EyeSpy: The end of ITV’s Glory Years

It was 20 years ago today that ITV would change forever, the loss of Thames Television in London, the departure of TV-am from breakfast and also closing down for the last time were TVS for the southern region and TSW in the South West. The regional ITV structure would be, with regulator and MP backing, turned into a national broadcaster for the most part in the following years.

While Thames Television survives today as a independent production company, with shows still airing on the ITV network, such as The X Factor,  TVS and TV-am closed down entirely while TSW became a regional film archive. The changes aimed to increase the money the regional companies paid to the government in order to broadcast on ITV, however it didn’t quite workout that way. GMTV, which replaced TV-am, failed to find the cash for their overpriced bid and had to be assisted with the payment slashed.

In two clips below we hear from LWT’s boss Greg Dyke who despite winning the contract for London Weekend to stay on air thought the whole process of the ITV contract round was a farce.

“I’d like to say as a winner it was a ludicrous system from the beginning…. What is interesting now its quite hard to find a Conservative MP that ever admits to voting for it. And yet three, four, very good companies have lost because of a system that was not rational.”

Below that its farewell to one of ITV’s greatest broadcasters, Thames Television. The days of regional ITV are for England and Wales a thing of the past. UTV in Northern Ireland and STV in Scotland buck the trend and continue to provide a regional flavour to presentation and programming, however despite their success the regulator and government continue to claim local ITV no longer works. The fact is it no longer works because the major company behind it – Granada – placed a self imposed spanner in its works in order to become more profitable. But lets now go back to 1992 when profits were not placed before programmes and ITV was a more creative place to be…

Click the image for the related clip. (Opens in a new window.)

An interesting look at the changes in 1992 and what followed can be found here