Formation Background From its formation in 1954, the
Independent Television Authority (ITA) offered broadcasting licences to different companies for weekday and weekend service in its first three
Independent Television network locations, the London area, the Midlands, and the North. The initial six contracts were parcelled out to different companies.
Associated-Rediffusion (Rediffusion) won the London weekday service while
Associated Television (ATV) operated weekends. ATV also won the weekday service in the Midlands, while
ABC Weekend TV operated the weekend service.
Granada Television won daytime service in the North, and ABC the weekends. Geographical and structural changes led to the first significant shakeups of the network, a process that started in 1967 to take effect from 1968. As part of these changes, the separate weekend service was eliminated in the Midlands and North, who would instead be served by a single seven-day schedule. The London weekday/weekend split schedule remained the same, although the weekend contract was extended to include Friday evenings, but was opened to new applicants.
ABC loses franchises As a result of the changes to the schedule, ABC was at risk of losing both of its existing franchises, the weekend services that would be going away. Consequently, ABC applied for both the Midlands seven-day operation and the contract to serve London at the weekend, preferring the latter. It was widely expected that the company would be awarded the London weekend franchise. Instead, after an impressive application by a consortium led by
David Frost and others, this market was awarded to what became
London Weekend Television. This led to a serious problem for the ITA as ABC was a popular station, whose productions earned vital foreign currency – one such series was
The Avengers. Its station management and presentation style were also admired. While they were still in the running for the seven-day service in the Midlands, it was clear this would be won by ATV, who was also a large earner of overseas revenue, having won the
Queen's Award for Export in 1966.
Rediffusion angers the ITA In programming, Rediffusion was originally considered stuffy but in the previous contract round of 1964, it had re-invented itself, dropping the name Associated-Rediffusion in favour of the trendier Rediffusion London, to reflect the cultural changes of the time, with its output altered accordingly. By the time of the 1967 negotiations, Rediffusion believed that its contract renewal for London weekday service was a formality, and its application reflected this complacency: the company had treated the ITA high-handedly in interviews. It was reported that Rediffusion's chairman Sir John Spencer Wills felt the ITA owed his company a 'debt of gratitude' for this, a comment which particularly annoyed the authority. During the interview process, several members of Rediffusion management also appeared in interviews for applicants for other regions, principally the consortium of which David Frost was a member, as well as the interview for Rediffusion, leading the ITA to question the loyalty at the company.
ABC and Rediffusion become Thames The outcome proposed by the ITA was a "
shotgun marriage" between ABC and Rediffusion. "The combination of these two companies," announced ITA Chairman
Lord Hill, "seemed to the Authority to offer the possibility of a programme company of real excellence." The resultant company was awarded the contract to serve London on weekdays. Control of the new company would be given to ABC, a move unpopular with Rediffusion. Questioning the ITA's decision, Rediffusion attempted to slow down the merger: only the threat of giving the licence solely to ABC made it relent. To assist Rediffusion financially, the ITA insisted that the new company have two sets of shares: voting shares which would allow ABC to have control (with 51%) and 'B' shares which were to be split equally between the two, thus sharing profits fairly. On 30 July 1968, Thames began broadcasting to London. The opening week was disrupted by sporadic strike action; the following week, the action had spread to all of ITV and resulted in the creation of a management-run
ITV Emergency National Service for some two weeks. Each week Thames broadcast from the start of transmissions on Monday until its handover to
London Weekend Television at 19:00 on Friday. (From 1982, the handover time was 17:15.)
Studios The former ABC studios at
Teddington became Thames's main production base. Thames's corporate base moved to its newly constructed studios and offices on
Euston Road (next to
Euston Tower) in 1970, when it relinquished
Television House, Rediffusion's former London headquarters. The Teddington studios were highly desirable, as they had participated in colour experiments and were already partially converted by the time of the franchise change, and as such had been sought after by both Thames and LWT. was leased to
London Weekend Television by order of the ITA before being sold to
Lee International in 1977. ABC's Midlands base in Aston, Birmingham (see
Alpha Television), co-owned with ATV, was sold in 1971 when ATV moved to new colour television facilities. Its northern base in
Didsbury,
Manchester, was used by
Yorkshire Television prior to its
Kirkstall Road studios in Leeds being completed, and eventually sold to
Manchester Polytechnic in 1970, with a lease on sales offices in central Manchester being surrendered.
Early programmes Mark 3) at the National Science and Media Museum, Bradford The station continued formats inherited from its predecessors. These included the variety show
Opportunity Knocks,
Armchair Theatre, the last series of
The Avengers, and the detective thrillers
Callan and
Public Eye, all inherited from ABC. The comedy
Do Not Adjust Your Set, though, originated with Rediffusion, and if nominally a children's show, was one of the forerunners of ''
Monty Python's Flying Circus''. More conventional sitcoms, all of which began in Thames's early years, included
Father, Dear Father (1968–73), the
Sid James vehicle
Bless This House (1971–76), and
Love Thy Neighbour (1972–76). Another sitcom,
Man About the House (1973–76), was successful enough for two spin-offs,
George and Mildred (1976–80) and ''
Robin's Nest'' (1977-81). The company took over the
This Is Your Life format in 1969, several years after the BBC had dropped the show in 1964. Another BBC favourite was comedian
Benny Hill, the star of
The Benny Hill Show (1969–89), who was placed under contract. Hill spent most of the rest of his career with Thames.
The Sooty Show, cancelled in 1967 by the BBC, now aired on Thames and began on the first day of transmission. It continued after
Harry Corbett's retirement in 1975 with his son,
Matthew Corbett, and lasted on Thames until late 1992. The company also produced the children's show
Magpie (1968–80), intended as a rival for
Blue Peter on
BBC1, and
The Tomorrow People (1973–79), a science fiction series commissioned as an answer to the BBC's
Doctor Who. For preschool children there was
Rainbow, which started in 1972 and ran for 20 years. The programme used animation and graphics created by Stop Frame Productions, which later became
Cosgrove Hall, a Thames subsidiary founded in 1976 which made animated series for children. During the hours after
Rainbow and before the children's slot,
Good Afternoon was transmitted, a magazine programme. It began after the IBA allowed non-schools broadcasting in this period of the day, when the government relaxed the regulations around daytime television and featured interview editions undertaken by such broadcasters as
Mavis Nicholson, and a weekly consumer programme, which eventually became a programme in its own right;
Money-Go-Round. Thames also produced
The World at War (1973–74), a 26-part history of the
Second World War using unseen footage and interviews, often of high-level participants. The series, narrated by
Laurence Olivier, was commissioned in 1969, took four years to produce, and cost a record £4m (approx £47m in 2018). Thames gained a reputation for drama with such series as
Jenny, Lady Randolph Churchill (1974), with
Lee Remick as the mother of
Winston Churchill. It won an Emmy as the best series in its category, as
Edward & Mrs. Simpson (1978), about the
abdication crisis, did later. Other successful series in the genre from this period include
Shades of Greene (1975–76),
Rock Follies (1976), and
Armchair Thriller (1978–80). These programmes were made in the then standard 'hybrid' studio video/location film format, but the British industry was in the slow process of dropping the multi-camera studio format for drama, excepting soaps, to making the genre entirely on film. The Thames offshoot
Euston Films was founded in 1971 to specialise in drama output made entirely on film, then still a rare practice. Euston made the police series
The Sweeney (1975–78),
Danger UXB (1979), and
Minder (1979–94), plus the last appearance of
Nigel Kneale's best known creation in
Quatermass (1979). In this era, Euston also made single one-off dramas such as
The Naked Civil Servant (1975). On 1 December 1976, the punk band the
Sex Pistols were interviewed live on Thames's regional news magazine programme,
Today. Members of the group uttered obscenities during
their interview with
Bill Grundy. In his introduction, Grundy said they are "as drunk as I am", but later said his comment was a joke, and had allowed the bad language to illustrate the character of the individuals in the group. The interview filled two minutes at the end of the programme, but the production team feared trouble in the studio if they stopped the programme mid-air. Thames's telephone switchboard was jammed by complaining viewers. Responding to the incident, Thames said in a statement: "Because the programme was live, it was impossible to foresee the language that would be used." The comedians had worked for the BBC since 1968 with major national success, but the decisive factor leading the duo to leave the corporation was Thames's offer to feature them as main leads in a film made by the company's Euston Films subsidiary. The comedy duo's leading scriptwriter,
Eddie Braben, did not initially move to ITV with them, and with Eric Morecambe's failing health, the new shows never gained the audiences or matched the esteem they had previously enjoyed. One of the early anchor presenters was radio DJ
Tom Edwards.
Industrial relations up to the end of 1979 Like most of ITV, Thames was beset by conflicts with trade unions, notably the Association of Cinematograph Television and Allied Technicians (
ACTT). A two-week technicians strike in the summer of 1975 shut down the whole of ITV with the technicians being bought off with a 35% pay rise. Two years later in May 1977, another strike occurred when production assistants at Thames refused to operate new video equipment. Thames proceeded to sack all the technicians for breach of contract. The following month, both sides backed down over the issues, with all technicians returning to work. The worst strike to hit the network originated at Thames. Failure to reach agreement on pay increases and shift allowances in the 1979 pay round resulted in technicians switching off power to the transmission facilities at the Euston Road centre on 6 August. After management restored power, the technicians walked out. Within four days, all but one ITV station had gone off-air after the ACTT asked members at other companies to walk out in claim for a 15% pay rise. The network was off the air for 10 weeks.
Later programming Other Thames shows included
This Week (known as
TV Eye between 1979 and 1985),
Rumpole of the Bailey, the
game shows
Strike It Lucky,
Give Us a Clue and
Name That Tune, and the drama
Dodger, Bonzo and the Rest. Thames sitcoms during the 1980s and early 1990s included
Keep it in the Family,
Never the Twain,
After Henry, and
Mr. Bean. The
Mr. Bean pilot episode, starring
Rowan Atkinson as the titular character, was first broadcast on
ITV on 1 January 1990, and the eventual run lasted beyond Thames holding of its franchise. Less well-known is its adaptation of
Andy Capp (1988), starring
James Bolam. Two of its post-franchise sitcoms found more success when they transferred away from
ITV –
Men Behaving Badly, which moved to the
BBC in 1994 and
Is It Legal?, which moved to
Channel 4 in 1998. Both were written by Simon Nye and co-produced by independent company
Hartswood Films. A few years after
The World at War, Thames broadcast
Hollywood (1980), a 13-part documentary series about the era of the America silent cinema. This series, produced by
Kevin Brownlow and
David Gill, was followed by the company sponsoring
Thames Silents, a project undertaken by Brownlow and Gill of the restoration and screenings (in a limited number of cinemas and on television) of major films from the silent era. The two men followed
Hollywood with series dedicated to leading comics of the silent era,
Unknown Chaplin (1983) and
Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow (1987). A programme on
Harold Lloyd (
The Third Genius) followed in 1989.
Hollywood and the Chaplin series were narrated by the actor
James Mason. Unusually for a commercial broadcaster, Thames also produced lavish versions of Gilbert and Sullivan's
The Mikado and Shakespeare's ''
A Midsummer Night's Dream''. Thames's subsidiary production company Euston Films continued to produce many of Thames's highest-profile drama contributions to ITV network programming to the end of its ITV franchise. These included
Reilly, Ace of Spies (1983),
Jack the Ripper (1988),
Capital City (1989–1990),
Selling Hitler (1991), and
Anglo-Saxon Attitudes (1992).
The Bill (1984–2010) began as a one-hour series of separate stories in 1984, but from 1989 until 1998 was broadcast several times a week, usually in a 30 minute slot. Its storylines became overly melodramatic and focussed far more directly on particular police characters rather than the crime from 1998 and its return to the hour long slot and then became much more a soap opera in 2002 (when individual story titles were dropped) until coming full circle dealing predominantly with crime again in about 2007 for the last few years of its existence.
Programming controversies In January 1985, the company made a deal with international distributors for US production company
Lorimar to purchase the UK broadcasting rights for US drama
Dallas, at that time transmitted on
BBC1. This broke a
gentlemen's agreement between the two sides not to poach each other's imported shows. Thames paid £55,000 a show compared to the £29,000 of the BBC. The deal brought condemnation from the BBC and from other ITV stations, who feared the BBC would poach their imports, pushing up prices. The BBC planned to delay transmission of the episodes of
Dallas that it already had, with the hope to broadcast them at the same time Thames broadcast its new purchases. Ultimately, pressure from several ITV companies (especially
Yorkshire Television) to the IBA forced Thames to sell the series back to the BBC at a loss.
Bryan Cowgill, the managing director of Thames left the company, as he believed his position was untenable since the board was unwilling to support his plans to buy the series. In October, Thames paid the BBC, via the IBA, £300,000 in compensation to make up the shortfall in additional cost for new episodes of
Dallas. The most controversial programme Thames broadcast was the documentary "
Death on the Rock", part of the current affairs
This Week series. The programme questioned the authority of British troops who had shot dead suspected
IRA members allegedly planning a
terrorist attack on a British military ceremony in
Gibraltar. The documentary was regarded almost as treason by many
Conservative politicians, and
The Sunday Times made claims about one of the witnesses interviewed which were later found to be libellous. The following year, in 1989, Thames ended the contract of
Benny Hill, a stalwart at the station since 1969. It was believed that the comedian was dismissed because his shows were considered offensive and
politically incorrect, but
John Howard Davies said the decision was taken because of falling ratings, very high production costs and Hill was looking tired. The show at its peak had 21 million viewers, while the last episode had nine million.
Industrial relations in the Thatcher era Through the early 1980s, Thames experienced a series of local disputes while management deliberately confronted contractual ‘rackets’, and pursued the introduction of new technologies based on operational requirements rather than precedent. For Thames’s management, this was a materialist operation with a clear dimension, and to weed out unscrupulous bargaining and working practices. In the summer of 1984 a major strike was called, this time, over Thames's management unilaterally issuing new rostering schedules (overtime payments for transmission staff), and the use of new cameras and editing equipment. There were no internal discussions of the potential savings that could be derived from new shift patterns, but there was a strong sense that union controls had to be removed before the company embarked on increasing its operations. The technicians walked for a few hours on Monday 30 July, but the station was able to return just one day as management and administration staff took over their roles. On Monday 27 August, ACTT technicians walked out again over the new shift patterns; the strike ended on 3 September 1984, at 1p.m. after the union agreed to rostering according to need, while the management dropped plans for ending six-day working fortnights. Bryan Cowgill said: "The need for sensible change in the way we conduct our operations has been at the heart of this dispute. The outcome of a damaging and costly dispute has resulted in substantial progress towards a more realistic and effective way of working". Over the following four weeks, further discussions took place about implementing the plans while introducing new technologies. On Wednesday 17 October, another strike was instigated, as talks failed to reach agreement. The union warned against a management-run service, as it would be a recipe for total network disturbance and a massive loss of programmes, but Thames claimed that it would be justified due to the strike being unofficial. On Monday 22 October, a management-run service started operating; the company claimed the revised schedule was popular with the viewers. During the period of the management operated emergency schedule, viewers in the Thames Television region would see the ITV breakfast service TV-am from 6.25am until 9.25am. Once TV-am concluded, when the rest of the UK received schools programmes, Thames viewers were left with a blue screen showing their upcoming emergency schedule which would normally start at around 1.30pm and conclude around midnight. With no access to ITN News, viewers in the Thames region had to make do with short Thames News bulletins. Weekend ITV schedules for the London region were not affected by the strike, with London Weekend Television coming on air on Fridays at 5.15pm as usual. The strike ended on 3 November 1984, after 62 film editors agreed to the new conditions, while the ACTT agreed as well to start negotiations about the introductions of new technology. Additional episodes of network productions were screened to help clear the backlog, since no outside programmes were broadcast. Thames said: "We are delighted in the outcome of the dispute which we believe is in the best interests of everyone who works at Thames". For the Thames board, the dispute represented a huge, but necessary, cost if the company was to expand its production operations profitably. Profits at Thames dropped – from £14.1 million in 1983/84 to £8.75 million in 1984/85 – during the strike period, but were able to recover back to £14.6 million in 1985/86 just before flotation on the stock market. During April 1988, after successfully introducing new technologies and employing more freelance staff, Thames announced the loss of 200 jobs from its permanent workforce, which followed similar action from other ITV companies in a bid to slim down their workforce and alter working practices for economic reasons. Thames made a further 297 employees redundant as part of its restructuring plan to reduce its staff to 1,500 in preparation for the 1991 ITV franchise round.
Area and ownership changes In 1982, the
Independent Broadcasting Authority decided to change the Thames franchise area, which resulted in the
Bluebell Hill transmitter in north
Kent, its associated relays and the main relay at
Tunbridge Wells being transferred from London to the new
South and South-East of England,
TVS franchise, in order to serve the new region better. In 1985,
Carlton Communications had executed a failed take-over bid for Thames after Thorn EMI and British Electric Traction decided to sell their share of Thames. The deal was blocked by both Richard Dunn, chief executive of Thames, and by the
IBA, which concluded 'the proposal would lead to a major change in the nature and characteristic of a viable ITV programme company'. Carlton's owner,
Michael Green, claimed that the decision left him 'bewildered' and said: 'We are surprised at the IBA's decision. I'm absolutely certain it would not have been a major change to Thames. We have always suggested that we would make absolutely sure the company would continue to be what it is at this moment in time.' The IBA said it had nothing against Carlton owning part of an ITV company, but believed 'any' single ownership of an ITV company was undesirable. The shares on offer were being sold by BET and Thorn EMI, which planned to reduce their shareholding from 100% down to 28.8%. During 1989 reports appeared that talks were taking place with Carlton about an agreed merger, which resulted in no action. The flotation was not a great success, EMI and BET only managing to reduce their shares to 56.6%, with management acquiring much of the new stock. In March 1990, EMI and BET tried once again to sell off their shares in Thames, with Carlton and CLT (a Luxembourg-based media company) both in the running. However, by October talks had stalled, with EMI and BET still controlling Thames before heading into the 1991 franchise round.
Franchise loss On 16 October 1991, it was announced that Thames Television would lose its weekday London ITV franchise from the beginning of January 1993 as a result of losing the silent auction used to award the new licences. Thames bid £32.5 million while
Carlton Television placed a bid of £43.2 million, and, since both Thames and Carlton were deemed to have passed the quality threshold, the licence was awarded to Carlton for having submitted the higher cash bid; the highest bidder in the auction,
CPV-TV, was deemed to have failed on quality grounds. Some commentators consequently speculated that Thames had fallen victim to a 'government vendetta', whilst others felt that the auction had been won fairly. Carlton chose to commission the vast majority of its production content from third parties, and rent studio and broadcasting space at LWT's London Studios. Thames was bullish after losing, since the company had made confidential contingency plans, which involved 1,000 redundancies and the closure of the Euston Road facility. The company believed it would become "Europe's most powerful independent producer and programme distributor."
The Times quoted a spokesman the day after the announcement: "We can be more profitable this way, being forced out of broadcasting will save us £32.5m a year in bid payments, £30 million a year in advertising revenue taxes and about £10m in transmitter cost." Thames chairman Richard Dunn publicly stated that Carlton chairman Michael Green had done everything in his power to obtain the London weekday franchise since being blocked by the IBA in 1985. Prior to its launch, Carlton was forced to advertise on
LWT to promote its new programme line up, following an acrimonious High Court dispute between Thames and Carlton over the selling of rights of hundreds of films in Thames's library. Carlton settled out of court for £13.1 million. The loss of Thames's franchise was seen as controversial by many, and highly significant by most, given Thames's history within ITV, as a long-standing franchisee in its own right, its heritage from the start of the network through its founding parents ABC and Rediffusion London, and the fact that it was one of the major contributors of content to the ITV network. The auction method used to conduct the new franchise round was a significant change from previous rounds and was brought about by the
Broadcasting Act 1990. Consequently, the franchise loss became a subject of political debate, with changes brought about by the 1990 act being cited as the primary reason for an operation such as Thames being able to lose its licence to broadcast. That the then Conservative government had passed such an act caused accusations of direct responsibility to be levelled at former Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher in particular, who had presided over its creation. Opinions varied on the matter of political motivations; some cite the documentary "
Death On The Rock", which may have caused displeasure to the then government, whilst others link it to a more general ideological dislike of the way ITV had been run at the time, with over-manning, and the fact that programme production was generally limited to franchise holders (sometimes critically referred to as barriers to entry), being seen as examples of why more commercial freedom and competition was needed within the network. ==Television and movies==