ITV Franchise Awards 1991: Business Daily - Channel 4 - Wednesday 16th October 1991

Susannah Simons presents the daily business programme. The main story: The winners and losers from the ITV franchise battle.

[@robertcomer2767]

God only knows how Carlton passed the Quality Threshold

[@DaveAndBeth1978]

Thames were stitched up

[@97channel]

@@DaveAndBeth1978 So were TV-am. The Sunrise (GMTV) consortium involved, both directly and indirectly, people who had grudges with either the company or the Tories, and TV-am became a political casualty of the franchise auction. It was a revenge attack against Margaret Thatcher personally, who was good friends with Bruce Gyngell. People on the inside knew that Thames was being stitched up, and got in a huge counter-strike by ensuring that the loss of TV-am evened the score. It worked, Thatcher went on record saying that she gutted that both her friend and the company which helped brake the unions had lost the franchise.

[@grahamnancledra7036]

WestCountry became known locally as WetCountry as nearly all their logos featured water. From Day one it was detested in the South West - no local/regional programmes, no on screen announcers and they killed off the rabbit.

[@georgeholland2934]

I agree, Westcountry was not warmly received in the South West. They did away with everything viewers liked about TSW and it was a low budget amateurish operation. Getting rid of in-vision continuity announcers and Gus Honeybun was a poor decision.

[@AntarcticaTelevision]

17:32 - 17:33 "Don't move."

[@CJODell12]

5:54. Border, Scottish and Channel’s bids are shown on screen: £52,000, £2,000, and £1,000 respectively

[@rtc9063]

I bet Christopher Bland wasn’t wearing that rosette when the smug LWT management didn't see they'd lose the company to Granada.

[@stevenoneill7166]

His company only got their franchise renewed because he was a former Deputy Chairman of the IBA & most of LWT's management (including himself) were very pro-Tory. It was good when Granada took over them as LWT were getting carried away thinking they could take over the ITV network. Even their programme quality was nowhere near as great as it was in the 70's

[@rajtheangrydj2711]

Your announcer is Trevor Nicholls

[@RegularCapital]

7:48 Asda wasn't an ITV franchise XD

[@robertcomer2767]

Christopher Bland "if we had bid at our outer limit we would have been stretched". More like "if we'd bid at our outer limit the likes of me and Greg Dyke wouldn't have walked out of there millions of pounds richer."

[@jamesdelboy]

I don't remember the clock introducing Business Daily I only remember the clock for the news

[@jakubwidlarz]

5:21 Would this be TVS's new logo post-1993?

[@yellowbelly06]

Nah, it was just a lazy graphic artist who couldn’t quite work out the correct font I’m afraid.

[@jamesdelboy]

I never understood franchises well I was only a wee boy back then but I did watch news programmes then it made sense

[@johnking5174]

Franchises were the British version of "affiliates" which they have in the US.

[@robertcomer2767]

ITV RIP began on this very day. God only knows how Carlton passed a quality threshold. They should have used exceptional circumstances in the case of Thames but 'Death on the Rock' might as well have been 'Death of a franchise'. And then all those cash bids and they had to get them all reduced because they couldn't pay them. There was no point in Thames and TV-am going off the air although TV-am's quality was always questionable.

[@pak8606]

All 4 losses were in their own way unfair. Carlton and Meridian should never have been given licences as they only used independent producers.

[@robertcomer2767]

pa k I think I made a similar comment for another video. Carlton planned to dump The Bill with a soap about a truck depot (or something similar). Shouldn't that have been enough of a warning to George Russell? As Richard Dunn correctly said "it was all paper promises". Where were the pilots of these so called shows to show to the ITC? They're weren't any because they were too stupid to make this part of an application. So let's just think of a show and stick it on a piece of paper and add a cash bid. I wasn't too bothered about TV-am. To be honest that franchise should have readvertised and given to ITN or an emergency ITV service. TVS could have survived if that bid hadn't been so high and they could never have kept up with those payments (but then again neither could Carlton, GM-TV and others who had to go to the ITC / Ofcom begging for them to be reduced) but I think there was pressure to force Thames off the air because let's face it they could have used exceptional circumstances there. The ITA, IBA, ITC were useless authorities. LWT was a disaster when it first went on air, TV-am let's say no more, and then Carlton (I have no words) and not once were they stripped of their franchises. Those at the IBA were all just overpaid lovey's who took the money and went out to fancy lunches. And then oh we don't like Southern or ATV so let's just put a company out of business because we can. It was Lady Plowden who wanted TV-am (another one taken in by a load of rubbish on a piece of paper) and then let it die every morning to the point of bankruptcy. But they didn't have the business qualifications or company management experience. I doubt they ever got involved with seeing how these new companies were getting on prior to coming on the air, or when it all went to hell to take that company over and force ITV management in there to sort it out instead of which it was a disgrace to the ITV network every morning until Greg Dyke got in there. The only time it came close to revoking a licence was when Thames were asked could they operate a 7 day franchise if they pulled the plug on LWT back in the late 60's. Well at least none of this nonsense will ever happen again. Oh the stupid rules thus country had.

[@pak8606]

Carlton did promise a soap opera but never materialised as you say. The whole 1991 auction was ridiculous. I don't know much about the previous franchise round in 1980, other than ATV kept their licence under conditions, one of them changing their name (they became Central) and that Southern lost to TVS and Westward lost to TSW.

[@robertcomer2767]

pa k They didn't like ATV because they saw as too downmarket. However ATV did win the franchise with all these stupid promises. The first the name had to go. Then a lot of production was done in Elstree because they used to have the London weekend franchise before LWT. So they forced them to sell them which were bought by the BBC. Then spend a fortune on a new studio complex in Nottingham. But then were forced to pay a fortune to people in London who didn't want to move to Nottingham. All the East Midlands needed was a building specifically needed for news but no. Then the first day of Central they all went on strike and it took years to get that operational. In fact Anne Diamond and Nick Owen were lined up to do that and they never presented one programme from there. Then the accountants came in in the 90's and concluded the studios after costing a fortune to build weren't making any money and the whole complex was sold off on the cheap to the University of Nottingham. That's what I mean about incompetent people being in charge of organisations like the IBA. And at the end of the day it was all ATV programmes but with that awful original central logo. But that was the IBA showing how great they were.

[@johnking5174]

I bet one deciding factor for Carlton's win was they had given a promise to work with LWT in providing a seven day a week local news for London service. LNN was formed in January 1993, and would provide a decent local news service united the two franchises together for news. Something which Thames never wanted, as they hated LWT and this was a key factor in their quality threshold.

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