ITV Franchise Awards 1991: BBC None O'Clock News - BBC1 - Wednesday 16th October 1991

Presented by Michael Buerk. The day's news and views on the ITV franchise awards.

[@AlexanderEdoh2013]

And ITV will never recover from this.

[@sillygoose635]

it clearly did

[@christopherhulse8385]

Itv is meaningless in this day and age with multiple outlets for entertainment alongside traditional terrestrial tv.

[@whatamalike]

@@sillygoose635 Recover? More like remission with chronic health problems for the rest of its life.

[@anthonyperkins7556]

@@whatamalike I agree 100%. Reality shows, gameshows, faceless kids programmes, repeats, boring itv nightscreen, and teleshopping! All crap. Only original programming is drama and soaps. News has been cut to a mere interruption. Regional programmes don't exist.

[@souvikrc4499]

@@anthonyperkins7556 Agreed, the deregulation of British television has pretty much resulted in the "dumbing down" of television.

[@angelacooper2661]

I remember this happening - I was twenty one at the time. Central TV was in my area, the Midlands.

[@97channel]

8:09 "Warmth with authority." ironically describes TV-am. "Not a desk and not a sofa.", they ended up launching with both a desk for news, a sofa for lighter content. Within only four months it was sofas ahoy as it cloned TV-am's iconic sofa driven service.

[@jakubwidlarz]

Liz Howell is now head of the BBC's weather department.

[@DanBmthUK]

Liz Howell was sacked from GMTV within months of going on air.

[@jcampton1]

And it was that sofa-driven attitude that had kept ITV Breakfast going and going and going for another 21 years until Daybreak's demise in April 2014.

[@rtcp2020]

Where girls cried: Titanic Where boys cried: Furious 7 ending Where men cried: You were my brother, Anakin! I loved you! Where EVERYONE cried:

[@brucedanton3669]

This was really a time that ITV you could say did not recover from really somehow so too. For the BBC and Channel 4 then at the time it was not so bad in a way really then of course. Thank you!

[@johnking5174]

By 1995, the irony was that GMTV would end up paying the same fee to the treasury that TV-am original offer in 1991 would be. GMTV nearly collapsed financially and after much debate and threats, by 1996 had their £34 million a year fee reduced to just £20 million.

[@jojojojo4332]

" sunrise will be bankrupt by 94" by tv-am boss.

[@johnking5174]

@@jojojojo4332 At least GMTV lasted. Remember the ITC couldn't allow GMTV to fail. No matter what they did.

[@brucedanton3669]

Thank you for this of course so too, it is most interesting at that for sure!

[@johnking5174]

Thames Television had clever financial insight, and in 1992 partnered with the BBC commercial arm BBC Enterprises to form UK Gold channel on cable and satellite, which still airs to this day. Clever way to use their archive along with the BBC vast archive to make cash.

[@robertcomer2767]

But Pearson soon got rid of the share when it bought out Thames.

[@jacksugden8190]

Thatcher was the catalyst for all those changes, opening up unopposed competition, I disliked that women and the damage she made in the council house sales and the deregulation of buses in and outside of London.

[@stevenoneill7166]

I definitely agree with bus deregulation in 1986. In my hometown of Middlesbrough, some of the new bus companies were run by taxi companies driven by taxi drivers & would often drive recklessly to beat existing bus companies to the nearest stop to grab passengers. Very dangerous & extremely stupid

[@christopherhulse8385]

It was a total farce, Central TV only bid £2000, with no rival bidders for what arguably is a major franchise, and poor TSW lost out to Westcountry who ran a cheap station with low quality programming.

[@hugoboss5895]

Did you see how clean that hospital was in the intro.

[@johnking5174]

Oh yes, weird to see a clean ward when a BBC camera crew is there, oh yes how odd.

[@IainShepherd1]

9:35 “some might wonder if we were tipped off? but that would be a third possibility, and as I’ve repeatedly said there are two possibilities”

[@rogerdarthwell5393]

30 years ago today

[@john123521]

*Nine O’Clock News

[@georgehollandvideos]

Of the four new ITV franchise holders, Meridian seemed to get the least flack from viewers. They wisely kept familiar TVS faces on the regional news and quite a few local feature programmes were carried over such as Country Ways. The extent of Meridian's ambitions seemed to be limited to the introduction of the Thames Valley news service. Otherwise, they lacked the energy and creativity of their predecessor. Most people agree that Carlton, GMTV and Westcountry were extremely disappointing in terms of their programme output. An indictment of the ITC's judgement. As the managing director of Thames said, how could their proven track record be compared with mere paper promises from Carlton?

[@stevenoneill7166]

TVS was a much better ITV company & delivered some top-notch programming on the network. I suspect that, because of this, they were considered a threat to LWT (TVS often had a programme in a peak-time network slot on Saturday or Sunday night) so through some under-handed deal, they lost their franchise in favour of Meridian who were no threat to LWT whatsoever

[@VermyScrubs]

@@stevenoneill7166 That could be a reason but I personally think TVS lost because they grew too ambitious for their own good. TVS after all wanted to become a big name in *Global* Television. They just like their predecessors at Southern were extremely confident they would win. They ultimately bid too high because of that. While I agree that it could be because LWT made some deals, a cash bid of £59M PER YEAR is laughable at best and extremely irresponsible at worst no matter what region you were broadcasting in.

[@CliveEvans-oj2nn]

Those were the days when you could have flowers in hospital

[@VermyScrubs]

I think it’s safe to say, the 1991 Franchise Rounds and the 1990 Broadcasting Act in a sense, completely destroyed ITV. The wrong power was available and the wrong people were in charge.

[@rtc9063]

High Quality Application and £43million. Can't remember any High Quality programmes from Carlton. Thames got it right as Carlton had to have that bid reduced years later!

[@redeye_]

idk why channels logo was different in the 2:04-2:15 section

[@ColmORourke1981]

Did the BBC have issues with Ulster Television or what? As well as ignoring the fact they were outbid by the TVNI consortium, they keep showing their logo upside down :-)

[@neilrobinson1815]

yes ab left itv under a cloud 25 years on the war rages on

[@MQsCues]

2:10 - Yorkshire's (triple) region is rather large!

[@MQsCues]

Whereas HTV's doesn't seem to include the 'West' region...

[@aceflashheart2523]

Why did they refer to Carlton as the newest and largest ITV company? Carlton was never the largest during its whole existence. Just because it outbid Thames doesn’t make it the largest.

[@JulianAlpsNews]

Perhaps they were referring to the size of Carlton's market?

[@343Floridamain]

30 years ago today folks you guys still pissed about television south west's death? hello from 🇺🇲

[@CliveEvans-oj2nn]

Thames waa a briiliant company

[@robertcomer2767]

Looking back it was no wonder TV-am was the most profitable company. It was always poor on screen and never did anything to improve its news service or brought anything new to the table.

[@MQsCues]

And yet the audiences loved it (so it could rake in a fortune on advertising).

[@martinwalsh3228]

More older news online.

[@solojinglesradio1]

you have to look it for and not obligue to it

[@CliveEvans-oj2nn]

Bring back Thames. Atv etc