Yorkshire Television was the first of the new companies to come on air.  The new contracts began on 30 July 1968, a Tuesday.  Granada, seeking a 'clean' start, sold the last day of their contract for broadcasting from Emley Moor and Scarborough on to the new YTV.  This meant they were last seen in the area on Friday 26 July, and that ABC was the last of the old-style companies to be seen from Emley Moor - just as they were the first 12 years earlier.

In London, Rediffusion saw no need to sell Monday 29 July to Thames, and so had its final day in isolation - although by this time Rediffusion had a lot of ABC people seconded to key positions, meaning that the last day of Rediffusion was simply the last day of Rediffusion presentation - the company was more Thames than anything else by then anyway.

That Monday causes some interesting anomalies.  Chief announcer Redvers Kyle was at Rediffusion to open up and close down the station for the last time.  However, he was off to be chief announcer at YTV, so his voice was heard there doing the authority announcement on tape.  Rediffusion productions were seen on YTV that evening, and a YTV production on Rediffusion - the only time that combination would happen.  The YTV production was actually made at Didsbury by ABC staff for YTV, who would operate out of Didsbury for a few months whilst the finishing touches were made to the Kirkstall Road studios.

And by the way, the opening of those studios by the Duchess of Kent was not networked - it was seen only in the YTV area.  The colour footage that still exists was recorded specially for archiving.