Game Of Thrones: An ITV Story

nezza

PREFACE

ITV Franchises as of 1st January 1983

REGIONAL LICENCES
Northern Scotland: Grampian
Central Scotland: STV
Northwest England: Granada
Yorkshire: Yorkshire
Midlands: Mercia
Eastern England:Anglia
South and SE England: TVS
Southwest England and Channel Islands: Network South West (NSW)
Western England: Television West (TVW)
Wales: HTV
Northern Ireland: Ulster
London: Thames and LWT

NATIONAL LICENCES
Breakfast: Daybreak
News Provider: ITN

PROGRAMME PROVIDERS
ABC and ATV

POD

ABC lost the North/Midland franchise in 1968 but was given a new role as a producer of programmes
ATV also lost the Midlands weekday/London weekend franchise in 1968 but was also made a programme provider.
 
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nezza

Daybreak was a consortium of ITN, Disney, ATV and Barclays Merchant Bank. It gave ITN and ATV a stronger foothold in the network than the rest of the channels which led to resentment.

(NB in this TL there is no Border. Granada covers Cumbria and the IOM while STV had the Selkirk transmitter)
 

nezza

Our Friends in The North (and East Anglia)

ITV's regional system had been part of its core since its inception in 1955, a series of regional stations covering their area and independent from all others....
But that reasoning had been flawed for a while. From the late 1960's YTV's reach into neighbouring areas Tyne-Tees and Anglia meant that the latter were very resentful about the pull that the Leeds firm had.

The ITA sought to solve the problem by creating the firm Trident Television in 1970. This firm would be a holding company for Tyne-Tees, Yorkshire and Anglia which would maximise sales for each region, co-ordinate the use of outside broadcasting facilities and ensure that each area had a correctly focused news service.

To that end Yorkshire and Tyne-Tees based a studio in York to cover the tricky Bilsdale coverage region. Hull provided a similar arrangement for Yorkshire and Anglia in regards to East Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and North-west Norfolk.

To ensure stability each firm took a 5% share in the others:
Yorkshire held 5% of Tyne Tees and 5% of Anglia
Tyne-Tees held 5% of Yorkshire and 5% of Anglia
Anglia held 5% of Yorkshire and Tyne Tees.

Each company maintained a 95%. level of independence from each other and all sales enquires were co-ordinated in London.
When the 1980 franchise round came around the IBA (having took responsibility for independent local radio in 1972) ordered Trident to be wound up and all three station apply as independents. This was dutifully done although there was some resentment over the loss of a company which had made the trio quite a lot of money. When the franchises were re-awarded the incumbents were told there must be no Trident 2

So when Daybreak launched with ATV holding a 25% of a national company there were rumblings of unhappiness from Newcastle, Leeds and Norwich who thought that Lew Grade was being given special treatment.

Clandestine talks between the three after the re-awarding of the franchises led to a plan. While the ex Trident partners would go though the 1983/93 period as independents there would still remain a low level of co-operation.

News in particular was the focus of this arrangement. The tricky overlap areas would be run jointly between the three:

News from York and the surrounding area would be run by both Yorkshire and Tyne Tees
Yorkshire and Anglia would co-run the Hull news operation.

Officially this didn't exist and the IBA weren't told but behind the scenes the co-operation continued.

This set the scene for later events.
 
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Guajolote

Guajolote

If ABC are out of the picture as a franchise holder, what's the makeup of Thames? Does Rediffusion still own 49% of it or are they the dominant partner in ITL?
 

nezza

Guajolote said:
If ABC are out of the picture as a franchise holder, what's the makeup of Thames? Does Rediffusion still own 49% of it or are they the dominant partner in ITL?
Click to expand...

Ah, yes. Good Question. ITTL Thames is made up of BET who hold a 49% share and Thorn EMI who also hold 49%. The remaining 2% is held by the Brownrigg Family Trust.
 

nezza

A Dog's Breakfast

Daybreak was the centrepiece of the new ITV setup. It was the first truly pan-national station as opposed to ABC, ATV and ITN who while providing programming across the UK were not transmitting all the time.

The very existence of a breakfast license was in itself a remarkable turnaround. Up until the late 70's the notion of Breakfast TV was treated with scorn. Trident's brief experiment in 1977 changed that. Good Morning North-East, Good Morning Calendar and Good Morning Anglia treated viewers to a mix of news, cartoons and soap operas. Whilst it lasted for a mere nine weeks the very fact that people were actually watching pricked the IBA's interest

In 1979 the franchise was offered. Three consortia applied:

Daybreak: ITN, ATV, Disney and Barclays
TV-AM: David Frost, Capital Radio, LBC and Express Newspapers
Sunrise: Thames, News International and ABC

Each offered a similar mix of news, entertainment and children's programming....
 
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nezza

"We are going to put a huge smile on the faces of the UK. We'll be the best part of the day"

Lew Grade on Daybreak winning the breakfast franchise in 1979

"Lew really didn't understand the notion of Breakfast Television, he thought it would simply be ATV AM"

Michael Grade 2009
 

nezza

DAYBREAK SCHEDULE 1ST JANUARY 1983
6.30 News
6.40 Farming Report
6.50 Shipping Forecast
6.58 Prayer for The Day
7.00 AM-UK: Presented by Noel Edmonds and Gloria Hunniford
9.00 Start The Day:
9.25 News
9.30 Closedown
 

nezza

1st Edition of Daybreak:
DB.png
 

MKD

No Tyne-Tees? That means no Mike Neville. The world can not exist without Mike Neville ( unless he went back on the BBC)
 

Lindseyman

MKD said:
No Tyne-Tees? That means no Mike Neville. The world can not exist without Mike Neville ( unless he went back on the BBC)
Click to expand...
In 1983 he was definitely presenting Look North on the BBC from Newcastle (he had switched in 1969 replacing Frank Bough). OTL he returned to Tyne-Tees in 1996. A giant of Northern television, the only recent one who even comes anywhere remotely close is Harry Gration.

On another note York was always a strange one as far as TV (both ITV and the BBC) was concerned. Officially it was Tyne-Tees and BBC Newcastle but most watched Yorkshire and BBC Leeds (York is all of 25 miles from Leeds).

It was a similar story for North Lincolnshire which was officially Yorkshire and BBC Leeds(OK Hull) but certainly a lot tried to watch Anglia instead of Yorkshire for local news.
 

MKD

Lindseyman said:
In 1983 he was definitely presenting Look North on the BBC from Newcastle (he had switched in 1969 replacing Frank Bough). OTL he returned to Tyne-Tees in 1996. A giant of Northern television, the only recent one who even comes anywhere remotely close is Harry Gration.

On another note York was always a strange one as far as TV (both ITV and the BBC) was concerned. Officially it was Tyne-Tees and BBC Newcastle but most watched Yorkshire and BBC Leeds (York is all of 25 miles from Leeds).

It was a similar story for North Lincolnshire which was officially Yorkshire and BBC Leeds(OK Hull) but certainly a lot tried to watch Anglia instead of Yorkshire for local news.
Click to expand...

Of course - you are quite right. Brain fade! Mike Neville was the kind of news reader who could have made the impending apocalypse appear less bad than it was before handing over to Roger Tames for a sports round up usually featuring Darlington getting turned over easily by Bury or Rochadle or Carlisle on a Feethams gluepot.
 

Lindseyman

MKD said:
Of course - you are quite right. Brain fade! Mike Neville was the kind of news reader who could have made the impending apocalypse appear less bad than it was before handing over to Roger Tames for a sports round up usually featuring Darlington getting turned over easily by Bury or Rochadle or Carlisle on a Feethams gluepot.
Click to expand...
Likewise York City! Well from mid 70s until early/mid 80s when Denis Smith took charge.
 
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