What was your ITV region?

[beccabear67]

Grampian Television

A mysterious one for me (along with the Border region); I imagine people tuning in from the Orkneys and Hebrides to some unique Scottish programs known now only in fading memories.

[wispa lover]

HTV Wales. Despite living in South Wales, for some reason our old TV set had HTV West in better picture quality than HTV Wales.

[culnara]

Grampian Television

[Arran]

Down here in Hampshire, we were on the cusp

Boundaries between ITV regions have intrigued me. They could result in a situation where in a particular town one person watches ITV region A and their next door neighbour watches ITV region B.

I believe that all of Hampshire is officially in the South East region although the London region can be received clearly in Aldershot and Farnborough. Any ideas which are the official ITV regions for Camberley and Bracknell? Guildford is officially London region although South East region seems to be more popular in Hindhead. Horsham is South East region but Crawley is London region. Any ideas about East Grinstead?

[beccabear67]

Down here in Hampshire, we were on the cusp

It must've been nice to get a choice of regions! The only show I remember well made by Southern was Worzel Gummidge though I know there were others... but I've never seen a Freewheelers even though it ran for a long time.

I was thinking HTV might've made The Owl Service as it was set in Wales, but I looked and it was Granada.

I suppose with digital/cable the region system that started based around transmitter towers was going to be eventually 'needless', but it had a lot of strengths to it, variety is strength to me. If it comes down only to sheer viewing figures for advertisers you get a lot of awful cheap overly dramatic stuff.

[Arran]

Thames managed it with the Tomorrow People.

???????

I still think HTV had the creepiest edge to them when it came to children's programmes. They also produced Emlyn's Moon for CITV in 1990.

[Cartimand]

Down here in Hampshire, we were on the cusp between:

and

For news and local interest stuff, Thames was generally better, but Southern was great for showing old Hammer horror films after the 10 O'Clock news.

[beccabear67]

Doing some interesting reading about the early days of ITV in Wales ('ITV Regions', Open University Press) and how the franchise for the north and west of Wales was the only one to actually fail (with Lord Harlech coming in after that and HTV). It's an interesting region with transmitter difficulties and the two languages to cater to. My first thought would be a regular Wales arts program including music, visual, theater etc., with presenters in both languages a bit like Germany had with Beat Club (that had Uschi Nerk in German and a British DJ in English and the program was popular with English speaking armed services people stationed there). I'm not sure they ever had a bringing together of both audiences program of that kind but it might've helped. The south and England's west was served by TWW more successfully with less Welsh programming. That area I could imagine having a language education series that could be repeated, a sort of virtual drop-in class. Not sure if there was any attempt at subtitling back then (1959-1963), may've been technically difficult to achieve but that too could've helped.

[beccabear67]

I imagine Thames had something like the longer Anglia film, which Moonraker posted a link to, that would start their day. I saw Anglia being parodied in a comedy show titled End Of Part One (which had Denise Coffey in it).

I loved The Tomorrow People for some reason, I guess I was the right age for it, but watching some of it much later made me cringe a bit here and there. Never seen the remake, but yes, that opening was a classic! Ace Of Wands was just before my time but I've seen some of the third series of it which has survived. Would love for the first two series to miraculously surface someday soon.

Someone has made up a fun timeline history of the ITV regions using their idents next to a map...
https://youtu.be/KdwCx-utQv4

[W1 Rover]

Thames managed it with the Tomorrow People.

Thames also produced the series Ace Of Wands, now that really had some creepy content, sad that so many episodes have been lost, seemingly forever.

Others have mentioned the Thames strong ident, I don't know if anyone remember this but there used to be a musical prelude immediately before programs started at around about 9.00. It was somewhat orchestral, almost a fanfare that lasted about one minute heralding the start of the day's broadcast with the Thames panorama on the screen.
This was during the very early 70's, way before breakfast TV of course.

[Moonraker]

For me it was Thames Television and LWT. But my favourite logo was Anglia.
https://youtu.be/OlbgtjvISzo

[Arran]

Is it true people referred to the area of coverage as Granadaland?

Yes. Sometimes in a derogatory sense.

I've read how at one time, before Yorkshire Television was created, Granada covered part of it and afterward it extended west instead. So that Granada got it back again later makes sense I suppose.

What happened was that in the early years of ITV there were three regions - London, Midlands, North West and Yorkshire. Each region had a weekday and weekend programme contractor.

London had Rediffusion on weekdays and ATV on weekends.
Midlands had ATV on weekdays and ABC on weekends.
North West and Yorkshire had Granada on weekdays and ABC on weekends.

Later other regions were added to the network and they were all 7 day franchises, starting with STV in central Scotland.

In the 1968 franchise round only the London region continued with separate weekday and weekend programme contractors. The North West and Yorkshire region was split into two different regions.

Yorkshire TV and LWT were new programme contractors for the Yorkshire and London weekend regions respectively.
Granada took the North West region and ATV took the Midlands region.
Rediffusion and ABC merged to form Thames which took the London weekday region.

It seems a pity to have lost all that variety, it seems to have started during the separating the regions from productions, contracting out, and yet the two big soaps I mention are the ones still being made regionally where Brookside, was one of the subcontracted productions, is gone.

Blame it on Carlton.

[Arran]

HTV made some interesting shows for young viewers in the '70s... especially Sky about the alien boy and Children Of The Stones!

HTV was probably the only ITV company which could make children's programmes with a mysterious and somewhat creepy theme to them!

Thames had my favorite logo music. It was formed from a merger of the earlier Rediffusion and ABC.

Thames had a striking, and very memorable, ident.

What was LWT like before 1993? Did it show many local programmes? Its presentation (and possibly the company itself?) was quite brash compared with the majestic Thames, but I think LWT produced more local programmes for the London region than Thames did.

[beccabear67]

Is it true people referred to the area of coverage as Granadaland? Or was that just a promotional 'hype'? I've read how at one time, before Yorkshire Television was created, Granada covered part of it and afterward it extended west instead. So that Granada got it back again later makes sense I suppose. It sort of came down to Granada and Carlton at the end as I've heard it, lots of mergers, cost cutting, offices closed, buildings sold, plus general subcontracting and hollowing out. The accountants in charge rather than people with entertainment backgrounds.

The smallest ITV region was Channel Television covering the Channel Islands, they took a fair amount of programs from Southern but did have their own unique local programs and I expected some in French. Now the regions are much more blurred into a national ITV (or does that have to be a lowercase 'itv'?) with fewer local area programs outside news reporting, so really little different now from the BBC who had shows out of Pebble Mill in Birmingham, or Scottish BBC and Cymru made programs that were seen elsewhere like Coronation Street and Emmerdale that are still made outside London. It seems a pity to have lost all that variety, it seems to have started during the separating the regions from productions, contracting out, and yet the two big soaps I mention are the ones still being made regionally where Brookside, was one of the subcontracted productions, is gone.

[Heather74]

Granada and then Central