Life in Britain in the early 1980s

[Arran]

The Bluebell Hill transmitter has the accolade of having the most ITV companies serving it, and I believe that it was in power from day one on 22nd September 1955 - not counting breakfast television companies, it has had a new company each time - Associated-Rediffusion and ATV from 1955 to 1958, Thames and LWT from 1968 to 1982, in which a region change from London to the south and TVS from 1982 to 1993 and Meridian from 1993 onwards.

Bluebell Hill opened in 1974. It never broadcast Associated Rediffusion or ATV.

[George 1978]

The Bluebell Hill transmitter also served south Essex whilst it broadcast Thames and LWT, as it provided a stronger signal than the Crystal Palace transmitter. When Bluebell Hill was changed to the south east ITV region in 1982 it resulted in TVS effectively having most viewers in south Essex in its territory. Many viewers in south Essex continued to watch TVS, and later Meridian, rather than re-align their TV aerial to Crystal Palace.

The Bluebell Hill transmitter has the accolade of having the most ITV companies serving it, and I believe that it was in power from day one on 22nd September 1955 - not counting breakfast television companies, it has had a new company each time - Associated-Rediffusion and ATV from 1955 to 1958, Thames and LWT from 1968 to 1982, in which a region change from London to the south and TVS from 1982 to 1993 and Meridian from 1993 onwards.

[George 1978]

Granada only had one competitor in the 1980 franchise round. Merseyvision which was the project of a number of academics both at the University of Liverpool and Liverpool Polytechnic. It was a weak application and the group appeared to have no concept of what was involved in making network programmes, along with no source of finance disclosed. Its application largely consisted of slagging off Granada, the ITV network, and even the IBA itself, that their staff wondered why Merseyvision even wanted to be part of ITV!

Even in the event of Merseyvision being handed the North West England franchise, it would have replaced an ITV company heavily biased towards Manchester with one just as heavily biased towards Liverpool.

Southern had already bought land in Maidstone for a new TV studio for the 1980s to serve the eastern part of the region and replace the small studio they had in Dover. In the event of losing the franchise they sold the land to TVS at a considerable profit.

I assume that Merseyvision was nothing to do with North West TV that Phil Redmond founded to bid against Granada in 1991 and lost (failed the quality test, apparently), probably because of safeguarding Coronation Street - I say this because it had a similar name to Mersey TV in which Redmond made Brookside and Hollyoaks for Channel Four. .

[Arran]

Take into account that Southern lost some of its territory in the change from 405 line VHF to 625 line UHF.

The UHF signal from the Dover transmitter was too weak in north Kent, so a new transmitter was installed at Bluebell Hill, but for some stupid reason it was assigned to the London ITV region so viewers got Thames and LWT instead of Southern.

Therefore, it would be disingenuous to criticise Southern for poor coverage in Kent when it only has half of Kent in its territory on UHF and the number of VHF viewers were declining during the 1970s and early 1980s.

The Bluebell Hill transmitter also served south Essex whilst it broadcast Thames and LWT, as it provided a stronger signal than the Crystal Palace transmitter. When Bluebell Hill was changed to the south east ITV region in 1982 it resulted in TVS effectively having most viewers in south Essex in its territory. Many viewers in south Essex continued to watch TVS, and later Meridian, rather than re-align their TV aerial to Crystal Palace.

[Arran]

I am certain that New Labour wasn't coined when John Smith was Labour Party leader, and certainly not when Kinnock was leader - it was certainly "founded" not long after Blair became leader. Major was veering more right-wing and I think that after 18 years most people had enough, but in 1997 the political map still looked blue because all the big sized rural constituencies remained Conservatives.

The seeds of New Labour had been planted in the late 1980s when the Labour Party realised that there weren't enough blue collar working class folk left in Britain to enable them to win a general election, so they had to diversify in order to attact a sufficiently broad demographic of people rather than targetting their traditional demographic. Electability, rather than purity of ideology, had taken the centre stage following the 1987 general election.

There is some evidence that Labour relied on the public sector worker vote, rather than the working class vote, during the period from 2003 to 2015. The provision of public services, as opposed to economic reform or worker's rights, was the centrepiece of New Labour ideology.

I previously mentioned about the decline of the trade unions as a result of the decline in heavy industry, and how both the trade unions and Labour have failed to engage with and represent the new working class in low skill low paid positions in the service sector.

https://forums.doyouremember.co.uk/f...744#post282744

[Arran]

I have thought of Granada as being a very Labour Party, Grauniad readers' company - think of how many left-wing series produced by them such as What the Papers Say, University Challenge, World in Action, and a lot of tweed jacket journalists and writers such as Ray Gosling, Michael Apted, Colin Welland and so on. Cross the Pennines and Yorkshire TV feels like a Daily Telegraph retired Sergeant Major company with older, more conservative people on there - Bruce Gyngell was CEO of YTV and Tyne Tees and tried to take the television industry back a few decades by banning programmes with smut in them, even though they were on after 9.00 pm. Central felt like a students' TV company with no whiff of traditional ITV in the 1980s - they were a bit like Marks and Spencer's Food Hall - they preferred their own brand goods rather than other people's. I bet that it was a huge shock to the system to see the traditional ATV around from the mid 1950s give away to this 1980s "new kid on the block".

I thought that Southern had lost in a similar way that ATV had to change - poor coverage towards the east of its region - originally the South East was advertised separately with Anglia and the London companies applying although Southern won, and so, the South East was advertised along with the South. And Westward lost because of its business plan, although as TSW already took over Westward in August 1981, the transition on New Year's Day 1982 was as smooth as the ATV/Central one.

Granada only had one competitor in the 1980 franchise round. Merseyvision which was the project of a number of academics both at the University of Liverpool and Liverpool Polytechnic. It was a weak application and the group appeared to have no concept of what was involved in making network programmes, along with no source of finance disclosed. Its application largely consisted of slagging off Granada, the ITV network, and even the IBA itself, that their staff wondered why Merseyvision even wanted to be part of ITV!

Even in the event of Merseyvision being handed the North West England franchise, it would have replaced an ITV company heavily biased towards Manchester with one just as heavily biased towards Liverpool.

Southern had already bought land in Maidstone for a new TV studio for the 1980s to serve the eastern part of the region and replace the small studio they had in Dover. In the event of losing the franchise they sold the land to TVS at a considerable profit.

[George 1978]

New Labour (contrary to popular belief) was not a personal project of Tony Blair.

I am certain that New Labour wasn't coined when John Smith was Labour Party leader, and certainly not when Kinnock was leader - it was certainly "founded" not long after Blair became leader. Major was veering more right-wing and I think that after 18 years most people had enough, but in 1997 the political map still looked blue because all the big sized rural constituencies remained Conservatives.

[George 1978]

Good question. Remember that ITV companies (or more precisely programme contractors) were owned by other companies or were a plc, with the result that their owners could easily be political biased, although the ITV company had to be impartial whilst on screen.

Southern Television lost because it was a closed company owned by companies that were not based in the region which were also involved in print media. At the time, simultaneous ownership of both broadcast media and print media was heavily frowned upon.

I have thought of Granada as being a very Labour Party, Grauniad readers' company - think of how many left-wing series produced by them such as What the Papers Say, University Challenge, World in Action, and a lot of tweed jacket journalists and writers such as Ray Gosling, Michael Apted, Colin Welland and so on. Cross the Pennines and Yorkshire TV feels like a Daily Telegraph retired Sergeant Major company with older, more conservative people on there - Bruce Gyngell was CEO of YTV and Tyne Tees and tried to take the television industry back a few decades by banning programmes with smut in them, even though they were on after 9.00 pm. Central felt like a students' TV company with no whiff of traditional ITV in the 1980s - they were a bit like Marks and Spencer's Food Hall - they preferred their own brand goods rather than other people's. I bet that it was a huge shock to the system to see the traditional ATV around from the mid 1950s give away to this 1980s "new kid on the block".

I thought that Southern had lost in a similar way that ATV had to change - poor coverage towards the east of its region - originally the South East was advertised separately with Anglia and the London companies applying although Southern won, and so, the South East was advertised along with the South. And Westward lost because of its business plan, although as TSW already took over Westward in August 1981, the transition on New Year's Day 1982 was as smooth as the ATV/Central one.

[George 1978]

Champagne Socialists

Grauniad readers.

[Arran]

Very true! - I assume that Blair's New Labour wasn't the same party!!!

I asked an interesting question during a history lesson at school: When did the industrial revolution (in Britain) end? The teacher was unable to provide a definite answer, but if I had to answer it myself then it would be 1979. The year that Margaret Thatcher was elected as PM which heralded the transformation from an economy based around manufacturing industry to an economy based around finance and the service sector.

The Labour Party was the child of the industrial revolution. The political wing of the trade union movement. A party established by the blue collar workers employed in the mining and manufacturing industries to represent them in Parliament.

The greasy overalls and flat cap heavy industrial workers were the bedrock of the support base for Labour prior to 1979. The majority of them were not particularly left-wing with only a tiny fraction supporting the theories of Karl Marx. They were usually quite patriotic and socially conservative people. Most could not stomach the whims and ideologies of the Guardian reading progressive left from Hampstead or the Trotskyists – which they commonly referred to as champagne socialists. They were employed in heavily unionised industries, so it was in their clear economic interest to vote Labour.

The decline in heavy industry after 1979 resulted in a decline in the number of blue collar industrial workers. By the late 1980s Labour realised that it could no longer rely on this demographic if it wanted to be a party that actually won a general election and formed a government. The Labour Party (as it was) was now technically obsolete.

New Labour (contrary to popular belief) was not a personal project of Tony Blair. It was a combination of several factors including:

1. The transformation of the economy based around manufacturing industry to an economy based around finance and the service sector.

2. Failure (Old Labour) trying to blindly copy success (Thatcher's Conservative Party) without a deeper understanding of the situation, and which Conservative policies should be adopted in the longer term and which are best left behind as short term fads of the 1980s.

3. Rogernomics from New Zealand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogernomics

4. Increasing influence and domination of the Fabian Society. Although every leader of Labour has been a member of the Fabian Society, its influence was kept at bay by the power and influence of the blue collar working class.

5. The champagne socialists and graduate progressive left increasingly worming their way into positions of power and influence in the voids created by the departure of the blue collar working class and their trade unionists.

6. The EU and how it straitjackets and handcuffs national governments when it comes to economic policy. Much of Old Labour economic policy violates 'level playing field' legislation imposed by the EU Competition Commission.

7. The impact of technology in the economy that eliminates jobs and puts more power into the hands of the capitalist class. Something that economic socialists worldwide have no real answers to.

8. This one is a bit contentious. A desire of Labour to be the party of immigrants and ethnic minorities despite many of them moving up the socioeconomic ladder into positions that are the demographic of the Conservative Party rather than Labour – such as businessmen, managers, landlords, investment bankers, etc.

[Arran]

I would have thought that as most trade unions were allied to the Labour Party, it would mean that any union holding a stake in an ITV company (or any company for that matter) would mean that there would be political bias implicated. I wonder what the IBA thought of that at the time?

Good question. Remember that ITV companies (or more precisely programme contractors) were owned by other companies or were a plc, with the result that their owners could easily be political biased, although the ITV company had to be impartial whilst on screen.

Southern Television lost because it was a closed company owned by companies that were not based in the region which were also involved in print media. At the time, simultaneous ownership of both broadcast media and print media was heavily frowned upon.

[George 1978]

There's a strange paradox that the political left in Britain defends the BBC to the hilt but the working and lower class folk have long preferred ITV to the BBC.

I think that a trade union was a stake holder in one of the competitors to Tyne Tees in the north east ITV region in the 1980 franchise round. Had that company won then it would have generated millions of pounds for that trade union.

I would have thought that as most trade unions were allied to the Labour Party, it would mean that any union holding a stake in an ITV company (or any company for that matter) would mean that there would be political bias implicated. I wonder what the IBA thought of that at the time?

[George 1978]

The Labour Party technically died in 1979. It's been a ghost party ever since.

Very true! - I assume that Blair's New Labour wasn't the same party!!!

[Arran]

I used to think that everyone who sat on the TV-am sofa (and no doubt everyone who appeared on TV-am) in the 1980s (presenters included) were Conservative voters - only the political guests that Frost interviewed on Sunday mornings made me think otherwise. The fact of the matter was that: A) its first CEO was Jonathan Aitken - a sitting MP which the IBA forbid him to do because of political bias; B) Aiken's successor Bruce Gyngell was great friends with Margaret Thatcher, and to be honest, Gyngell felt to me like a Conservative MP in a TV executive's body; and: C) Carol Thatcher's (her daughter) worked at TV-am as well. D) Gyles Brandreth was a presenter who later became a Conservative MP, etc... I could go on.

Trade unionists seemed to be "backwards" back then, and that trade unions again, like wearing flares - out of date.

There's a strange paradox that the political left in Britain defends the BBC to the hilt but the working and lower class folk have long preferred ITV to the BBC.

I think that a trade union was a stake holder in one of the competitors to Tyne Tees in the north east ITV region in the 1980 franchise round. Had that company won then it would have generated millions of pounds for that trade union.

The Daily Mirror owned a satellite TV channel called Mirrorvision which launched in June 1985. It showed films.

http://www.terramedia.co.uk/Chronomedia/years/1985.htm

[Arran]

The Labour Party technically died in 1979. It's been a ghost party ever since.