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This is the Transdiffusion Broadcasting System (TBS), a not-for-profit historical society dedicated to documenting and preserving broadcasting history.
We have over three dozen websites devoted to all aspects of broadcasting and broadcasting history [sitemap], backed by the largest known private physical archive of historical presentation material.
In the latest update...
Φ Baby Boomer's Revenge Advice for programmers
Φ One Born Every Minute Hidden phone quiz scandal
Φ The Word and the Deed Watch your language!
Φ Catalogue of Woe BBC Catalogue is off the air
Φ On The Run The story of London's pirates (1973)
Φ Humph: A Tribute Nigel Stapley on Humphrey Littleton
Φ Tested to Destruction Stuff the bloody focus groups
Φ Pay-per-PSB? An idea that doesn't quite work
Our editors' latest musings in the MediaBlog
30-second guide to...
London Weekend (1968-2002)
London Weekend,
known on air after 1978 as LWT, was the weekend (Friday night to Sunday night,
eventually to the early hours of Monday morning) franchise holder for London
and its environs. The brainchild of David Frost and a clique of media big-hitters,
it defined itself against the populism of ATV London
and initially promised much highbrow
material. After a ratings collapse and a refusal by many other regions to
show its programmes, and intense internal
turmoil - including a brief period of involvement by Rupert Murdoch, then
a new figure in the UK
media scene - the company became an effective "son of ATV London",
specialising in sitcoms such as On The Buses and light entertainment
such as Blind
Date and (ironically) a remake of ATV's Palladium show, although it also
produced prestigious period drama such as Upstairs, Downstairs. It
often had a tense relationship with Thames
Television. Senior broadcasting executives such as Michael
Grade, John
Birt and Greg Dyke first came to prominence at London Weekend. In 1994, the
company was bought by Granada
although it retained its own on-screen identity and its association with light
entertainment, eventually moving into a new era with Popstars. The
LWT brand bowed out in 2002 with a spectacular final
startup and montage of the company's idents
although its name would still appear after programmes produced at its former
production base of The London Studios (originally the South Bank Centre), now
the epicentre of ITV, until 2004.
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