Tonight’s Thames/LWT… in 1971 

3 September 2014 tbs.pm/5370

C 19710903 Thames-LWT

Thames ident 2From the TVTimes for Friday 3 September 1971 comes this run down of what you could be watching. We’ve merged two pages here – the Thames listings took up the top half of p41 with a advert below; the LWT listings were on p43 with a full-page advert between them on p42. Things worth noting:

  • LWT’s teetering finances and boardroom troubles mean we only get about an hour of their own output – the rest is taken from the network and from film
  • Yes, that’s a repeat of Thames Television’s Cribbins at 7.30pm on LWT.
  • LWT repeatedly accused Thames of putting unpopular programmes on in the hour before LWT came on air on Fridays, eventually persuading the IBA to move the handover to 5.15pm. The hour before the change today is Today, which was popular for a local news show, and a programme about children with learning difficulties – audience poison (whether we’re comfortable with that or not is a different matter)
  • Police Five at 10.30pm was created by ATV London and LWT carried it on at the request of the Metropolitan Police. Shaw Taylor presented both this one and ATV Midlands continuing version. Many regions copied the format – Granada choosing to rename it (a bit) Police File. In some regions, it was presented by a serving police officer
  • Skippy was rubbish

You Say

2 responses to this article

David 3 September 2014 at 11:27 am

Before I’d even looked at the accompanying commentary, I spotted the ‘poison pill’ of My Brother David. In later years, Thames Sport was the handover show, which I’d have thought would rate tolerably well.

Given the enmity between the two, it’s distinctly odd that LWT would take a Thames repeat at 7.30, especially one not seen elsewhere in the country. Indeed, the news, racing, Kate, and The Sky’s The Limit are the only fully-networked offerings here.

Finally, Living Architects occupies the slot now home to Tipping Point. Oh dear.

Arthur Nibble 7 September 2014 at 10:13 pm

I remember reading about another Thames ‘dead slot’ show on a Friday on this bespoke website – Channel Televison’s documentary “The Bitter Years”, a predominantly amateur-shot account of the Germans’ occupation of the islands, which the ‘big four’ weekday ITV companies refused to screen (Granada using the excuse that they didn’t have the technology to show the footage, yet they used the same type of technology for their own show “All Our Yesterdays”). Of the four, only Thames eventually showed the documentary, scheduling it in a London Weekend baiting 6.30 slot,

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