History of ITV - 1968-1974

1968-1974

Another franchise review was called by the ITA in 1967, for contracts running from the end of July 1968, that was to drastically change the structure of ITV itself. The review aimed to ensure the ITV system was ready for the impending arrival of colour broadcasting, and also to again allow for the potential start of ITV2, should the Conservatives win any election held after 1970. The behaviour of some of the companies only reinforced the ITA's assumptions of 'arrogance' following the few changes in the last franchise round: Rediffusion London's department managers also popped up in similar roles for rival applications and TWW reapplied for their contract under both their own name and that of WWN/Teledu Cymru as a tax dodge. As a result Lord Hill had made it clear in 1966 that 'all bets were off' on the next franchise round and that the regions themselves may change. Therefore, in the period between the interviews of each applicant and the announcement of the changes, the newspapers speculated wildly about the likely changes: suggestions were made of Scottish Television exiting the system, Rediffusion moving to replace Southern and various other wild ideas.

In the franchise rounds, several changes were made to the ITV regions including:

• Abolishing weekend licences in all regions, except London. Outside London, all regions would be an all week contract.
• The handover time between London Weekday/Weekend was moved from the beginning of Saturday to Friday at 7pm.
• The North of England region was split into the North West and Yorkshire.

The ITV companies themselves also changed more than ever before, with changes to operating regions and the companies running them. The changes include:

• The newly created Yorkshire region was awarded to the Telefusion Yorkshire consortium, who later renamed Yorkshire Television.
• ATV lost the London Weekend franchise to the London Television Consortium, led by David Frost, which renamed as London Weekend Television.
• TWW controversially lost their Wales and the West of England franchise to Harlech Television (HTV).
• Granada was awarded the full week contract for the new North West region.
• ATV was awarded the full week contract for the Midlands region, replacing ABC at the weekends.
• Rediffusion, London and ABC were asked to form a joint company for the London Weekday franchise. This company, Thames Television, was controlled by ABC (51% of the shares) and was an attempt to keep ABC in the network, considering their franchises no longer existed.
• Lord Thomson of Fleet was required to divest himself of most of his holding in Scottish Television.

In addition, the company Independent Television Publications was formed to produce a national programme listings guide. This guide used the title TV Times, previously used as the London listings magazine, and would replace all the regional programme guides, except the Channel Islands publication.

Before the changes were implemented however, Harold Wilson appointed Lord Hill as chairman of the BBC Board of Governors and replaced him with Herbert Bowden, also known as Lord Aylestone. He reviewed the changes Hill had made, but allowed them to stand.

The implementation of the ITV changes led to industrial unrest in the companies. Although there were no job losses in the system - this was an ITA stipulation - people were forced to move from Manchester and Birmingham to Leeds, from London to Cardiff and, perhaps less troublesome, from one part of London to another. Many staff stayed in the same jobs in the same locations, but now had a different employer. Since this meant that staff were being made redundant (albeit with a guaranteed job to go to), the unions required redundancy payments. However, these payments led to problems in staff not receiving them, who were changing company but not location, as in the case of the Teddington Studios. The unions asked for payments to be made in those cases; the companies responded by drawing the line, and wildcat strikes broke out in the weeks before and after the changes came into effect. By the Friday after the changes, a mixture of strike action and management lock-outs had taken ITV off the air, and for most of August 1968 the regional network was replaced with an ITV Emergency National Service run by management. By September 1968, with both sides claiming victory, all workers had returned to work. However, memory of this strike would cause more industrial unrest in the decades that followed.

This era also saw the introduction of colour television to the network and the introduction of the new 625-line system. During the 1960s, some commercial companies proposed the introduction of colour on the 405-line system, but the General Post Office insisted that colour should wait until the higher-definition 625-line UHF system became standard. ITV eventually introduced PAL colour on this system from 15 November 1969, simultaneous with BBC1 and two years after BBC2. This did not, however, spread immediately across the UK - some regions had to wait a few more years before colour was available. This was primarily due to the cost incurred in purchasing new recording and broadcast equipment and the subsequent studio upgrade that usually accompanied it. Colour was available to nearly 100% of the UK from 1976, with the Channel Islands being the last region to be converted. This enabled the 405-line system to be phased out between 1982 and 1985.