As long ago as December, 1966, when the Independent Television Authority announced that the North and Midlands would no longer be split into weekday – weekend contracts, we have lived with the fact that ABC’s “odd man out” contract would cease to exist.

From that moment we knew that a new Company would have to take over from ABC, either as a 7-day contractor in Lancashire, Yorkshire or the Midlands, or to share the London contract. Therefore, among ourselves, we began to talk not about ABC Television but about the new Company “XYZ Television”.

“XYZ” has become Thames Television, operating what the Authority calls “the prime contract” in London, with ABC interests having the major (marginally) interest in Thames.

Change was inevitable. And change there has been in 1968 – not only in terms of Independent Television, but in terms of the whole country, in its politics and its economy.

ABC, as we have all known it, was already spread-eagled over England, stretched over many centres. Now, geography has played its part in the history of the Company, with the result that one quarter of our staff has had to be hived off away from the Company, and transported over the Pennines into Yorkshire.

Most of the remaining ABC men and women have been able to stay put at Teddington, augmented by Rediffusion technicians from Wembley, whilst a small group of ABC pioneers has camped in Television House, Kingsway, en route for the new Thames Colour Centre in Euston Road (still handy for sentimental journeys to Manchester).

“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.”

(The more things change, the more they are the same.)

Everything is changed – but the objectives of us all remain as they were, to give the public the finest programmes and the best programme service. Like every other Company in Independent Television, ABC has had its vicissitudes, but very few among us have ever lost sight of the fact that we all work for the public and, with rare exceptions over 12 years, contentious issues have been set aside so that services to viewers should continue.

What now?

A new chapter; not again the early struggling years of ABC with new, untrained staff, learning as they went along. Now, skilled and seasoned veterans, with hundreds of programmes under their belts, go forth with the new Companies. They have learned the ways, mastered their jobs and become the professionals of television. In Yorkshire, the ABC contingent must inevitably form the nucleus of the new Company, for every new army, however brilliantly led, depends upon its élite of battle-hardened warriors.

In London, two all-star teams will be merged into one, rather like a combination of Manchester City and Manchester United. The expert technicians of Teddington will join forces with equally expert operators from Wembley. The veterans of Television House will be rejuvenated with some top talent from ABC.

On the programme side, there has been the opportunity to select the best of two really expert and international teams. The policy in building Thames Programme Department has been to retain whole departments rather than to select individuals. A starry combination it makes – with ABC’s Drama Department, unchallengeably the best in ITV, and ABC’s Light Entertainment Department which has gradually seized the crown from ATV, plus Rediffusion’s eminent Current Affairs and Children’s Departments, and the pioneering Schools Department. The Outside Broadcast Department consists of Rediffusion’s men and ABC’s equipment.

All this has the makings of a great company and its leaders are men who have worked successfully together, each in his own right a key figure in the Television industry.

Although the new regime will mean a splitting of ABC personnel, their work will often be screened side-by-side, for under the new networking system, many of Yorkshire’s programmes will be transmitted in London, while Yorkshire will be taking a high proportion of Thames’ output. The accord at top level between the two companies is very healthy, and there has been the closest collaboration with Ward Thomas, the Managing Director of Yorkshire, and his Programme Controller, Donald Baverstock. This is all reflected in the successful negotiations which have preceded the preparations for going on the air at the end of July.

Changes, splits, divisions, yes – but the one common link is ITV, and working for this same cause, the comradeship, team spirit and goodwill of ABC will endure into Yorkshire and into Thames. For the moment, the ways must part on August 1 but, long term, the deep, long-lived time-tested associations between all who have made ABC will continue and survive.

To some, therefore, we say “Goodbye for now”; but only for now.

The post The ABC of THAMES appeared first on THIS IS ABC WEEKEND from Transdiffusion.

But the new pattern of franchises advertised in 1966 by Lord Hill of Luton’s ITA to begin in the latter part of 1968 had a hurdle in them – the end of the weekday/weekend split except in London. Of all the companies who would be affected by this change, ABC was the one who would feel it most. Quite simply, its regions would cease to exist.

Howard Thomas and the board of ABC began to scout around for a new region. There was an obvious one: London weekends, the only area to keep the old split, now with the addition of the Friday evening.

The ITA required that the existing companies submitted a list showing, in order of preference, which regions they were interested in. Some were predictable, with Rediffusion choosing London weekdays or southern England. Some were knowing, like ATV ignoring London weekends in favour of a first choice of the Midlands seven days. Some were blindingly obvious – where else could Granada go?

And then there was ABC. First choice: London weekends, followed by Midlands seven-day against ATV and the new Yorkshire region. Patently, London weekends would be the reward, an example of good things coming to those who wait.

At the BBC, there were several employees who felt that the Corporation had lost its way. Proper programmes for the intelligentsia were disappearing under the onslaught of popular programming. BBC-2 was a ghetto, BBC-1 was a no-go area.

But ITV was rolling in money. London was swinging, and Rediffusion and ATV were swinging with it. All this money and no effort required. The viewers would watch anything put in front of them (they must do – have you see the Palladium show?) so why not ballet, Pinter and opera? Since these executives were crying out for more culture, it was obvious that the public were, too. And there was all that money available for the taking – ATV was making millions for two days.

David Frost, Michael Peacock and the former Editor in Chief of ITN, Aidan Crawley MP, put a consortium together, poaching BBC and Rediffusion staff, plus cultural icons from throughout the capital. Highbrow arts, highbrow drama, everything that ITV was missing.

ABC must have sniggered at this consortium at first. They knew that the weekends were a hard-fought time, that people did indeed want arts programming, but were prepared to get up early or stay up late for it. The money did not pour in, but had to be carefully harvested.

But Hill, it turns out, was easily impressed by a few famous names and some ambitious plans. ITV was successful but stale, and he planned to change this. But then he was stuck. How could the brilliantly-polished LTC – the Frost Consortium as it was inaccurately labelled in the media – and ABC be accommodated together in the new system?

LTC was clear – London weekends or nothing. ABC could slot into Yorkshire, but the creation of that new region was predicated on the idea that a local company of local talent backed with local money should step in. ABC could displace the much-loathed ATV in the Midlands. But then Hill would have to find a home for ATV – politically it was impossible to remove entirely a company with such a good export arm when the government of the day was crying out for foreign currency.

Like a cork in a sink full of water, one of the companies would bob to the top again, displaced. ATV had to be kept. Yorkshire wasn’t available to a ‘London company’. London weekends were spoken for. Granada was untouchable. Where next? What to do?

The ITA under Hill had been unhappy with Rediffusion. There was nothing major wrong with them, per se. They were a fine company with fine programmes and a fine reputation. But that was all – they had no flair, no unique selling point, that the ITA could see. And they were arrogant, strutting through ITA interviews as if the regulator didn’t matter. They didn’t listen – weren’t interested in listening – as they patently knew better than the ITA how to produce a solid television service.

The idea of replacing them must have been attractive to Hill. No more trouble, no more arrogance. But the London weekday contractor was the mainstay of the the network, the anchor of the system. Any company that replaced Rediffusion would need extremely deep pockets to build a service as solid as Rediffusion’s existing one. Londoners would immediately see a mistake had been made if a lesser company appeared. And Londoners included the politicians who ran the country and ‘owned’ the ITA.

ABC did not have the resources to immediately begin producing the schools programmes and current affairs that Rediffusion supplied to a grateful network. So Rediffusion was safe. But there was a precedent available. When the system was first formed, the ITA had been happy to merge different bidders, to change shareholdings and interests. A new franchise round, where all applicants, even those previously established, were to be under new contracts left Hill with a free hand.

What if a displaced company were to takeover the London weekday contract from Rediffusion, but keep the schools programmes and current affairs and back catalogue of the removed company. What if Rediffusion could be offered a price – a carrot – for agreeing?

What if ABC were to take the London weekdays contract, but be allowed to pick and choose the staff, talent and programming of its predecessor? If ABC was running Rediffusion’s service, a solid company would be created – but one with a renewed flair for daring and original programming.

ABC and Rediffusion were jointly offered Rediffusion’s contract, with Rediffusion given half the profits and 49% of the company. This sweetened a bitter pill for Rediffusion, but it was a slap in the face to Britain’s first commercial broadcaster.

Still, with 49% of the new station, they would have a large say in the direction it was to take, wouldn’t they?

The post End game appeared first on THIS IS ABC WEEKEND from Transdiffusion.

This was bad news for Rediffusion. The 49% of the contract granted to them by the ITA may have given them some power in a merger. But 49% of a new company was simply an investment – nothing more. The sliver of a majority that ABPC would hold in the company would be enough to control it utterly. And they did.

To start, a name had to be found. The name ABC was good. It had a history and was well known. But the television market was globalising, and that meant confusion in the minds of international buyers between ABC UK and ABC US. Additionally, ABC would continue to be a brand in its own right – the highest-earning export programmes were hived off from the new company immediately, preserving the profits for ABPC.

So a new name had to be found, plans already having been made to change the name if they won the London weekend contract. Capital Television and Tower Television were seriously considered. The London Television Consortium, busy botching plans for London weekends, had chosen the name Thames Television.

But the rationalists at LTC felt that the ethos of the new company was better served by calling it what it was: London Weekend Television. The name ‘Thames’ came free, and ABPC grabbed it with both hands.

Studios needed rationalising. Thames would have excess capacity with Teddington, Television House and Wembley all available. LWT needed studio space badly as they had not considered the need at all when applying for the contract, other than to promise to build studios when cash allowed. LWT wanted Teddington. That caused ABPC and the ITA to panic… and Rediffusion was told to give up Wembley to the new weekend contractor. The staff went to LWT too.

ABPC began picking and choosing from the Rediffusion staff. The children’s department, the current affairs department and the schools department went to Thames. The rest were waved away – the presentation department decamping to Leeds, most others going to LWT. The rest of the positions were filled by ABC staff already in place at Teddington. Thus did Thames grow.

To a point, a company is what its majority shareholder or board of directors want it to be. But in day-to-day workings, a company is the people who work there. For Thames, that meant ABC people.

Very soon, ABPC itself was gone, swallowed up by the behemoth of EMI. EMI itself would merge with Thorn. Over the coming years, shareholdings would change and Thames would at one point find its majority shareholder to be BET, of all people. Eventually, the company was listed on the stockmarket, owned by institutional investors and Thorn EMI. Now it is just a brand name used by Pearson Television.

But through all of the changes of ownership and composition, ABC remained dominant. ABC people trained their successors to be ABC people. Former staff of ABC, when asked many years later who they work for instinctively start saying ‘ABC’ before correcting themselves. Today we would call this a corporate culture. Back then, it was just ABC.

A merger was out of the question. ABC’s profits from exports were high enough that ABPC was unwilling to give up half of them for Rediffusion to take.

The post Perpetuum Mobile appeared first on THIS IS ABC WEEKEND from Transdiffusion.

He had also begun corresponding with the then Transdiffusion Children, dropping heavy hints as to what the new station’s identity would be. After the launch of Thames, he was able to explain the processes involved in creating a new identity for one of the first ITV companies.

Changes this large were decided at board level, with senior staff asked to comment and add their own ideas into the melting pot. The new company started life with the working title of ‘Associated-British Rediffusion’, a name that neither pleased nor fooled anyone involved.

For the decision on the final trading name, the board and senior officers became split. From the beginning, there were three leading choices – ‘Capital’, the name ABC had planned to use upon winning London weekends, ‘Tower’, a suggestion that appears to have originated in the Rediffusion camp, and ‘Thames’, a compromise suggestion not well-liked but too good to discard.

Capital Television, Capital Network, Capital London – Geoffrey felt that these names tripped off the tongue well and suited the planned identity of the station. There was debate over ‘Capital’ or ‘Capitol’ – the latter not then considered an Americanism as it is now.

The problem with the name, though, was a perceived lack of ‘zing’ – it was simply the obvious choice and therefore had no life of its own. Although supported by senior staff who had worked on the identity in the run up to the 1967 contract awards, support at board level died away and the name began to fall behind ‘Tower’ as a choice.

The problem with ‘Tower’ stemmed not just from its supposed Rediffusion roots. Although the name suggested many things – the Tower of London, the Post Office Tower, the towering heights of St Paul’s, Tower Bridge – it was flat. Even more so that ‘Capital’ the name was boring.

The London Television Consortium had taken an option on the name ‘Thames’ very early on. Also considered was ‘Thames Weekend Television’. However, the art-driven people behind the new weekend broadcaster felt that a ‘contrived’ name like ‘Thames’ was ‘uncool’, according to Geoffrey. Instead, they decided that they should be called what they were – London Weekend Television.

This left the new ABC-Rediffusion station with a name available that would suit its purpose and set it apart from the rival London broadcaster. While ‘London Weekend’ was identifying only with the metropolis, ‘Thames’ could identify with its viewers in the home counties and beyond – the VHF signals reaching almost to Brighton in the south. Combined with a new local news service for the area, Rediffusion having never really bothered, Thames would be the local station for everyone near to the river and its tributaries.

With the name decided, the identity of the station progressed with a pace. Despite being on the ‘losing side’ over Capital, Geoffrey helped develop the new station’s identity through its graphics.

Many early attempts were made to continue with the ABC triangle. Simply replacing the letters ‘ABC’ with ‘Thames’ was considered and almost adopted when the idea of a stylised skyline of London was proposed. The artwork proved very popular, but attempts were made to incorporate the ABC triangle even here – soon abandoned as the ident simply didn’t work.

The finalised versions of the ident were a complete break with the past, with the skyline version, without triangle, being used by Teddington and a plain ‘From Thames’ caption being used by Television House. Geoffrey insisted it was not a policy of the new company to differentiate between ex-ABC and ex-Rediffusion, but the effect was to do just that.

With everything set to roll – a new name, an impressive ident, a definite style for the station – Geoffrey got a shock on seeing the new Harlech ident. Embracing electronic music and featuring a futuristic formup, he was left feeling that Harlech had developed the classic ident while the new Thames was old-fashioned and plain.

He was wrong.

The post Designing Thames appeared first on THIS IS ABC WEEKEND from Transdiffusion.