This would be one of the last issues of the TVTimes as it then was.  Television Publications Ltd, a company dominated by Rediffusion and Associated Newspapers, was to be replaced by Independent Television Publications Ltd, a new company part-owned by all the contractors (save tiny Channel) in September.

The new company would have an ITA representative on the board, and would have a new mission statement - to project a united image of ITV throughout the country.  The brand name TVTimes would remain, but TV World and other smaller regional publications - many from Dickens Press - would be abolished.

The effect was to remove local programming from the cover of the paper - it was only 'cost effective' to have networked productions there - and therefore hurt the smaller contractor more than the larger ones.  But it allowed the TVTimes the ability to compete with the BBC's Radio Times for the first time.