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?

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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.

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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.

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