Before the "Thames woz robbed" posts start trickling in, let me just say that each of the four companies which lost franchises did so because they didn't play the game properly. They were arguably the four companies that were most isolated from other bidders and therefore didn't have the connections to be able to find out what others were bidding.
Thames had two apathetic owners that wanted rid anyway. TV-am had pissed off enough people that it would have been difficult to find out their rivals plans, and they were also deluded enough to think what they were producing was of a high enough quality to be deemed a special exception. TVS Entertainment's American ambitions took it out at the knees financially, but also distracted it from the "who's bidding what" game. And TSW were wise in recognising the competition as being very strong but fatally overestimated their bid.
Roger Darthwell post_id=47535 time=1634377181 user_id=1160 Wrote:Today is the 30th anniversary of the 1991 ITV franchise auction results which led to Thames, TVS, TSW and TV-am losing their licenses to Carlton, Meridian, Westcountry and Sunrise (later renamed GMTV), so here is some archive footage from that historic day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P94VqbyJPM4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti5Y2rPBHzo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyPzICWGfcE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=333CTQ_Cba8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LLC9-RGnm0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USVwwYcWhLk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk79Q_L7Kt0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYBHzww6qZI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FedaPi6UDeg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Od9Z7gTDaho
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqUkRbDZ27Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCCjwiPZE_M
What are your memories of this day? Do you consider this ''a black day for British broadcasting'' as Bruce Gyngell said?
Erm I'm sorry to admit this but I'm glad that Thames, TVS, TSW and Tv-am lost their franchises because if they hadn't then we wouldn't have had Carlton, especially with the star idents as part of the hearts package, no Meridian and no GMTV, that's the positive thing about it.
Funny how all four of the ousted companies had names beginning with the letter T.
Tyne Tees must've drawn a chalk circle around itself to protect it from the jinx.
It seems that 1991 will forever remain the last occasion of the licences actually being re-advertised, and new consortiums welcome to bid for them.
The last couple of occasions that they reached their expiry dates (circa 2003 and 2013, or something?), the existing incumbent companies were just automatically renewed by Ofcom. By the latter of those occasions at least, there were of course just 3 companies (ITV, STV, UTV) rather than as many companies as there are franchises.
Unless ITV plc and/or STV Group plc do something awful to warrant having their licences revoked, I doubt we'll ever see anything like the Franchise Rounds of the 20th Century ever again.
It was an absolute travesty and marked the beginning of the end for what we knew as ITV back then.
I've no doubt that end would still have come about one way or another, however.
I love how everyone forgets another commercial television broadcasting franchise that also lost it's bit of stamped paper to broadcast.
OK - so it happened slightly downstream of this anouncement, but Oracle Teletext also bit the dust at 23.59.59 on 31.12.1992.
Scrotnig post_id=47568 time= user_id=2047 Wrote:It was an absolute travesty and marked the beginning of the end for what we knew as ITV back then.
I've no doubt that end would still have come about one way or another, however.
I agree that it would have happened one way or another. If Carlton hadn’t won the London weekday franchise, they would most likely have bought one or more franchises anyway (they owned 20% of Central already) and whilst Thames would have continued they would either have been bought other franchises or been bought out itself.
If Carlton had lost, Thames would have sold out to them pretty damn fast.
Most of the winning companies negotiated to reduce their payments in the years following making a mockery of the whole auction anyway. Much like London Live winning the Local 8 bid by promising hyperlocal news and then delivering next to nothing.
Of course, Oracle on ITV and Channel 4. They had campaigned for the teletext service to be retained, as there was a plan to get rid of teletext facilities on ITV and Channel 4. Having done so, ironically they then got outbid and lost the franchise anyway. The way Oracle went out was dignified, the "white dot" scheme on their last minutes.
Sadly Teletext wasn't quite ready at launch time, I remember here in Fife, the first few days, some of the local sport results included scores from the Jewson Pembrokeshire Rugby union championship!
Carlton were also bidding for the south and south east franchise, so I wonder, if they hadn't won London Weekday, whether they would've got the S&SE area instead of Meridian.
It was a dark day indeed because it signified changes to broadcasting and the end of a golden era for television in the UK. However, this would always have had to happen at some point and as has been said the companies that lost did so for a reason.
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 truth, 30 years on the television landscape worldwide has changed completely and in another 30 years you have to wonder if there will even be such a thing as a 'television' landscape.
Yeah, the end result would've been the same, just how we got there would be different. If Meridian didn't win their license, then they wouldn't have been around to take over HTV and Anglia. Anglia could therefore have been taken over by Yorkshire, who had tried to take them over in the past (Trident Television in the 1970s). With YTV having Tyne Tees already, that would've delayed Granada's takeover of Yorkshire and Tyne Tees for about three years. But by 2004, Granada would likely still have controlled all of the English regions plus HTV.
dindins post_id=47620 time=1634396528 user_id=2209 Wrote:Sad day. RIP TV-AM, Thames, TSW, TVS and Oracle. You are with the angles & Princess Di.
Best spelling error. Ever.
Robertclark125 post_id=47603 time= user_id=1163 Wrote:Of course, Oracle on ITV and Channel 4. They had campaigned for the teletext service to be retained, as there was a plan to get rid of teletext facilities on ITV and Channel 4. Having done so, ironically they then got outbid and lost the franchise anyway.
There was no provision for a public teletext service in the 1990 Broadcasting Act, but that didn't mean there was a plan to get rid of teletext.
There could well have been all sorts of services using the VBI space occupied by Oracle, its just none of them would have been forced to be free and a public service. With so many 'suitably equipped' TV sets by 1993 I'd have thought it would be unlikely that it would have just been used for non teletext data
After 1993 there were some closed data services broadcast (and even in the days of Oracle there was at least one commercial service alongside it - Televox ) and eventually of course the winning licensee, Teletext ended up as a purely commercial service
Ben post_id=47607 time=1634393667 user_id=49 Wrote:The truth, 30 years on the television landscape worldwide has changed completely and in another 30 years you have to wonder if there will even be such a thing as a 'television' landscape.
Yes it's a curious thing that something that was such a massive deal is now more like a footnote in TV history.
And of course 30 years is a lot longer than all of the stations were on air for, even Thames.