It might have
made huge pre-tax profits recently, but back in January of this year, the
largest commercial network for Freeview subscribers, ITV decided to have a
change of rebrand.
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| The new ITV logo has received a mixed response |
The logo (pictured) was
given a makeover, as were the idents into our favourite shows. There was also a relaunch of the news systems
– both of regional outputs and the national picture.
It is around six
weeks since the change and it is difficult to see ITV in the position it
currently is. Some of the idents make no
sense whatsoever, and if you see your favourite ITV programme – whether that be
The Chase, Dancing on Ice, This Morning or Coronation Street – the credits are
now in black! Not all programmes have to
have this background, and I for one find it slightly off-putting.
A change was
needed, as it had been six years since the last makeover but in my opinion, it
is a change for the worst.
It all
started to go wrong for ITV in 1991. The
1990 Broadcasting Act is often overlooked by other key statues that have passed
law, such as the Human Rights Act and the Data Protection Act – but it made the
corporation into one main channel.
The ITV
regions are largely no more, a real shame and a concept I wish we still had on
today’s screens.
The aims of the act
The aims of
the act were to reform British broadcasting.
It had just been a year after Sky Television had opened up the choice of
viewer to the consumer.
Changes
included the abolition of the IBA (Independent Broadcasting Authority), the
creation of a fifth British terrestrial television channel (Channel 5 in 1997),
and the BBC being forced to have 25 per cent of their programming being
produced by other companies rather than through their in-house production content.
It also saw
the changes in the ITV regional franchises.
Previously, franchises ran for 10-20 years in each ITV region across the
UK. Changes were not frequently made,
and when they were, it was on the basis of the quality of programme content.
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| The ITC made some controversial decisions |
Margaret
Thatcher, who was prime minister at the time, wanted these new franchises to go
solely on the amount of the highest bidder in a 'blind auction.' After
some resistance from senior cabinet members, it was decided that the quality of
programme threshold would be included in the ITC’s (Independent Television
Commission's) final decision.
This confused
many of the regions when it came to auctioning for the rights. Some put in high bids, others much lower bids
knowing they weren’t to be challenged, or felt the programming quality was
going to be the ultimate final decision.
The license award
For example,
Central Television put in a bid of just £2,000 to keep the popular Midlands
region, whilst Scottish Television (knowing they were unopposed), put in a
similar bid to guarantee themselves the license north of the border.
In October
1991, the ITC announced which ITV regions would have the commercial licenses to
begin on 1 January 1993.
12 of the 16
ITV networks at the time, including Granada, Yorkshire, Anglia and LWT kept
their licenses. Some were challenged,
others weren’t. However, four networks weren’t so lucky.
The biggest
loser was Thames Television, who serviced London on weekdays. They were outbid by CPV-TV (led by Richard
Branson) and Carlton Television. As
Carlton were the highest bidder, and Branson’s organisation were disqualified
on quality grounds – Carlton got the license.
Thames had it
since the late 1960s, and had been the brainchild of quality drama at the time
such as The Bill and Minder. Over 1,000
jobs went as a result of this decision.
Although Thames remained as an independent production company – the ITC’s
decision to hand Carlton the license was a total disaster. In my opinion, it spelt the death of ITV as a
regional output.
Gone was the
classic Thames jingle, and in came random faces from around London just saying ‘You are watching Carlton’ with some music that to be honest, a baby could
do better with!
800 people
lost their jobs at TVS, who had been the holder of the South and South East
license for 10 years. Their bid of £59.8m
was deemed too high, as the business plan was deemed not to be suitable. The smaller Meridian network came in
here. However, it had greater success
than TVS, and is probably the only change most agreed with.
That didn’t
help the people employed at TVS. The
company was eventually sold to International Family Entertainment a year
later. An independent production company
now owns the logo and the abbreviation.
Like TVS, TSW
lost its franchise due to poor business planning. The South West franchise of Plymouth, Devon
and Cornwall went to Westcountry Television, despite them bidding £9m
less.
It didn’t
make much difference to the area.
Westcountry’s idents were more catchy and colourful, but the programming
quality was limited at best. As for TSW,
they entered a reverse takeover and ultimately entered receivership.
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| The offices of TV-AM became rather empty after their demise |
Breakfast
television also got a major change.
TV-AM, who had served the network well in its 10-year existence despite
a famous unions strike and early teething problems – lost the national
breakfast franchise to Sunrise Television.
The Sunrise
Television consortium bid £20m more and got the license on being the highest bidder,
leaving TV-AM staff mortified. The late
presenter Mike Morris said he was ‘gutted,’ while owner Bruce Gyngell launched
a vicious attack on Sunrise’s business plan.
He said: “I
do not believe that Sunrise will have a profitable business plan. In fact, I predict Sunrise will go bankrupt
in 1994. It is an extraordinary
decision.”
Sunrise
Television would eventually change its name to GMTV after a dispute with Sky
over the use of the Sunrise name.
Whilst GMTV
actually went on to do a decent job, many loyal TV-AM audience members were
lost because of this decision, and frankly – commercial breakfast television
hasn’t been the same since they disappeared from our screens.
Mergers
start to emerge
The 1990
Broadcasting Act also relaxed the effect of mergers, and two major players
started to come together and totally destroy the ITV regional network. To Granada and Carlton, all I have to say is
congratulations.
The writing
was on the wall in 1994 when Carlton took over Central, having been a long-time
investor. Meanwhile Granada became the
new owners of LWT. With the two most
popular regional networks bought out by two robotic machines, the domino
pattern had been set.
Meridan
bought Anglia in the same year, consequently moving the Anglia presentation to
Southampton. This was a strange move
considering Anglia outputted areas such as Cambridge, Northampton, Norwich,
Luton and Milton Keynes – none of them anywhere near Meridan headquarters.
Two years
later, Carlton killed off Westcountry Television by buying them out and
increased their growing stake in Central.
In 1997, Granada’s response was to acquire the Yorkshire-Tyne Tees
element. Although we still had regional
news bulletins and regional idents – ITV was swiftly becoming a one network
system – and this was killing off its earlier unique identity.
By 1999, only
three ITV regions were now independent, with Granada and Carlton, together with
Scottish and United News and Media (owners of Anglia, HTV and Meridan), owning
the rest between them. A new corporate
look was identified and launched in 1999 and with it, we waved bye-bye to
regional identity.
Three years
later, all regions disappeared as ITV became a single network. The 1990 Broadcasting Act had done its job,
and lost channel number three it’s regional identity.
Settling down
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| Downton Abbey is arguably ITV's biggest hit nowadays |
Nowadays, ITV
is still home to many top programmes.
The worldwide success of Downton Abbey and emergence of Mr. Selfridge in
recent weeks has won critical acclaim.
The Only Way
Is Essex is somehow winning over a large audience following from youngsters,
whilst Coronation Street and Emmerdale still attract massive figures.
ITV is also
the home for live terrestrial football, and do a solid if unspectacular job of
giving the footy lover live FA Cup, UEFA Champions League and England
internationals for free.
And there are
other mainstay programmes still going strong such as This Morning, but others
haven’t been so lucky.
The Bill
faded and faced demise, classic entertainment like Catchphrase, Gladiators, You
Bet, Blind Date and Stars in Their Eyes were ditched for much of the reality content we have on today.
News at Ten
has been fluctuating in the on/off position for the past two decades. The way ITV have fiddled around with its news
content is baffling at best, considering the BBC has only made one main change
(moving the late news to 10 o’clock from 9) in the past 30 years.
Athletics,
Formula One and Boxing were eliminated, meaning ITV Sport should be renamed ITV
Football (oh wait, they tried that and nearly left the Football League in
financial ruin).
And other
programmes went without a fight. Home
& Away was passed off to Channel Five without any consideration, Who Wants
to Be A Millionaire got so predictable that it has sadly been forgotten about
far too easily, and there is no place at all for other cracking shows in the
mid-80s/90s like World of Sport, Through the Keyhole, Blockbusters, Crossroads,
Peak Practice, Spitting Image, Bullseye, The Krypton Factor, Heartbeat and World
in Action.
Is ITV in a
stronger place than it was back in the 1990s?
That is open to debate. I don’t
think it is to be honest. Advertising
revenues are down and I reckon it has lost its unique identity.
Some of the
changes in the 1990 Broadcasting Act were made for the better of British
television, but the demise of the ITV regions is something that is missed.
I will finish
with a reminder of some of those cracking regional idents from TV’s real heyday
of the 1990s.
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