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The
companies
The
IBA, in 1984, was enjoying a period of relative calm whilst the
dust settled around another franchise round in which its
judgement had yet again been found seriously wanting.
 Independent
Television was about to celebrate its thirtieth birthday, but
the IBA was still making the same mistakes it made in its first
franchise awards to Associated-Rediffusion and ATV exactly
thirty years ago. Pick a ridiculously highbrow contractor (such
as Associated-Rediffusion), and then hope to goodness it doesn’t
go bankrupt before it manages to make more realistic
programming. Or, on the other hand, pick a realistic contractor
(such as ATV) then breathe down its neck continually and keep
telling it parrot-fashion to go upmarket despite them knowing
much better than you that to do so would be commercial suicide.
 The
IBA had dismissed Southern Television on the basis of a panoply
of glittering promises from Television South, but the reality
was (as in the case of London Weekend and Harlech before it)
rather disappointing. By the end of 1984 it was clear that the
company had not (and would not) outshine Southern, and its
forays into the network had been mediocre at best.
 Its
strongest suit, children’s programming, would have shone far
more brightly were it not for the fact that Southern Television
under Lewis Rudd had been the best producer of children’s
television in the network. And TVS’s other networked
contributions had not demonstrated any reason why it should be
granted more access to the network.
 The
almost unprecedented interference in the structure of ATV
Midlands, resulting in the creation of Central had brought about
a worthy, slightly upmarket but ultimately dull company, with
none of the pizzazz and swashbuckling excitement of ATV at its
best. By 1984 the company was visibly lacking Sir Lew Grade’s
guiding hand, and was saddled with "regional"
shareholders with little interest in or understanding of
television.
Worse
still, breakfast television had been brought to its knees by an
archetypal bit of IBA foolishness. The IBA picked an upmarket
franchisee for breakfast television that could only possibly
make money if the BBC didn’t compete with it. The IBA had
assumed that the BBC would produce a worthy, "Newsnight"-style
Breakfast programme. It didn’t – it basically moved
"Nationwide" into the morning and had the additional
benefit of regional news and weather (something that
TV-am didn’t have). TV-am was forced to zoom very publicly
downmarket to a level below IBA’s wildest dreams kicking and
screaming very publicly all the way. And, unknown to everyone in
1984, TV-am was going to go a good way further downmarket yet.
The
IBA’s mistake, as always, was to pick the franchise holder
with the highest amount of public service commitments or
offering the most highbrow programming – despite being obvious
to anyone  that
this would result in a very public financial disaster. The IBA
never learnt, and was about to get its fingers severely burnt
with its choice of satellite franchisee.
Meanwhile,
serious problems in other areas had gone unremedied by the IBA.
Thames Television was being run as a cash cow by its board and
continuing to earn its reputation on the back of its talented
pool of staff inherited from ABC and Rediffusion. Arguably
Thames no longer deserved the excellent pool of programme making
talent it had in 1984, and simmering discontent within the
company led to the worst industrial relations in the network.
However,
due to sheer talent and despite chronic under investment, Thames
continued to win awards and make excellent programmes that kept
the IBA happy. Apart from lopping another 1hour 15mins from the
company on Fridays (relatively painless as LWT ended up showing
"Thames News"), the IBA had not really done anything
to show its disapproval, or to secure Thames the management it
deserved. To allow the flagship contractor to flounder in this
way was unforgivable.
In
much the same way, Ulster was under performing as always. In
1981 it had yet again been retained as a "safe pair of
hands" given the "difficult situation". The
unwillingness of the IBA to ensure that a quality regional  contractor
served the people of the six counties was an abandonment of
their duty.
It
is interesting that the 1985 yearbook marked the final time that
the IBA Yearbook would mark the building of new ITV studio
centres. With the completion of Culverhouse Cross for HTV Wales,
and the opening of Central’s Nottingham Studios and the new
TVS centre in Maidstone this marked the last major programme of
building television studios in Britain. This was the last time
that companies could proudly boast of gleaming new studio
centres being  the
"largest and best equipped in Europe". Television
studios, once the ultimate mark of prestige, are now simply
"resources" that can just as easily be rented as
owned.
Modern
technology and deregulation in the industry was about to make it
both much more practical and much cheaper to film on location,
and modern accounting practices now frown on anything that can
be regarded as a "fixed cost" – particularly with
the amount of production now farmed out to independent
producers. |
