hill could not come too soon. The Authority reached its final decisions on the new contractors at their meeting towards the end of May and it was decided that the Chairman would make the announcement two days later, on a Sunday, to avoid Stock Exchange reactions.

On the fateful Sunday morning the Chairmen of the three London contenders returned with their cohorts to Brompton Road for their final interviews with Lord Hill and Sir Robert Fraser. Thus it was that London Weekend was awarded the programme contract it had sought, while John Spencer Wills, Chairman of Rediffusion Television, was told by Lord Hill of the Authority’s decision – which was to merge Rediffusion with ABC Television and to award the London weekday contract to the new joint company. There would be an equal sharing of profits but fifty-one per cent of the voting shares and the control of the new company would go to ABC, who would provide the managing director and the controller of programmes. Lord Hill described John Spencer Wills’ reaction as ‘deeply shocked, if not flabbergasted, but courteous throughout’.

Next it was ABC Television’s turn and I went with my Chairman, Sir Philip Warter and the deputy-chairman Robert Clark. We were given the same formula, with the addition that Lord Hill and Sir Robert Fraser congratulated me on my appointment as Managing Director of the new London company. It was only on the day after the meeting with Lord Hill and Bob Fraser that I began to realise fully the enormity of the task upon which I had been so suddenly embarked. My first thought was for the staff; nearly three thousand men and women employed by both companies were now reading in their newspapers that something had happened to their jobs. To operate the new company (and what should we call it?) for four-and-a-half days in London would need fewer staff than Rediffusion employed and more than had worked for ABC. There would be jobs for little more than half of the total payroll of the merged companies. Lord Hill had already tried to quell rising apprehension among the ITV workers by a promise that there would be a job for everyone – somewhere.

It was important too to retain the most valuable programme executives and I had to make rapid decisions as to who should be in control of the six programme departments, bearing in mind the equal division between the two original companies and the knowledge that some people had committed themselves already to new contractors.

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This brought incessant problems of morale and money. The ABC staff, trained in Manchester, were facing upheaval from their comfortable homes to start afresh in a ‘foreign’ city. Studio staffs had their loyalties split down the middle and were uncertain whether they would be working for LWT or for the new and unnamed company arising from the demise of ABC and Rediffusion.

ABC paid out half a million [£9 million now allowing for inflation] in redundancy settlements, and Rediffusion almost twice as much. There was also the question of pensions, and transfer of rights. Since Rediffusion’s pension funds had been invested with typical business acumen there were handsome benefits for those whose careers had developed with the growth of their company. Somehow we managed to keep ABC Television going and by the end of our last financial year (March 1968) we had a turnover of £11,753,000 [£203,000,000] and showed a trading profit of £2,159,000 [£37,350,000]. The parent Corporation could have no complaint about the return on its original investment.

When we came to giving the company its name I was resolutely opposed to any more initials. I had always envied the solidity and sturdiness of a single word like Granada or Rediffusion. I believe in descriptive titles for companies and products and I would have liked to include the magic word ‘London’ but already this belonged to London Weekend Television. (I had no regrets when they began to use the initials LWT for in the process they lost some of the impact of the word ‘London’.)

As well, I wanted a name that would lend itself to a graphic symbol. My first thought was Tower Television, combining the symbols of the old and the new, Tower Bridge and the General Post Office tower. In the end we settled for the name of Thames, influenced partly because our Teddington studios were alongside the river, near the ancient lock. It was also a name of international recognisability and our future expansion lay in world-wide sales. Above all, Thames was a romantic name, for many have come to London as I did, to stand on the bridges and gaze on the breath-taking skylines. My own favourite skyline was the rooftops of Whitehall, as seen from the bridge over the lake in Green Park, and it was this that led to the London skyline which became the symbol of Thames Television. We did take artistic liberties with our spires and somehow the Post Office tower popped up from behind St Paul’s Cathedral. The London Evening News calmly ‘lifted’ the skyline idea, turned it into a silhouette and used the result as their own symbol. We could hardly object, because London belongs to all of us who live and work there.

The signature music came to me when I saw a gypsy woman selling lavender in a Chelsea street. She was singing ‘Who’ll buy my sweet lavender?’ The street cries of London were the very first singing ‘commercials’. When the day came to launch Thames officially with a rather pompous opening ceremony at Mansion House, Lord Mayor and all, a pretty girl strolled into the gold-plated hall with a trayful of sprigs of lavender, singing ‘our song’. She happened to be a soprano from Sadler’s Wells, but the simple melody was a refreshing change from the customary fanfares. Some fortunate composer was commissioned to ‘orchestrate’ the tune, almost to the point of unrecognisability I regret to say, and it probably provided him with a pension for life.

But it was not all harmony in Television House when we began to move in to the former Rediffusion headquarters. I took a corner office in the building, from where I sighted Ivor Novello’s former roof-top flat, and Thames’ occupation began whilst the remaining staff of Rediffusion were still struggling loyally to complete the advertised programme schedule. Brian Tesler was already planning our new ‘mix’ for London weekdays. We decided on which ABC series to retain, and which of Rediffusion’s. Beyond that we planned new series like Frontier, a vigorous North West India episodic tale of war and love. For economy reasons this had to be filmed in the mountains of North Wales, which surprisingly were not all that different from the authentic Himalayas.

Rediffusion’s venerable current affairs programme This Week, was an inevitable choice, but we decided to drop the two quiz programmes which had overstayed their welcome and possibly had handicapped Rediffusion in their application, Take Your Pick and Double Your Money. We also decided to discontinue ATV’s Crossroads because of the poor quality of scripts and acting compared with Coronation Street. This turned out to be a mistake and the series had to be brought back by sheer public insistence. For this reason Crossroads episodes transmitted in the London area always languished six months behind the Birmingham sequences. Only years later were the episodes synchronised, with Noelle Gordon interpreting to the London audience in a special ‘what-happened-then’ edition the missing strands of the endless saga.

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There was little accord at the top. The brilliant lawyer, Eric Fletcher, as Deputy Chairman, was an imaginative appointment by Warner Brothers and his strong personality influenced the Chairman, Sir Philip Warter, who was in a role where confidence, drive and leadership were essential. The combination of the Chairman and Deputy Chairman, backed by the might of Warner Brothers, made it almost impossible for the main survivor of the original John Maxwell team, Robert Clark, to produce important British films at Elstree studios or to expand the Corporation beyond cinema exhibition. The power struggles at the summit kept the Board of the Corporation occupied with its internal affairs whilst in the City ABPC became regarded as dormant, ripe for take-over.

Over the years many bidders had been rumoured and as the fortunes of Warner Brothers themselves fluctuated in the United States, and the ageless Jack Warner began at last to grow venerable, approaches for the Warner holding in ABPC were openly discussed in the United States. British Government regulations controlling the ownership of British cinemas and studios had tightened up since the original wartime transaction, and American film organisations regarded some of the difficulties as insurmountable. The financial success of the Corporation’s only important subsidiary, ABC Television, had made the prospect more valuable but correspondingly more difficult, because of the strict limitations on foreign control of a British commercial television company. At least one of the American networks had studied ABPC’s financial structure primarily for the possibility of gaining ABC Television but the Government’s safeguards effectively protected British ownership.

The Board of ABPC did surprisingly little to defend its vulnerability or to expand its activities. Robert Clark, who had become a millionaire through his dealings in the property market, was understood to be anxious to acquire all or part of the Warner shares if they were offered for sale, but if this was his ambition it was never fulfilled. Meantime his expertise in property values had steered the Corporation towards its wealth in the ownership of cinemas occupying valuable central sites in hundreds of towns and cities.

The Corporation squatted on its mountain of cinemas like a sitting hen. Detailed reports were prepared for them on other industries, other companies, other ventures. Bulky grew the portfolios but the decision was almost inevitably a rejection or a postponement. It took me long years to push, nudge and coax the Corporation into Independent Television. When ABC Television became their most important asset, apart from the properties they owned, I did my best to urge them further into associated fields of opportunity. As the profits from television multiplied these were diverted into the ailing cinema business. The cinema executives, who predominated on the Board, were campaigning for the television profits to be invested in bowling centres on the basis that it was a fad which America had adopted and Britain would follow. It was also a practical way of using empty cinemas which had ceased to pay their way.

I was the only director arguing that we should diversify into by-products of television, particularly wired television. Granada had started up in this activity, as well as in music and publishing. ATV was in records, music and theatres. Rediffusion had not only expanded its wired television business but had acquired Wembley Stadium and was investing in other branches of entertainment.

I almost lost heart after I had brought to the boardroom an attractive opportunity for them to acquire an interest in one of the most promising television relay companies, Telefusion Ltd. This was the outcome of a relationship I had developed with the solid John Wilkinson who had started this company from his first shop in Blackpool and built up Telefusion into a powerful force in our northern area. He had a further asset in his equally hardworking and highly efficient son, and it was obvious that this company had a future. Together we worked towards a share deal between Telefusion and ABC Television. This was the flaw, because the Corporation wanted no partners, only cast-iron safe investments. I was depressed by their eventual and embarrassing rejection, because they lacked the vision to recognise the classic situation of a growing business with inbuilt management prowess.

Instead, the profits from ABC Television were poured into the conversion of a dozen cinemas into bowling centres. The venture collapsed and, a few years later, as the bowling centres were closed down, one after another, I watched Telefusion climb to a leading place in the wired television market, and eventually become successful applicants for the Yorkshire programme franchise.

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The majority shareholder, who also provided the majority of the staff and management, was the former ABC Weekend Television, owned by the Associated British Picture Corporation.

ABC Weekend had begun in 1956, serving the Midlands and the North on Saturdays and Sundays from Aston in Birmingham and Didsbury in Manchester.

Being the smallest of the “Big 4” companies of the time and covering the largest area for the smallest time, it wasn’t long before ABC Weekend decided (with a push from the ITA) to concentrate resources on their presentation in order to make a mark.

Along with this concentration, they took over the former Warner Bros studios in Teddington and began to produce some of ITV’s best-known programming of “the golden age” – The Avengers, ABC Armchair Theatre, Redcap and many others.

When the ITV contracts came up for renewal in 1967, ABC applied for the London weekends (Friday evening to Sunday night) contract with a high confidence of success, having been something of the golden boy in the ITA’s eye.

The minority shareholder was Rediffusion London, owned by British Electric Traction and BET’s subsidiary Broadcast Relay Services, began life as a joint venture with Associated Newspapers, calling itself Associated-Rediffusion (A-R).

A-R was the first ITV station on air, launching in September 1955, and held the “plum” contract for London weekdays – at that time including Friday evenings.

Associated Newspapers sold the majority of their shareholding during the very lean times at the start of the service, when all the ITV companies were unprofitable and haemorrhaging money.

The name Associated-Rediffusion, however, lasted on air until 1964, when, with competition from the new BBC-2 and the pirate radio stations combining with a major change of fashion and style in the UK, the company relaunched itself on air as Rediffusion, London.

As the most powerful ITV company, and as incumbent, Rediffusion were very confident of retaining their licence when the ITA announced the contract reviews. They were so confident, in fact, that much of the interview was spent lecturing the regulator on how television was done and how little the regulator knew how to do it. Also thrown in for good measure was a complaint about the loss of Friday evenings when the next contracts began.

This arrogance, for want of a better word, annoyed the abrasive chairman of the ITA, Lord Hill of Luton. The insult was made worse when the management leading the bid left, only for some of them to return as leading lights in other consortia.

Lord Hill already had a tough decision to make as to where ABC, its existing regions abolished, would fit into the new system. Rediffusion’s arrogance and the treachery of its senior management weakened their position in his eyes.

With an absolutely startling bid from the great and the good of broadcasting for the London weekends contract, Lord Hill and his Authority would need to make some very tough choices.

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The press in the week before had taken delight in authoritatively speculating that certain companies were doomed. STV in Glasgow was going. One of the regionals would be restructured. A merger between Southern and someone was on hand.

The reality was very different but just as shocking. TWW, the dual broadcaster to Wales and western England, was out, replaced by a dazzling array of names headed by Richard Burton.

London weekends went to the London Television Consortium, made up of some of the senior management of the BBC plus other big names. ATV was therefore stripped of its London foothold.

The new Yorkshire region went to the Telefusion rentals and pipe-TV company, on condition that they took up the talent and management of the rival Yorkshire Independent Television consortium.

With all that and the headlines for Monday’s newspapers practically writing themselves (Richard Burton top, David Frost second, Telefusion on the inside pages), the announcement about the London weekdays contract must have seemed dry and technical.

It certainly didn’t seem to be a revolution. After all, neither the incumbent, Rediffusion, nor the displaced ABC had lost out.

Instead there would be a technical change as the two combined to provide programmes from Monday morning till Friday afternoon.

That ABC was given a slim majority of the company was barely noticed. That the ITA had specified the Howard Thomas of ABC was to be the MD and that he was to have a free hand in choosing the staff and management also slipped past.

Most journalists saw nothing to write up about – just a boardroom manoeuvre here and name change (possibly) there. Richard Burton and David Frost seemed much more important.

The journalists probably missed a trick. Far from being a simple merger between two companies to run an existing service, this was a revolution.

Rediffusion were completely humiliated. From being the premier ITV company, they switched to having a large investment in someone else’s premier ITV company.

ABC, that minnow in the Midlands and North, frequently confused with ATV and always fighting its London weekend rival for access to the peak London audience, suddenly came into possession of the commanding heights of ITV.

What no-one asked, because no-one realised exactly what this meant, was if ABC was up to the job. And would Rediffusion go quietly?

The journalists went back to their desks and wrote about Richard Burton’s private life and David Frost’s public life and produced profiles on little Telefusion.

Meanwhile, Howard Thomas sat down and started to consider the really important issues.

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There were an enormous number of variables to consider, amongst them being:

• The staff at the two companies had to be kept busy running them for a year.
• A small stockpile of new programmes would be needed ready for launch day.
• The company had too many studios.
• Both ABC and Rediffusion had other businesses and large international earnings they didn’t want to share with each other.
• The two companies had overlapping departments.
• Colour was on the horizon, meaning investment in technology and training was urgently required.
• The new station needed a name and an identity.

Staff

The two companies still had a job to do until July 1968 and still had to make programmes, sell adverts and make a profit for the parent companies in that time.

Therefore the staff, whilst facing redeployment (everyone was, at least, guaranteed a job somewhere in ITV, somewhere in the UK) had to be kept happy and in full creative flow.

Stockpiling

The original companies had had the chance to produce some “in the can” productions before coming on air in the mid-1950s, but with most of television being live they weren’t much needed.

By 1967, most of television was on video and film. The audience, once so enamoured of live productions, now cared less for them and wanted more polish to their programming. A “year zero” when the new contracts began, using bought in, repeated or just live material wasn’t possible. New production needed to be ready for day one.

Studios

The new company would have studios in Didsbury, Aston, Teddington, Wembley and Kingsway.

Didsbury would have to close and the staff redeployed elsewhere in ITV; Aston would go to ATV; Teddington was too great a prize to give up; Wembley was a direct competitor for Teddington but closing it would mean redeployment of the staff; Television House in Kingsway was a wonderful fancy London headquarters but inconveniently sited and expensive to lease from BET.

These would need to be rationalised, but with one eye on the coming of colour.

Other interests

Despite being subsidiaries rather than independent corporations, both ABC and Rediffusion London had diversified.

They had also developed nice lines in foreign sales, which brought in foreign currency, always in short supply and much wanted by business and government alike.

A straight merger of Associated British Cinemas (Television) Limited and Rediffusion Television Limited was therefore out of the question: ABPC wouldn’t give half of its Avengers dollars to BET.

The two parent companies, the Associated British Picture Corporation and British Electric Traction (who also controlled Broadcast Relay Services, the other shareholder in Rediffusion London) wouldn’t consider a merger either. They had nothing in common and no reason to do so just because their two most profitable subsidiaries were considering it.

Therefore, a new company would have to be formed, co-owned by the original companies or their parents, and the existing television subsidiaries would need to carry on their separate existences to manage the non-merged parts.

Overlaps

ABC and Rediffusion were the only two of the “Big 4” not in competition with each other. They were separated both regionally and chronologically and had never had that much to do with each other.

But both had news and features departments, drama and comedy directors, sport and OB controllers. Only Rediffusion had a Schools Department, but then many of Rediffusion’s department heads had fled to the new London weekends consortium.

Luckily, that very same consortium was in the market to pick up department heads anyway, making redeployment easier; nevertheless, the new company would not have double the staff of the old – people would need to be asked to leave.

Colour

The coming of colour, much promised but now actually on the horizon and written into the new contracts, meant that existing studio equipment would be rendered defunct.

Camera operators and vision mixers would have to retrain in the new higher-definition line standard; engineers would need to learn how to correct a whole new set of faults.

This meant a lot of investment back stage would be required, and also meant that the studio rationalisation would need to be carefully thought through in case money was wasted.

Identity

Of all the things to worry about, the station’s name and identity would be the lowest of problems – until the station went on air.

Once launched, a botched identity would alienate viewers and advertisers. Viewers would feel less loyal; advertisers would get confused.

Therefore, the question needed careful consideration at board level. And, with the new board uncomfortably split between Rediffusion and ABC members busy dealing with the arguments and problems of the merger/new company plans, the board was the one place where rows and entrenched views would come out into the open over something so trivially important (or importantly trivial) and lead to an unworkable compromise.

Some of these questions would be solved quickly. Some would need the Authority to step in and demand a decision. Some would devolve on the shoulders of Howard Thomas, the new MD. And some would be being fought over long after the new company had gone on air.

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Out of all of the ITV franchises that have existed, the names of Thames and Granada have proved to be the most enduring throughout the history of ITV, despite Thames only existing from 1968 onwards.

Whilst Granada still hangs on to its ITV franchise in the North West of England as well as acquiring all the other English ITV franchises (plus Wales) through a succession of takeovers and mergers, the reputation of Thames Television as an ITV franchise seems to have survived both the test of time and the arguably diminished status of its modern incarnation, Talkback Thames.

It is strongly arguable that given hindsight it was probably a good thing that Thames lost its franchise when it did, meaning that its reputation for good quality programming lived on intact without having to suffer the fate of a forced takeover/sell off or decline through neglect as a result of a lack of regulation. Thames was a product of a ‘shotgun marriage’ between the UK ABC and Rediffusion’s television production divisions, with their respective parent companies remaining separate from the newly created entity.

In theory this would create the ‘best of both worlds’ for the London weekday franchise, though ABC being the ‘dominant’ partner with a 51% share of Thames (compared with 49% for Rediffusion) got to make all the most important decisions during the early days of Thames’ operations, and inevitably picked the best bits from the Rediffusion division whilst discarding the rest as unwanted leftovers.

This created a fair deal of resentment amongst some staff and seemed rather harsh at the time, but the end result was a fearsomely talented powerhouse of an ITV franchise that continued the good work that ABC (and Rediffusion) had started and went on to perhaps eclipse both of these franchises in terms of public recognition. At the time of the 1968 franchise changes, the loss of ABC in particular (as well as Rediffusion) from the ITV network was probably almost as traumatic as the loss of Thames from the network in 1993, but whilst Carlton had an unproven track record, Thames by contrast at least had a previous track record as ABC and Rediffusion, although of course the loss of Rediffusion was to be compensated for in part by the introduction of Yorkshire Television.

Thames launched with a mixture of programming inherited from its ABC predecessor plus some new ideas of its own. Thames may have innovated but it wasn’t afraid to copy either, and this was especially apparent in the field of children’s programming: Once Upon A Time (produced in 1968) was a copy of the BBC’s Jackanory, and the famous Magpie series was a blatant copy of Blue Peter (the title alone illustrates the intent!) except of course it was ‘trendier’. Blue Peter was (wrongly) perceived by some as being solely for “middle-class mother’s boys” whilst Magpie was its hipper and socially aware equivalent. Of course, Blue Peter had the last laugh in terms of its longevity and enduring popularity.

Before the age of computer graphics, television producers had to be creative in order to produce the type of special effects that are sometimes required for a particular programme, therefore a much greater technical knowledge of the workings of television was required in order to produce the effects in the first place, and their production was often also labour-intensive.

Indeed Thames almost ‘cornered the market’ in terms of the use of special effects at one point, though other ITV franchises such as Granada had used chromakey effects (superimposing one image upon another one) plus ATV (and others) used similar effects in productions such as Sapphire and Steel.

Notable Thames productions that were produced during the 1970s and 80s featuring an extensive use of special effects included The Kenny Everett Video Show and The Benny Hill Show, as well as one-off special productions such as Quincy’s Quest. Thames was in many respects the cosmopolitan ‘city-dweller’ both in terms of its programming and its presentation, with the long-running and popular London skyline ident in particular illustrating the values that Thames stood for.

This however might have made it slightly unpopular with viewers who lived on the fringes of the coverage area; in particular the parts of Kent that were served by the Bluebell Hill UHF transmitter up to 1982 when it was belatedly reallocated to the new enhanced regional service supplied by newcomer TVS. (Southern’s VHF coverage from the Dover transmitter had also included the Bluebell Hill UHF coverage area.)

And of course there were more than a few ITV viewers who wished that they could have had Thames as their local ITV contractor instead of the one that they were ‘lumbered’ with, which was especially the case if you lived in the city and had no interest in yachting or farming (which seemed to be Southern Television’s speciality), though it’s also arguable that there was a touch of “the grass is greener the other side of the fence” about this rationale.

Going back to Southern, its general on-screen presentation was actually not bad at all, and it’s arguable that viewers of Southern Television weren’t missing that much since all the worthwhile Thames programming ended up being networked anyway. Southern’s successor, TVS, was an interesting case in itself since TVS decided that it wanted to be taken seriously as a producer of networked programmes, and for a brief period during the late 1980s onward it more or less met its objectives with programmes such as Catchphrase and the Brian Conley Show being shown peak time on the ITV network.

This period however coincided with perhaps one of the weakest points in the history of Thames (which was primarily caused by financial turmoil) and there was perhaps a degree of interaction between the two events that TVS took advantage of for its own gain, though of course TVS was to ultimately suffer the same fate as Thames (if for perhaps more understandable reasons).

But of course with Thames Television there was an unmistakable ‘glamour’ factor about its programmes, even though Thames was more than capable of providing gritty and down-to-earth offerings if the case demanded it; don’t forget that it was the controversial Death On The Rock that may have been partly responsible for Thames’ demise even if it wasn’t the sole reason for this happening.

The quality of Thames’ output went hand in hand with the showbiz glamour that London as a capital city usually signified, and it is arguable that this may have given Thames a slight edge over Granada when it came to overseas sales; indeed the Thames name was chosen with overseas markets in mind, since the old ABC name could easily be confused with both the unrelated US ABC network and the Australian ABC. (ABC was spelt out as “Associated British Corporation” at the end of The Avengers, for example, since that series was sold abroad.)

Ultimately it was only the BBC that could ever directly take on Thames in the comedy and light entertainment departments, and it’s also arguable that even ATV and Granada couldn’t entirely match the depth and breadth of Thames’ entire output throughout its existence; Granada may have been strong in some areas but its light entertainment output never reached the heights of the Morecambe and Wise Show and ATV’s current affairs programming was weaker by comparison.

Maybe if LWT also had another franchise it could have become a closer equivalent to Thames, though of course this is in the realms of speculation, but a hint as to this potential was obtained when TVS increased its networked programming towards the end of its franchise period courtesy of a deal with LWT. And it may be easy to scoff at some of the sitcoms that Thames came up with – two that spring to mind include Robin’s Nest and George and Mildred – but they were very well produced and probably better than anything that the ITV network has produced in terms of sitcoms since 1990.

By way of comparison, the only ITV sitcom to have even been considered to be of any worth during the last fifteen years is probably Holding the Baby (starring Nick Hancock and later on Hugh Bonneville).

Unfortunately, all good things inevitably come to an end, and the demise of Thames at the start of 1993 seemed to leave a large hole in the epicentre of the ITV network that Carlton had no hope of filling even with the best of intentions; there was just too much in the way of established production heritage embedded within Thames as a broadcaster, and Carlton would have had to devoted an insane quantity of resources in both money and manpower in order to even come close to matching this.

On top of this there seemed to be a degree of apathy in Carlton’s networked output that was present for the first five or so years that didn’t help either. So is it possible to legitimately claim that Thames Television was the best ITV franchise in the history of the universe? The answer to that highly contentious question is probably “Yes”; other ITV franchises may have survived longer (Granada) or produced long running light entertainment spectaculars (ATV) but ATV’s serious output didn’t match that of Thames or Granada – ATV never produced anything current affairs-related on a regular basis that was a match for This Week or World in Action.

And Granada may have been reasonably strong in light entertainment but it never produced anything of the calibre of The Morecambe and Wise Show. Indeed the only genre that Thames didn’t quite succeed in making its own was that of the soap opera; Granada had Coronation Street, Yorkshire had Emmerdale Farm and ATV produced Crossroads, although ironically The Bill was effectively transformed into a soap years after Thames lost its franchise.

And others may have arguably matched Thames in the quality of presentation, but often fell down in other areas such as programme quality; Thames may have made some ‘bad’ programming from time to time but even the mediocre was often more watchable than the majority of today’s schedule filler material.

We will probably never see another UK commercial TV company that will ever be as widely respected or as competent as Thames Television was, and UK television as a whole has become poorer as a result after the demise of Thames; the critics’ reports of early Carlton programming really hammered home the message about the resulting loss of quality, and despite the resilience of the ITV network as a whole, this and the subsequent decline in standards caused by a weakening regulatory framework meant the beginning of the end for quality television which just happens to be funded by commercials, as opposed to just being a slave to advertisers and shareholders’ demands.

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Here is Thames, a vigorous young company, producing programmes which continue to win worldwide acclaim, able to carry proudly back to Britain for a second year the most coveted award in the whole of international broadcasting. Here is Thames earning £3m annually in foreign currency for Britain, by exporting its programmes to more than a hundred countries overseas. Yet simultaneously and paradoxically here is Thames, in common with the rest of Independent Television and the BBC, under yet another scrutiny and with yet more uncertainty about its future. It is a situation which puzzles our broadcasting colleagues throughout the world. When I go to countries like Australia, where British programmes are regarded as the excellence to which their own productions must aspire, the idea of these continuing enquiries into television is regarded as a British eccentricity. Unfortunately, it is not so amusing for the people who work in broadcasting.

What is especially difficult for us in ITV is the double standard which is so often applied by those who write about, talk about, or take part in committees about us. For our part we are prepared to admit frankly that when ITV began 22 years ago, commercial necessity produced a service that was engrossed with ratings and seeking to maintain its existence. But that was very long ago. ITV has now achieved a public service of high quality, rivalling anything that broadcasting can offer in Britain or elsewhere in the world – and limited only by expansion into an additional channel. It is no accident that ITV companies have become increasingly attractive to some of the finest talents in the BBC: men and women who would not join an inferior service however rich the rewards.

Nevertheless there are still people reluctant to acknowledge how ITV has developed, from its beginnings as the brash newcomer of 1956. The BBC, for example, still refers to its monopoly of public service broadcasting’. A respected critic, writing in the Sunday Times, suggested that a BBC play about welfare state bureaucracy ‘would have had no chance’ of being screened ‘on the commercial networks’. There remains a kind of snobbism behind such blinkered attitudes.

THE ANNAN COMMITTEE mostly managed to avoid this trap, but then made some surprising conclusions. Having recognised that ITV now offers programmes quite as good as, and in some cases superior to, the BBC; having acknowledged that ‘it is difficult to make comparisons when the BBC has two channels’ and that ‘ITV output cannot be expected to have the range which BBC can provide on two channels’; and having argued for the inauguration of a fourth channel as ‘a challenge to broadcasters’ and ‘a nursery for new forms and new methods of presenting ideas’ the Committee then promptly rejected the proposal that it should be run by the ITV companies. They claimed there would then be a risk of giving the public more of what they already had, and intensified competition between ITV and BBC.

This is out of touch with reality. The best way to make a fourth channel thrive, in a world where the viewer increasingly expects free choice of what he watches, is to dovetail it with ITV’s current service. A fourth channel having to compete against BBC’s two and ITV’s one would be fighting a losing battle, which all the taxpayer subsidy in the world could not win. The result would be an elitist service for a tiny minority of viewers, subsidised at enormous public cost. Yet one of the main areas in which ITV producers can fairly claim to have established unequalled experience and success is in popularising minority subjects. That experience, coupled with complementary – not competitive – scheduling between ITVl and ITV2, is the key to providing a new and exciting service on the fourth channel.

AS TO THE ASSERTION that ITV2 would provide ‘more of the same’, there are scores of ITV programme makers who are clamouring for the chance to prove this judgement of Annan wrong, once the straitjacket of a single channel has been removed. But if we were to assume that the staff and managements of ITV companies would want to produce on ITV2 a service identical to ITV1, the machinery of the Independent Broadcasting Authority is there to prevent such a duplication. We at Thames (and most of our colleagues in ITV) would expect to provide an ITV2 service which is obliged by statute and by IBA control to fulfil requirements not yet met by ITV or BBC. One of those, for which we put forward the original proposals in 1971, is the acquisition of programmes from independent producers for showing at peak time. We would welcome these additional freelances, though I suspect that they are neither so numerous nor so devoid of opportunity as the critics of BBC and ITV suggest. The fact remains, however, that the ITV companies are already equipped to provide a service which will meet the philosophical demands of the Annan Committee and also win a sizeable audience. Alternatives to ITV2 can do the first, but not the second.

The Annan Committee reported almost a year ago. As I write, the Home Office is about to produce the results of its deliberations on that report. So once again broadcasters have halted to await their future. We wait also to hear when and how the new IBA contracts are to be advertised and awarded. At Thames we await with confidence the confirmation that our record will ensure the continuation of our contract in the future. But we wait. And while we wait, we have to go on working.

Elsewhere in this Review you can see what ‘going on working’ means. In 1977 it meant producing 300 hours of programmes for our region and a further 700 for the ITV network. It meant raising a bountiful revenue from our advertisers, establishing new records. It meant selling more programmes overseas than any ITV company has ever done before.

Those achievements are made possible by what I believe to be the most professional staff in British television. But those bare facts could imply that Thames in 1977 was identical in all respects to Thames in 1976, ploughing the same familiar furrow. Far from it.

IN 1977 we introduced Thames At 6 – a daily regional programme which replaced the former Today and brought Andrew Gardner from ITN to be its chief presenter. Already the new programme has been praised for its impact, and this is only the first stage of impressive developments in television journalism covering local news and current affairs.

In 1977 we introduced Time For Business, a weekly 45-minute programme for the London region, not only a forum for the world of business, manufacturing and the city, but emphasising to the general public the importance of business and its contribution to their life style. Presented by the unique popularising talent of Eamonn Andrews, the programme is ITV’s first in the field. It arose directly from the consultation between business and union leaders and ITV companies, promoted by the Independent Broadcasting Authority.

In 1977 our outstandingly successful Light Entertainment Department produced another string of entirely new hits. There were the situation comedies The Upchat Line and Miss Jones & Son; the sparkling variety shows Night Out At The London Casino; and a range of superbly spectacular productions, including the highly acclaimed Tommy Steele And A Show, now chosen to represent ITV at this year’s Golden Rose of Montreux.

In 1977, the year in which the Annan Committee put into ITV’s mouth the words ‘If the public prefers series, why produce one-off dramas?’, Thames’ Drama Department in fact transmitted in peak time two seven-part series and fourteen ‘one-off dramas’, or plays.

DETAILS OF THESE and other innovations are in the Managing Director’s accompanying report of the year’s programmes, together with information about other imaginative projects. But it is not only in our programmes that new developments are to be found.

In 1977 our Technical and Engineering Department, in addition to its many other technological developments, launched a new Outside Broadcast unit of its own design, which packs into a single vehicle the resources of a vast studio.

In 1977 our Sales Department launched Enterprise, its own entirely new computerised airtime sales system, which provides a faster, more comprehensive service to advertisers and also increases the efficiency of our internal operation.

In 1977, with London Looks Forward, Thames created and financed an unprecedented investigation and debate about London’s future, on which the Duke of Edinburgh commented: ‘This is the first time a television company has become so deeply involved in the organisation of a project of such great public interest. It must also be the first time that a television company has managed to establish what might be described as two-way communication with the public.’

Those are considerable achievements, but it is inevitable that hundreds of other successes go unrecorded in a formal Chairman’s statement. The award of the OBE to our brilliant Controller of Light Entertainment Philip Jones and other honours to our staff – and the programme awards, both to complete production teams and to individuals like cameraman Nick Downie (Royal Television Society News Feature Award) and designers Alex Clarke and Rod Stratfold (RTS Design Award for Rock Follies) bring pleasure and pride to all of us. In the same way, the achievements of week-by-week programmes like Help!, Money-Go-Round and Magpie (which has now raised more than half a million pounds for children’s charities), go largely unsung although they remain a crucial part of our service to the public, especially to the underprivileged. These are not the routine achievements of some shapeless thing called a company, but the creation of dedicated, imaginative people; for people are the main ingredient of a television programme company.

DURING THE YEAR we have made several changes in our structure and management, building a younger team to move Thames forward. This energetic group is now led by Mr Bryan Cowgill, the outstanding BBC programme maker and channel controller, who joined us as Managing Director in October. He took over from Mr George A. Cooper who had reached his retirement age after contributing so much to ITV as well as to our company. The first Sales Director both for ABC Television and for Thames Television, Mr Cooper succeeded me as Managing Director in 1974. His knowledge and advice continue to be available to us on a consultancy basis.

AFTER TEN SUCCESSFUL YEARS, changes in the Board were inevitable. One of our earliest directors, Mr Humphrey Tilling, formerly Company Secretary of EMI Limited, and a member of its Board, also came to retirement age. The wise and polished contributions of Mr Tilling will he missed at our Board meetings, but we shall continue to enjoy hearing his scintillating after-dinner speeches at our social events. In his place, we are fortunate to have another EMI director, Mr John M. Kuipers, particularly because of Mr Kuipers experience of electronics and his recent supervision of EMI’s interests in Australia and the Far East. Retirement age was also the reason for the resignation of one of our two independent directors, Lord Wolfenden, and we were sorry to lose his guidance on educational programmes, dating back to his pioneer work on the Schools Advisory Committee in 1957, when Rediffusion Television introduced the first television programmes for schools. Succeeding him as another non-executive independent director we are fortunate to have the services and experience of the distinguished film and television producer, Lord Brabourne.

The collaboration between Bryan Cowgill and our Director of Programmes, Jeremy Isaacs, is already producing new ideas, new programmes and new ways of extending our public service. At the time of Mr Cowgill’s appointment, the Board also made other changes to the senior management. Ian Scott became Director of Administration and Finance, with Jim Shaw continuing as Director of Sales and Marketing. A new senior management team was formed to work alongside the four executive Board members: Muir Sutherland, Managing Director of Thames Television International; Bob Godfrey, technical and Engineering Director; John Hambley, Planning and Development Director; and John O’Keefe, Industrial Relations Director, with Ben Marr continuing as Company Secretary.

All the promotions involved in these moves, and those immediately resulting from them, are internal appointments from among our existing management. At the same time, we have begun to make structural changes to our departmental system where we think them necessary. Current Affairs and Documentaries have now been split, for example, into two different departments under Mike Wooller and Peter Pagnamenta. Further changes will follow, including the establishment of the ambitious Regional News Unit about which the Managing Director writes elsewhere.

NEW POLICIES ARE EMERGING at Thames, for example, in relation to sport and to filmed programmes. When Rediffusion Television, the pioneer London weekday contractor, was merged by the Authority with ABC Television, the weekend contractor for the North and Midlands, then dominating the Saturday/Sunday afternoon audiences, LWT took over ABC’s World of Sport with outstanding success; but no longer can ITV sport be concentrated into the weekend. With such international sports specialists as Bryan Cowgill, Managing Director of Thames, and Paul Fox, Managing Director of Yorkshire, recruited into the Independent Network, there should now be vigorous competition with the BBC on weekday sports coverage and commentaries.

In terms of filmed programmes, and with all the studios of Thames Television now overflowing with both live and videotaped programmes, this company must turn increasingly to the medium of film to augment its programme output. The international success of Sweeney!, in the cinema as well as on television, has proved that British drama series of the highest quality can be filmed entirely on location, and therefore Thames’ subsidiary film company, Euston Films, will extend its production.

Benefiting by all the expertise which has been gained by this company over its busy seven years, Thames Television will now take the further step of making a series of full-length feature films for television. It is hoped to revive and refurbish the reputation of British feature films at their very best, except that these films will not be produced for the cinema, hut for today’s greater audience television.

To the makers of our past and future programmes, and to every member of the staff of Thames Television, I express thanks for a highly successful year, and look forward to another period of exciting progress.

The post Chairman’s statement appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

For us it’s a wedding anniversary.
Here are some pictures of the kids.

For some ITV companies this is a 21st birthday. For us it’s the eighth year of the partnership between Rediffusion Television and ABC TV (two great pioneers who would have been twenty-one today) that created Thames Television.

In our short career, our programme makers have won the Prix Italia, the Prix Jeunesse, two Emmys and dozens of other national and international awards. We’ve produced more of Britain’s favourite programmes than any other company, including the BBC. We’ve exported programmes to no fewer than 93 countries. And we’ve given birth to some of the outstanding ITV programmes of the last decade.

Who says marriages aren’t made in heaven?

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After 13 years, it’s fade out for ATV, the weekend contractors, on Sunday and Rediffusion, the weekday contractors, on Monday.

In come Thames Television with weekday programmes starting on Tuesday. And London Weekend Television begin an extended weekend period at 7 p.m. on Friday.

Just 18 months ago Lord Hill, then chairman of the Independent Television Authority, announced plans to change the face of ITV.

Rivals from industry, finance and show business submitted their ideas to the ITA to win contracts for programme areas. The richest and most sought after was London.

Lord Hill announced the contract winners in June last year.

Of the London weekday contracts, he said: “With our principle of programme quality in mind, we felt that Independent Television would gain benefit if the abilities of ABC and Rediffusion were to combine in providing the weekday service. The combination of these two companies seemed to the Authority to offer the possibility of a company of real excellence.”

And so ABC, who held the contract for weekends in the North and Midlands, and Rediffusion began merger talks. There were major difficulties. But the outcome was Thames TV. Company executives, at first worried, now agree to merit in the idea.

ABC were particularly strong in drama. Their Armchair Theatre series had won a big reputation. Rediffusion were best known for current affairs and documentary programmes.

So these departments were fitted intact into the new company. Other departments were dovetailed, employing the best talents from each company. Result: a new company “with a heritage of 13 years’ TV experience,” said an executive.

Thames starts its transmissions at 1.45 p.m. on Tuesday with a new identification symbol — the London skyline. With landmarks like St. Paul’s reflected in the River Thames.

The first programme is live coverage of an inaugural lunch at the Mansion House. The Lord Mayor will welcome the new company.

Managing director Howard Thomas says: “Our programme policy is: first provide London — Greater London and the Home Counties — with a weekday programme service of its own. One daily programme reflects what is going on in London.

“Second, produce programmes of national importance for networking. Thirdly, produce programmes of international quality.”

The London weekday programme Mr. Thomas refers to is Today, a daily live entertainment – and – information show about people and places in London. Introduced by Eamonn Andrews (who will also be returning to his own show — but on a weekday).

Some other major programmes to come from Thames include :

DRAMA: Plays adapted from Noel Coward short stories. The Sex Game, a series of romantic plays. Alarm, a series based on the work of the Special Service Section of the London Fire Brigade. And Frontier, a series set on the North West Frontier.

COMEDY: Series with Sid James and Kenneth Home.

FEATURES: Robert Kee Reports, a series of monthly documentaries, and Applause! Applause!, programmes on great stars of the music hall.

SPECIALS: Programmes starring Max Bygraves, Liberace, Jack Benny, Victor Borge and Frankie Howerd.

ADULT EDUCATION : Programmes on ballet, holidays, cookery and crime.

CHILDREN’S PROGRAMMES: The Tyrant King, a serial in which three youngsters hunt a villain in and around London. Sooty, Pinky and Perky and Once Upon a Time, 15-minute stories told by celebrities.

London Weekend Television starts on Friday at 7 p.m.

There will be no station symbol — just the company’s name. Nor will there be an opening ceremony. Unless Frank Muir uses one in his comedy series. We Have Ways of Making You Laugh, their first programme — at 7 and live.

London Weekend Television was brought into being by a group largely composed of TV professionals, like Aidan Crawley, Michael Peacock and David Frost (who will appear three nights a week).

Lord Hill said: “Of the applicants for the weekend, the London Consortium impressed us most, particularly because of its creative talent.”

Managing director Michael Peacock says: “There will be a lot of changes in your weekend viewing from August 2. New shows, new faces and new times to remember.

“The new look for the weekends offers something for everyone. Plays come back to Sunday night. David Frost has three new shows. There’s plenty of comedy and entertainment for all the family.

“Saturday specials will broaden the range of cultural programmes. Sports fans will have Sports Arena on Fridays as well as Saturday’s World of Sport. For the children, there is Knock Three Times on Sundays.”

Among the shows planned are concerts by Leonard Bernstein, Yehudi Menuhin, Benny Goodman and Peter Nero. Productions of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera and Benjamin Britten’s The Golden Vanity.

Of particular interest to Londoners will be Discovering London, an adult education series on the sights of the capita], and Roundhouse, a religious series presented before audiences in Camden Town.

The post New London look! appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

Given the right conditions, they breed.

These little darlings are called Emmies.

They come from the United States, and they’re very rare.

The National Academy of Television and Sciences awards one per year to the best entertainment programme produced outside the U.S.A.

In this category, a programme competes against the popular programmes from all over the world.

Last year, Rediffusion won the one on the left for their production of ‘The Caretaker’ by Harold Pinter.

This year, ABC Television won the other one for ‘Call me Daddy’, a comedy written by Ernie Gebler.

Now, the two companies have joined forces to form Thames Television, the new company that will be responsible for London’s week-day programming from 30 July onwards.

And if the last couple of years are anything to go by, we may soon have a family of Emmies about the place.

Thames Television

Serving London from 30 July.

‘Call me Daddy’ will be repeated on ITV tonight in London and in most other ITV areas on Saturday.

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