Story of ITV: The 1991 Franchise round (2005)

[madcapoperator]

I would love to see this full program of this

[andymerrett]

Is there anything Thatcher didn't screw up?

[victorialucas38]

The franchise farce of 1991 probably marked the beginning of the end for ITV, but at least the loss of TV-AM's franchise was laced with the sweetest of ironies!

[cwilliams1976]

Carlton have been accused of failing to produce a single decent programme on ITV - I think that one point has been overlooked here... Carlton adopted Channel 4's approach in that it actually commissioned programmes from independent production companies rather than actually producing them so in a way Carlton could never have produced their own programmes. Meridian did the same as well.

[steviegTVreturns]

@cwilliams1976 The thing was with Carlton although that was their policy, I never remember seeing much of anything with their name on it, they did an effort in 1993 to fill in the gap left by Thames, but even then their most popular programmes were still on ITV, it was the likes of Rainbow and This Week that weren't. As soon as they got Central everything from them was a Carlton UK Production, the only long running one from Carlton I can think of is Police, Camera, Action.

[richuk123456789]

@cwilliams1976 In a nutshell, this round of Franchises lead the way for Carlton to kill off all the regional companies. it is now 2010 and i would still prefer 4 channels to top quality programming that the 100 odd crap ones i get through my Cable Service.

[BriWayne]

"single ITV we have today"

that's complete bollocks, there's still 4 companies

[MrBSergeant]

@BriWayne True! Typical of ITV to ignore STV, UTV and Channel!

[cwilliams1976]

@MrBSergeant Channel have now been sold to ITV PLC in a bid to strengthen its regional identity which Channel have welcomed.

[JHollowayNetwork]

0:53-Still of Thames Television ident with the rippling effect from the lower half.

[donjabroni]

Another one of Thatcher's "wonderful" ideas for Britian. Thank God she's no longer in change.

[col2006ie]

Looking back at this, it was brave of Granada to put this in the final edit of the programme at the time. I couldn't imagine ITV plc in their current state of desperate despair admitting in any way they were wrong in 1991.

Richard Dunn was always dignified over Thames's loss. And I remember punching the air with delight after Sir Paul Fox's comments about Carlton at the time.

The ITC turned out to be right in the end, though. Unless ITV goes bust, we're stuck with what we've got now.

[MJPExeter]

Have you got the rest of this show??

[thecheesepriest]

ITV, and Channel 4, were ruined by Thatcher's "last bastion of restrictive practices" bullshit, because we now have programme sponsorship, which I hate, and a "free for all" policy. Also, frontcaps belong on ITV programmes. 1988 was a miserable year.

[cwilliams1976]

@thecheesepriest Channel 4 used to rely on advertising from ITV and also did produce some of Channel 4's programmes.

[AidanLunn]

"merge into the single ITV we have today". The less said about that the better . . .

[MJPExeter]

based on quality threshold then surely Thames shouldve won easily regardless of cash

[steviegTVreturns]

The ITC saw that both Thames and Carlton passed the quality threshold (how they did, I really don't know!), but Carlton had more money, so it went their way. Unless you believe the Death on the rock scandal caused Thames to lose their franchise, but who knows. ITV would probably be the same now if Thames had won.

[tsangari]

As much as I fondly remember Thames - which was my provider - I don't think I'd have missed it had it carried on broadcasting. It closed on a high for me - and so did Oracle.

[steviegTVreturns]

You're probably quite right there, even in the early 1990's people were saying Thames wasn't as good as it used to be, but since 1993 everybody looks back at Thames being a golden era of TV. Either way ITV would still be in the same mess even if Thames had survived. Especially with the amount of Studios available, it made more sense to have GMTV, Carlton, LWT, LNN etc all come from the same building, not seperate ones if Thames had won.

[cwilliams1976]

@steviegTVreturns I also think that given that Benny Hill died in 1992 and we have already lost Morecambe and Wise, could Thames really have continued to make entertaining programmes if the stars aren't very sadly around to continue to give us entertainment which Thames very clearly did?

[cwilliams1976]

@steviegTVreturns And also the disagreement between Thames and LWT is no longer relevant

[howlingwooolf]

The biggest disaster in broadcasting history. ITV sunk by blinkered ideologues who didn't have a clue about television.

[AntarcticaTelevision]

That even LWT's MD at the time (Greg Dyke) secretly wanted Thames to carry on says everything about the franchise round and the post-1993 ITV.

[kraftneu]

interesting views on the franchise rounds.

the 1990 act was outrageous in my opinion.

I agree with the man who said Thames should have kept their license.

[tvlivesite]

Thatcher ruined ITV...

Great upload Steve. Keep up the good work!

[AidanLunn]

what makes it even more ironic is that it was her own political party - the Tories - that wanted ITV set up!!!

[cwilliams1976]

@AidanLunn But then again ITV was set up in the year that the Conservatives were in power through the Act of Parliament in 1954!!!!

[AidanLunn]

@cwilliams1976 Oh hello cockwomble1976, tell me, are you still polluting Youtube with these useless facts or do you still enjoy wasting your time indoors making absolutely god-awful "mocks" to still pollute YouTube with?

[RevStaplehurst]

Very true, although I did smile wryly when Tv-am lost their franchise