ITV in the Face: South West (1 of 3)

[tokutom]

Are you in East or West Cornwall?

[Applemask]

@tokutom East.

[tokutom]

@Applemask Oh I see. I'm round St. Ives way.

[keefybaby2007]

TV Cream.....has used your stuff on their site @Applemask

[ziggydamaestro]

Love your docs, but I a lot of the time, I can't understand what you are saying!!

[RobinBlamires]

Sorry that I'm rather late on the uptake. Only just discovered these and they are superb, and well documented from a viewers perspective. Pretty amusing too!

[Applemask]

@RobinBlamires Did you discover them from anywhere in particular?

[RobinBlamires]

@Applemask Nah, I just stumbled across them from another TSW related video. Didn't grow up in the region myself (I was from Thames/LWT and later TVS/Meridian) but it really was something special in terms of on-air presentation.

[electrogeek77]

0:45 - Tee hee, New Hampshire Public Television clips!

[DJFairborne77]

Great video, I really enjoyed this look at ITV in the south-west, as I too grew up in this region, so can remember the old days of TSW & Westcountry well. Looking forward to watching some more of your videos.

[TigerWalrus26980]

Loved the picture used for Carlton - very fitting!

[TashkentFox]

Living in Granadaland I never had to endure Carlton.

[poopiepoos]

Ahh yes good old Granada, lets buy the majority of ITV, close down the majority of regional studios, loose all regional identity and become London-centric.

[TashkentFox]

Granada was originally a good television company, but when the IBA was replaced by the ITC they went all imperialist and started eating other ITV companies like John Prescott in a pie shop.

[dwibs93]

@TashkentFox I wasn't so lucky, Centralville for me! But I don't understand why Carlton is hated, is it just because it replaced Thames? Can someone explain why Carlton is regarded so badly?

[morgansifer82]

I know what you mean about being possibly the last generation to remember regionality on ITV. I was born in 1982 in Yorkshire so i loved YTV. Now the only reminder of those glorious days on ITV are the regional news and the few remaining fully networked programmes which still exist which were borne out of the regions.

[doctorwhokris1980]

can you do a documentry for the sout

[Applemask]

Southern/TVS/Meridian? Working on that right now. Hopefully it'll be out Monday as usual.

[ste1bro]

I was going to ask (so I will):

How hard is it to make a retrospective of an ITV region other than your own? The TSW one was superb, in part because it was your region and clearly very, very dear to you (Christ, there must be, what, two? Three? generations of kids with no recollection of regional ITV out there. Gah.).

The upcoming Granada retrospective must be a very different beast, I'm guessing? More factual and less emotional?

[Applemask]

I wouldn't say it was particularly hard, but it is more factual, less emotional. The trick is to remain interested, so I don't know what'll happen when I get around to Border.

[baronscarpia1]

'There was Border. It had an audience of about three hundred. Like Granada, its idents never moved on screen until ITV gave it the gift of generic branding. Nobody noticed when it disappeared.'

Well, maybe you could be slightly kinder than that, but it wasn't the most inspiring region.

[DreadwindsGhost]

Oh come on, it made Mr & Mrs!

I see what you mean.

[TashkentFox]

Border only ever had two networked programmes, both of which were hosted by Derek Batey. Although their start-up music was nice and sounds like it was composed for a more up-market company like Granada or Scottish.

[ste1bro]

Thank you very much, sir.

If you include a section on the great Colin Weston (in my humble opinion, the greatest in-vision continuity announcer ever), I'll be a happy man.

[Applemask]

There are clips of him, and he's referenced briefly. He's the one that's like an elderly uncle crossed with a teddy bear, right?

[ste1bro]

That's the one. Like an absent-minded old man trapped in the body of a cuddly young man.

He seemd eternally amused by everything, and, quite fantastically, made no bones about reading straight from the pages of the TV Times when describing the following night's schedule, often finishing his link by holding up a copy of said mag and saying, "...at least, that's what it says here". A great, great man.

[baronscarpia1]

I'm old enough to just remember TVS, and of course Meridian. I don't even have a television now, but I always liked the sense of each region having its own identity. Plus, late-programming was much more varied back then.

[ste1bro]

Granada next, please?

Great job, as usual.

[Applemask]

Granada it is.