ITV Franchise Awards 1991: The Late Show - BBC2 - Wednesday 16th October 1991

Kirsty Wark presents the winners and losers from the ITV franchises awards announced on Wednesday 16th October 1991.

[@johnking5174]

The 1991 ITV franchise outcome was a true blessing for the BBC. It drained millions of pounds from ITV. It brought in companies that weren't wanted and never liked. It caused the reduction in regional news and regional programming, all to the benefit of the BBC.

[@danwoodhouse9290]

and look at the BBC now - not much different

[@Officialkrislive_]

It was a silly idea that was thought of by the batty Margaret thatcher

[@CJODell12]

1:17. All the losing franchises are in the center four squares.

[@Ad-gn8pl]

The central guy trying his best to keep the smirk off his face

[@johnking5174]

That smirk would be wiped off his face within a few years when Carlton Television ate up Central Television for breakfast in January 1994!

[@jamesmt142]

True, but with that low bid they were always going to be a target.

[@mixtapesfrommylatepartner]

@@johnking5174 He got a seat on the board. The smirk would've got bigger.

[@johnking5174]

Sunrise Television name didn't last long. Sky News breakfast programme went by the same name, so GMTV was chosen as the new name for the ITV breakfast franchise.

[@darryltester5376]

The end of ITV as a federation of independent stations in to the mess we have now sadly.......

[@MatgoStyles]

Do you really believe all those companies remaining independent of each other and competing with each other would have made for a stronger network in the face of multi-channel television and streaming services?

[@darryltester5376]

@@MatgoStyles Suggest you check out CBS in america, it has local stations during the day and a national network at night after 7pm..... Perhaps you like regional identity to be lost and a one size fits all mess???

[@MatgoStyles]

​@@darryltester5376 I didn't think this needed saying but the USA has a land mass of 9.834 million square kms compared to the UK's 242,495, and a population of 330 million compared to 65 million. Of course it is better served by a regional television structure - they need it due to the sheer size of the country and therefore the economics are there for it. If you can't see the difference then it's little wonder you can't see how ITV would have struggled in the face of multichannel television.

[@darryltester5376]

@@MatgoStyles France, Germany and even smaller populated countries in europe all have regional tv stations that remain regional or are affiliated to larger networks in the evenings..... they all survive in a multi channel world..... Suggest you do your research... end of discussion.....

[@darren2514fv]

One of the N Ireland bidders was Bryan Cowgill ex BBC and Thames

[@johnking5174]

44:06 - Well fast forward from 1991 to 2004 and this did happen, when ITV started to become one company with Granada owned regions and Carlton owned regions merged to form ITV plc. Now in 2024 only STV in Scotland remains as the independent franchise there.

[@rtc9063]

To see Clive Leach smirking at the guy from White Rose Television who passed the quality threshold and bid £20million less. Maybe they did get it right seeing how Leach was kicked out of Yorkshire when they realised the bid was unsustainable.

[@97channel]

A fascinating discussion, especially from the viewpoint of nearly twenty years on, but Kirsty Wark didn't hold court very well. Every time someone started speaking, she was "But... Yes... Could... Er… Well... Let...".. It's hard to take in the points being made, because she wanted everyone to shut up the moment they opened their mouths.

[@stevenoneill7166]

Members of the ITC & the government were asked if they'd like to be on the show but declined to participate. The bastards knew what they had done to ITV

[@johnnycasinosob6596]

They all stabbed each other in the backs by joining rival bids for others

[@anthonyperkins7556]

The bidding process was barmy, cash bids didn't always win over paper promises

[@ColmORourke1981]

The UTV logo in the background is upside down...

[@MrWEWE5]

I guess the BBC really hated UTV so much.

[@MatthewPrower]

1:21 f first time i’ve seen all 16 of these end cards together

[@mikeeyles9635]

Surprised Thames never went after LWT franchise as a backup? £10M would have got it.

[@johnking5174]

Thames did want the LWT franchise way back in the early 1970s, when LWT neared financial collapse, Thames approached the authority asking about taking over the franchise. That got them a severe bollocking from the authority, that they never dared approach that region ever again.

[@stevenoneill7166]

Once it got financial problems sorted out, LWT was an excellent ITV company throughout the 1970s & could often beat Thames in terms of programme quality. However, in the mid-80's, that quality started to go right down the toilet &, if anything, it should've been LWT rather than Thames that lost their franchise. The entire franchise system in 1991 was a bloody farce as was the so-called quality threshold. LWT would've failed the latter hands down. It was obvious they wanted to take over the ITV network, hence GMTV being based in their studio centre & a number of Carlton & Meridan programmes being produced there too. Add to that how pro-Tory LWT's bosses were (the 1991 franchise system was altered by the Conservative government) & it just underlines how corrupt the whole fiasco was

[@christopherwilliams2093]

ORACLE, when it began, had a base at LWT until, with the emergernce of Channel 4, had moved premises to Marshall Street but the bulk of ITV's sports programming was produced by LWT. Carlton also shared LWT's transmission facilities.@@stevenoneill7166

[@christopherwilliams2093]

Also, some of Channel 4's programmes were made from LWT's studios.@@stevenoneill7166

[@JJVernig]

This is a very interesting bit of television about television. They are almost all there, even Peacock and Richard Branson. Only the incumbent and new bidders voor breakfast TV. A few tidbits: - In the ITV network there is more money than all of BBC combined. Maybe the most expensive channel in the world. But I think at this stage it also had the biggest overhead. - It was already a cashpoint for the goverment and it stayed for another 15 years. - The takeover by the Europa's took a 10 years more... - The money siphoned off (by stakeholders and goverment) can lower standard, and the ITC can't do much about it if the corporations are going under. (Sunrise TV) - Leslie Hill who gets the question right in his face if he is a new millionnaire... Look at his face 45:55.

[@MrThecarebear]

ITV programme production should have stayed entirely in-house, with frontcaps and no sponsorship

[@grahamnancledra7036]

Westward/TSW made ITV a regional programme company with was watched and enjoyed by the public. Westcountry did next to nothing regionally or nationally and was detested by the public.

[@MatgoStyles]

Westcountry ran a decent regional news service with four sub-regional opt outs and Westcountry Live actually out-rated TSW Today.

[@georgeholland2934]

Westcountry was a low budget operation. Its MD said in an interview that their “early learning curve was distressingly in vision”. That was an honest reflection. Whereas TSW was well established and had a warm rapport with viewers, Westcountry took a long time to find its feet. The initial innovations such as sub-regional opt outs quietly disappeared.

[@JamesTilsley1]

39:30 Didn’t happen Carlton and Granada were both British and they gobbled up the rest of the franchises.

[@johnking5174]

I know between the two companies, any franchise which was bought by Granada usually were handled much better than those bought by Carlton. Granada treated the companies they bought properly, whereas Carlton were the total bastards of ITV, who acted like the typical television businessmen of that era.

[@mbvideoselection]

@@johnking5174 Really? I mean, really? I think you've got that completely on its head. Granada kept the regional brand names but nothing behind them, asset stripping and squandering money setting up digital channels just to screen badly made soft porn and starve budgets of mainstream network shows. Carlton on the other hand, even though equally heavy handed in making their presence felt, kept investment in a) regional production, b) in-house network production, and c) buying back the archive of ATV/ITC into ITV which otherwise would have incrementally been thrown away/left to decay into unusability. Also the drive to make Central productions as popular as possible by being as good as possible by being given proper budgets was an outcome of the influence Carlton had (via Zenith) over Central long before anyone had ever heard the name. Carlton had history even though it wasn't visible, and Granada just used their history as a reputation to prop up very little of note from thereon.

[@johnking5174]

@@mbvideoselection I have had four friends who worked at Granada Television during this time, and I am just providing their insight. They much preferred Granada management to Carlton. I am just passing on the details from what they told me. So they worked there, I take their word better than speculation from articles written about them.

[@mbvideoselection]

@@johnking5174 I think it takes outsiders to see a more balanced view. People on the inside will be biased.

[@mbvideoselection]

It's not speculation by the way, many writers on the subject have noted these sentiments in various ways over the years, implicitly or explicitly.

[@th8257]

Margaret Thatcher, whose idea this all had been, ended up apologising to her mates at TV-am when they lost their franchise.

[@matthewchadd9986]

Have you got any classic videos of rhino from gladiators please thank you very much

[@georgeholland2934]

I think Christopher Bland of LWT summed up the ITV franchise auction neatly as a “lousy system”. The winners certainly were not the viewers.

[@christopherwilliams2093]

Who would you say the winners were, then?

[@georgeholland2934]

@@christopherwilliams2093 The biggest winners were the likes of Central Independent Television who only paid £2k to keep their franchise.

[@johnking5174]

20:00 - What world was Peacock living in? He said anything was better than the pre-1991 franchise round - Piss Off! What was wrong with the model used in 1964 and 1968 franchise rounds? Nothing was wrong. He was living in a fool's world here in 1991.

[@danwoodhouse9290]

and he's died now so he cant be open to question

[@christopherwilliams2093]

As Christopher Bland was saying he had no idea how ITV companies worked, but I would have set up an ITV Regional Tax for the companies BUT as long as their programme plans had improved quality throughout their schedules.

[@johnking5174]

@@christopherwilliams2093 Well there was a levy forced on to ITV companies already in place. A percentage of the revenue had to go to that levy, I believed enforced by Harold Wilson's Labour government of the mid 60s. That Labour party then despised ITV as it looked like capitalism at it's worse to them, so they decided to make the ITV companies squeal in financial pain.

[@timg5tm941]

Alexa, play me the most pretentious title track for a programme ever…

[@johnking5174]

20:00 - The system before the 1991 mincing of ITV was so much better and brought us the likes of Thames Television in 1968, a station which gave hit after hit for ITV, and this pompous ass thought it was worse than the 1991 franchise "auction". Sod off Peacock!

[@whatamalike]

Just imagine if Branson and Redmond won the franchise round along with Carlton...what happened to the regions would've happened a HELL of a lot quicker under them neoliberal shysters!

[@dlamiss]

At least that c**t Branson didn't get hold of a franchise

[@johnking5174]

Branson or Carlton - I know which I would chose, Branson - he maybe an ass, but he is less of an ass than Carlton became - remember a Mr David Cameron worked for Carlton, I wonder what ever happened to Mr Cameron???

[@dlamiss]

@@johnking5174 Branson is for Branson

[@officialkrislive]

Branson even tried to bid for the channel 5 franchise