russty_russ post_id=50883 time= user_id=2104 Wrote:Brekkie post_id=50832 time= user_id=976 Wrote:I'd say they were largely gone in most regions by the early 90s though -- in some cases as part of modernising presentation as franchises were renewed in 1993. I don't think any new franchises ever had it.
Did Meridian have it for their through the night programming?
They did on day 1, I'm sure Graham Rogers appeared in vision to link to the start of their overnight sequence?
Brekkie post_id=50849 time= user_id=976 Wrote:The only memory I have of it is it being used occassionally on Granada in the early 90s in the white stripe era, and seemingly only with Colin Weston.
Whilst Granada used less in vision during the 1990’s, they were still using it until Autumn 1996 when it was fully phased out. This was also the same time when all of the extra quirky Granada idents appeared alongside the blue stripe ident.
HTV was an odd one. Wales stopped using in vision at the very end of 1992, but West kept it going until at least 1994.
nwtv2003 post_id=50900 time= user_id=1028 Wrote:HTV was an odd one. Wales stopped using in vision at the very end of 1992, but West kept it going until at least 1994.
That's not too odd as both regions had their own controllers making independent decisions for their output.
Whataday post_id=50904 time= user_id=1029 Wrote:nwtv2003 post_id=50900 time= user_id=1028 Wrote:HTV was an odd one. Wales stopped using in vision at the very end of 1992, but West kept it going until at least 1994.
That's not too odd as both regions had their own controllers making independent decisions for their output.
At one point when United Media owned HTV, Meridian, and Anglia, Wales pres was in Cardiff and West was Southampton
Markymark post_id=50905 time= user_id=1078 Wrote:Whataday post_id=50904 time= user_id=1029 Wrote:nwtv2003 post_id=50900 time= user_id=1028 Wrote:HTV was an odd one. Wales stopped using in vision at the very end of 1992, but West kept it going until at least 1994.
That's not too odd as both regions had their own controllers making independent decisions for their output.
At one point when United Media owned HTV, Meridian, and Anglia, Wales pres was in Cardiff and West was Southampton
I believe that at one point an HTV ident with an Anglia voiceover went out on Meridian. Or something similar!
Presentation and playout are different of course.
Steve Williams post_id=47646 time= user_id=1326 Wrote:Ben post_id=47607 time=1634393667 user_id=49 Wrote:Even if Thames, TV-am, TVS or TSW had stuck around they wouldn't have been the same companies they had been and they would have been swallowed up by the other companies (or been doing the swallowing in the case of Thames) as the rules had changed.
There's a really interesting book about the franchise bidding, the name of which escapes me, but it details the other potential bids including just how bad they would have been. The one involving Mentorn was particularly ludicrous I seem to recall.
The book is probably Under The Hammer by Andrew Davidson, which is fascinating. The bid involving Mentorn was LIB, who bid against LWT and they do sound a shambles. It says that just after they'd finished writing their bid someone contrived to trip over the lead and unplug the computer, and of course they hadn't saved it, so they had to write it all again, and then just before they went to submit it they realised they'd missed a page out so they had to run around looking for a printer and stapler.
You're probably right about the existing companies. In the book Independent Television in Britain, which discusses it in detail, there's a quote from Harry Turner of TSW saying that to justify their bid they would have contracted absolutely everything out and sold the studios and eventually you'd have a newsroom and a sales department, maybe not even the latter. But that sounds so unlike what TSW was, you wonder why they were bothering, saving the company in name only.
The book also quotes George Russell of the ITC saying that the only company that would have got through on exceptional circumstances was Meridian as they were offering three regional news programmes compared to the other bidders' two, which was considered an exceptional offer. So they presumably would have won whatever TVS did.
Bought the book on Amazon. Its a cracking read. Thanks for the tip.