Thanks for the recommendation. I'll have to take a look.

I read it some years ago - I second your recommendation.

Just ordered the book, thanks.

I think that before the Broadcasting Act 1990 it wasn't legal for any one ITV company to own an overall total of more than something like 1.25 franchises

The main reason London weekdays and weekends were split was to prevent one company controlling 100% of the London television advertising market

@@darrendalby9003 And also it would mean they would have full control of networking. The responsibility for networking the schedule was left with the two London franchises.

I think I read somewhere that it was the Government at the time who said to the then ITA that London must and would have two ITV companies/franchises rather than just one, although I could well be wrong there then so too of course?

@@brucedanton3669 The ITA did want London split into two companies, as they feared having one company run London ITV would make them very powerful, so powerful that they could over run the other ITV companies in the choice of networking shows. So having two companies gave some sense of balance.

The ITV system in the UK back then was weird. One station, made up of 15 franchise companies, who were expected to compete against each other, but also provide a one commercial channel with programming and stability. Remember the UK only had one commercial TV channel until 1982, when Channel 4 was launched, and even that was a subsidiary channel of the Independent Broadcasting Authority who ran the commercial TV/radio sector in UK.

1968 to 1972 were the choppy years for LWT but they settled down come 1973. LWT also did themselves pride by at last screening Upstairs Downstairs in the autumn of 1971.

Yes , Jimmy keeps his cool throughout!

The pseudo intellectual north London set in a nutshell. Nothing changes.

@@whatamalike Exactly

@@whatamalike Here is an example of their original pompous schedules = Saturday 28th September 1968: 10.30pm, Bernstein Conducts Berlioz; The Fantastic Symphony in The Saturday Special. This was placed up against BBC One who had Match of the Day followed by Kindly Leave The Stage, A new took at some of the jokes and sketches of the Music-Hall era. BBC Two had Late Night Line Up followed by their Midnight Movie "The Long Gray Line" starring Tyrone Power.

​@@johnking5174 love the smell of their own farts and a forced bleeding heart in order to overcome their own middle class insecurities.

There’s time on Sundays for shows like that. They can be shat out in early afternoon or late night on Sundays.

It took until Rupert Murdoch gave them a kick up the ass that they started to become a success. It took until around 1975 before they were a true financial success.

@@johnking5174 yes these fledgling companies then needed time to establish. YTV in Leeds was mentioned as being successful , but they had ( through now fault of anyone) hardship when the transmitter at Emily Moor collapsed due to icing & high winds forcing them to loose advertising income . They became successful like LWT in the mid 70s

Thank you for the highlight there too of course.

Lew Grade in sunglasses smoking a cigar meme badly needed here. Very true about Frost getting it wrong twice. They were in a programme makers bubble and forgot to ask the audience what it wanted.

In the Midlands ATV and also Granada in the North West with the full seven day week licences replaced low rating LWT shows with episodes of series from ATV's sister company ITC like The Saint, The Champions, Man In A Suitcase, The Baron, Department S, Danger Man/Secret Agent, The Prisoner, UFO (the family viewing friendly episodes), Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Joe 90, Stingray, Fireball XL5 (These Gerry Anderson shows were shown instead of LWT's Adult Education programmes on Saturday mornings) (thereby recording the LWT adult education programmes on the Saturday morning transmissions in London, Southern and Anglia for showing in their areas on Sunday mornings), From A Birds Eye View, Shirley's World, Randall And Hopkirk Deceased, Strange Report, Jason King and as well as these ABC's The Avengers (presented by Thames) while LWT showed most of these and also ATV and Granada shows in the late 11:30pm slot

Yes, lots of LWT shows found themselves in the graveyard 11:30pm slot in the Midlands.

@@retunerman Indeed. Other regions back then had problems with actually finding slots to air LWT shows. Remember until 1972, television broadcasting hours were limited by the government. So other regions were picky at what LWT shows they did air, and when they aired it. Luckily any adult educational shows from LWT were exempted from the restrictions, but entertainment shows from LWT were not, so space was limited to place these shows in different slots. That eased up come 1972, when those restrictions were abolished, but by 1972, LWT was getting most of it's key prime time shows airing somewhere at least.

I’m sure I the recall in one of the franchise renewal times David Frost led a consortium to bid for the Anglia tv region, if successful he wanted to move the east of England regional tv base from Norwich to Cambridge.

Carlton was buying out other franchisees within the first few years of its existence, and by 2005 owned a substantial amount of the ITV network, before then merging with Granada (who owned most of the rest of the network), to become ITV Plc, so I'd say Carlton was a pretty strong company for most of its existence, even if in-house programme-making wasn't as much of a strong point for them as it had been for Thames.

@@MrDannyDetail Carlton in its early years, 1993 to 96 produced few programmes, being more a 'commissioning unit ' they didn't have studios or an outside broadcast unit.When they took over Central allowed them to make more shows for the network.

@@MrDannyDetail Carlton used the Channel 4 commissioning method so they never actually made any shows themselves but they did join up with LWT not just to use transmission facilities but also the local news bulletins produced by LNN.

@@christopherwilliams2093 Carlton then thought that they can be programme makers simply by taking over ITV companies which already were, e.g., Central, of which Carlton had 20% share.

I never ever understood how they could think weekend television on the only commercial channel in the UK at the time should be high brow. Utter madness.

@@johnking5174 Yes indeed that was very odd indeed so then too at the time. I am sure as you say that viewers then must have watched BBC1 or BBC2 rather than ITV because of it of course so then too?

@@brucedanton3669 Certainly BBC 1, as BBC 2 was a heavy channel to watch at the weekends. BBC 2 was also by 1968 still not covering all of the UK, there were key areas such as parts of Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, and in rural England and in the channel islands which couldn't access BBC 2. Channel Islands didn't officially get BBC 2 until 1976 along with colour television.

@@johnking5174 Yes of course you are so right there then too. BBC1 of course at the time, but indeed BBC2 at the time was a heavy channel also at weekends, rather like I guess LWT was trying to be on ITV then as well too?

@@brucedanton3669 Yes, LWT made a misjudgement there. ITV viewers never wanted a heavy weekend schedule. This is why ITV was nicknamed the lighter channel. Only the pompous attitude of the original launch team of LWT and the pompous nature of the ITA who felt they knew what the British public NEEDED to watch and not WANTED to watch. Both LWT and ITA were to blame for the financial mess of LWT in 1968 to 1971

and that bad history lesson is still being lived.

This was 1971 when the BBC aired few repeats, as it operated under strict limiting on television hours (which would be abolished in 1972)

Well, except that London had two very impressive channels across the week. LWT stayed through to the spirit of current affairs with Weekend World and the always influential London Programme.

@@t.p.mckenna But surely Thames would have done the same? In fact Thames had an equally good current affairs team. I believe if they had got a 7 day a week franchise, they would have delegated Friday prime time to Sunday close down to a dedicated Thames Weekend Team, who would have provided big entertainment shows for the three prime time nights of the weekend, and backed it up with regulated current affairs, education etc. They probably would have also provided a weekend news service earlier than LWT did, which for them they waited until 1988

@@johnking5174 quite so, but I make the point that London's viewers weren't necessarily missing out.

Not so. One of the earliest successes of LWT was its football coverage on behalf of the network, with its innovative World Cup coverage in particular gaining critical success. Jimmy stayed around for about 2 more years (up until the Home Internationals of May 1973), joining BBC Sport for their WC Qualifier coverage and prime host of Match of the Day a couple of weeks later.

Well Thames did offer to the IBA (not ITA) that they should do weekends too, but the IBA rebuked them. If the licence was withdrawn a new franchise would be needed, and needed fast. The only sensible solution would be for the IBA to swallow a bit of pride and agree for Thames to have the 7 day licence. London was the only region left with a split service.

Thanks for the info. I did wonder what happened. He certainly "didn't keep things as they are" as time went on.

He also created Sonichu😅

Jimmy Hill joined BBC in mid-1973

Those utterly stupid rules that were imposed on ITV - it was a commercial company and should have been allowed to operate as such NOT the BBC with adverts. When you look back at those early LWT schedules, it's a wonder it didn't go bust long before 1971.

@@rtc9063 BBC were also forced to operate under those restricted TV hours, but of course they preferred it, as it saved them money. I remember an Anglia Television worker said the ITV network as a whole could produce 50% more programming per week and still be profitable if they had those restrictions on hours lifted. They finally were abolished in 1972. One of the only decent things the Edward Heath government did.

The master copy was wiped, but this recording was found

They were not seen as valuable back then. Tape was expensive, and times change. Get over yourself! :-0

@agfagaefart don’t be a dickhead all your life and except that people have an opinion whether you like it or not!!!!