Howard Thomas - Thames Television

Thames Television

In 1966, the ITA announced that the pattern of broadcasting for Independent Television was to change from 1968. All contractors would be required to reapply for their contracts, and, though there would be one more contract available than before (for Yorkshire), the previous weekend splits in the three central regions of London, the midlands and the north of England would be altered. The London split would change to Friday evenings (rather than the self-contained weekend it had previously been) and the midlands and the north would be redivided into three whole-week regions. ABC's contract area would therefore cease to exist.

Howard Thomas had planned for ABC Television to apply for the extended London weekends contract (with an application for the Midlands seven-day contract as a stand-by). However, the appearance of a consortium of major figures from the BBC and Rediffusion under the leadership of David Frost made this difficult. The London Television Consortium (later London Weekend Television) won the contract, and the ITA was left with no place for ABC.

The ITA's solution was to ask ABC and Rediffusion to merge to form a new company. They specified that ABC would have a slim majority of the shares, and that the managing director would be Howard Thomas. In practice, the merger proved impossible due to outside interests held by both parent companies. Instead, the parent companies formed a joint company called Thames Television Holdings Limited (trading as Thames Television), which took over the staff of ABC in Teddington and a minority of staff from Rediffusion. Management and on-screen talent was mainly provided by ABC.

Thames retained the London weekdays licence until 31 December 1992.