| A
flash forward now to the TVTimes in 1987. At this point,
the TVTimes is still the official magazine of independent
television, but has now swollen to include not only each ITV
company in its region, but also Channel Four, TV-am and the
much-missed Oracle teletext service.
TVTimes,
of course, is still published today. But Independent
Television Publications, who also produced the IBA's annual
yearbook, would soon be sold on by the companies, eager to
realise some profit from the huge company.
But
the sale had a knock-on effect. With the TVTimes no longer
owned by ITV, there was a lot of difficulty in justifying the
monopoly of listings it had. That also affected the BBC's
Radio Times. Time Out in London was the first to attempt
to break the monopoly by publishing weekly listings for all
channels. A court decision held that schedules were
copyright of the companies involved and thus a monopoly could
exist. But the death-knell for monopoly had been sounded,
and the then-government began to move towards 'liberalising' the
market. TVTimes would rapidly slip from second-best
selling magazine out of two, down the list as newer, cheaper
magazines rushed in.
But
in 1987, all was cozy and ITV (and the TVTimes) were having
another golden age. It wouldn't last. |
