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.

The post A Thames Special appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

By the 1980s, both Thorn EMI (as it had become) and BET had developed business strategies that made redundant their stakes in Thames. This was to prove very detrimental to the broadcaster.

In the meantime, the government of Margaret Thatcher was pressing ahead with its efforts to shake-up industry. It had sold off many of the assets that the Conservatives had inherited in 1979, and introduced sweeping industrial relations legislation to end the closed shop, secondary picketing and wild-cat strikes; tactics that in the previous decade the unions had employed so effectively and (to the government) devastatingly.

By the mid-1980s, Mrs Thatcher had turned her attention to broadcasting. One by one, the broadcasters started to use the new weapons at their disposal to reign in the unions. Bruce Gyngell locked out the TV-am unions when they went on strike, keeping the station on the air with a diet of cartoons and American imports. Ulster Television dismissed a union shop steward when he claimed too much time off sick in order to run his pub.

Thames faced strikes of its own. Technological advances meant, in some cases, that fewer people were needed to do the same job, which threatened redundancies.

However, it should also be noted that government income policies (read: wage freezes) in the 1970s severely restricted the opportunities for workers to increase their income.

In 1984 the unions walked out in protest over how many staff were to run the late night service, and their rates of pay, then again over the introduction of new technology for the news crews.

Thames responded by getting its own management to run the station. At first confined to films and repeats, the management service it put out was almost as successful as the normal service.

The company’s directors doubled as newsreaders, without autocue, although much of their material could well have been lifted straight from the Evening Standard.

From this point on, the successful management service would always be the nuclear option to be deployed against the unions. Only two companies, Thames and Ulster, needed to rely on it. In Belfast, its success sapped morale among strikers, who returned to work after two weeks.

At about this time, Thames’ shareholders were looking for a potential buyer for the company. They eventually signed a deal agreeing the sale of Thames, subject to the approval of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA).

This approval was required, because the Authority had the power effectively to veto changes of ownership of ITV broadcasters. In extremis, if a company was sold in the face of the Authority’s objections, it could terminate and re-advertise a contract mid-term.

In the event, the Authority exercised its powers of veto, on the grounds that it would not be in the interests of Thames Television or the viewing public for the sale to go ahead.

The potential buyer said afterwards that his company should have gone ahead with the deal and risk disenfranchisement. The newly reconstituted Thames would have applied and probably won its franchise back. In the event, ownership remained with Thorn EMI and BET.

And the potential buyer? His name was Michael Green, chairman of Carlton Communications.

He tried again in 1989, when the rules on ownership had changed, but this time underbid. Instead, BET sold its shares to Thorn EMI, leaving the way open for Carlton to bid against Thames two years later.

Incidentally, BET selling up marked the end of an era, because it was through BET that Thames could trace a link, through Rediffusion, back to the earliest days of ITV in London.

In 1986, a committee headed by Lord Peacock delivered its report. Asked to recommend options for public policy on broadcasting, its main recommendation was that the BBC be funded in part by advertising.

It added, almost as an afterthought, that the ITV franchises, when next up for renewal, be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

The Government’s 1990 White Paper on the future of broadcasting embraced this suggestion, which was one of the key proposals in what became the Broadcasting Act 1990. Interested parties would submit bids for each of the regional independent television franchises, and in each region the highest bidder would win.

The Act also set up the Independent Television Commission (ITC), which would take over responsibility from the IBA for awarding contracts effective from 1993 when the existing ones expired, and regulating the broadcasters.

The simple highest-bidder wheeze was widely believed to be the brainchild of the then Chancellor, Nigel Lawson. His view was that it didn’t matter a row of beans what was on the telly; the most important thing was to maximize Treasury revenue. And then, in October 1989, Mr Lawson resigned.

It was left to David Mellor, who took over responsibility for the Bill, to sort out which parts were to stay and which would go.

The competitive tendering provision was endorsed by the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, herself and was unmoveable. Now, though, it was to be augmented with a quality threshold provision.

Applicants had to submit their detailed proposals. Those whose programme proposals did not came up to scratch, or whose business plans were unrealistic, would fail. There was also an “exceptional circumstances” clause, giving the ITC discretion to choose a lower bidder.

Thames’s response to what was at this stage still the Broadcasting Bill (it did not receive Royal Assent until some months later) was that it did not guarantee the company a licence.

Its Annual Report took some – perhaps too much – comfort in the fact that its track record could be taken into account, if the proposals of rival bidders were way short of the mark.

Too much, because the ITC had no specific powers to take into account an established broadcaster’s track record vis-à-vis paper promises.

When the bids were submitted, Thames had two rivals. A consortium backed by David Frost, called CPV-TV, failed the quality hurdle, so it came to a straight contest between the remaining two.

Carlton’s bid was £43m compared to Thames’ bid of £33m, so Carlton won the licence to broadcast to London from 1993 onwards.

For many, this marked the point at which ITV ceased to be a broadcaster of quality, popular programmes.

Thames steadily ran down its operations and staff, winding up its broadcast arm and transforming itself into an independent production company. It bowed out in familiar fashion, with a valedictory programme showcasing its achievements over the years.

Then a final speech from its Chief Executive, Richard Dunn, the news, Big Ben, and a happy new year from Carlton, “Television for London” as it styled itself.

And what became of Thames? It continued to make The Bill and other programmes for ITV, as well as the BBC and other broadcasters. It was eventually sold to the publishing company Pearson, and at the time of writing (2005) is part of the Fremantle Media group, owned by RTL.

So why should such a fine broadcaster, the lynchpin of the ITV network, be summarily dismissed? There are a number of possible reasons; conspiracy theories abound. A thousand straws in the wind that may or may not make up a bale of hay.

In 1988 British forces stationed in Gibraltar shot dead three people they suspected of being Irish terrorists. The IRA later confirmed that they had been a unit on active service.

In a subsequent statement to the House of Commons, the Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, said that the security forces believed that their movements posed an imminent danger, and had opened fire partly because they believed, wrongly, that the unit was about to detonate a bomb.

The investigation broadcast by Thames caused uproar.

A “This Week” special, “Death on the Rock” upset the government of Margaret Thatcher, which put the IBA under pressure to pull the broadcast, the official reason being given was that it would prejudice the official inquiry yet to take place. Any unofficial reasons can only be a matter for conjecture.

“Death on the Rock” is often cited as the reason that Thames was not re-enfranchised by the ITC in 1991 as the ITV London broadcaster.

ITV’s official history takes pains to demonstrate that the ITC’s evaluation of the competing bids was not open to such influence, even subliminally.

However, it admits that “a number of senior figures in the industry at the time do still believe [that] The Rock incident must have had some effect on the Thames decision.”

While the ITC could say, correctly, that it was free from political interference in exercising its powers under the Broadcasting Act 1990, it is undeniable that the thinking that shaped the act itself was far from free from such influence.

It is possible that Death on the Rock caused the Government to shape the legislation so as to be disadvantageous to Thames, and the by-now discredited (from the Government’s point of view) IBA.

Another factor that weighed against Thames was its ownership. At the time when the applications were being drawn up, Thames’s controlling shareholder was Thorn EMI, BET having by this time sold out.

And Thorn EMI wanted out. It was not going to throw money at the London licence that it would not get back from a future buyer. Nor was it prepared to pay through the nose for staff redundancies.

It was not going to allow the company ruthlessly to cut costs, as, say, LWT did, to free up more money for the bid, if the price to Thorn EMI was a net loss once it had disposed of the company.

Thames had to consider how much the London licence was worth. The Board settled on the figure of £30m in real terms.

Would Carlton have done any better with Thames? If it had succeeded in buying the company in 1985, would it have managed to restructure Thames, making it leaner and fitter for the bid? Also, would a Carlton-Thames board have had deeper pockets? One thing is certain: if everything else stayed the same, Thames would have won in 1991 because Carlton, as its owner, would not have been bidding against it.

However, everything else would not have stayed the same, so such speculation must remain nothing more than an interesting academic exercise.

And would the shape of ITV have been much different in any case? By 1993, the old system of scheduling, with majors and minors, was no more. A central scheduler decided what programmes were to be shown.

This change meant that the old Big Five (Thames, LWT, Central, Yorkshire and Granada) could no longer dominate the schedules with their offerings. Now, a minnow like newcomer Westcountry, or an independent like Thames or Mentorn, had as much chance of getting a good idea on screen as an established player like Granada or LWT.

In the event, Carlton’s tenure of the London licence got off to a shaky start. It commissioned a lot of experimental stuff from independent production companies, and got slated several times by the ITC.

The process of consolidation that was then underway, though, saw Carlton and Granada take control of all of ITV in England and Wales, before merging to form ITV plc.

Again, it can only be a matter of speculation whether the standard of ITV now would be different had Thames, under whatever ownership, remained within the ITV system instead of being replaced by Carlton.

The post Inevitable appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.