40 years since ATV, Southern & and Westward ended

[Roger Darthwell]

Maybe posting a completely new thread is a bit much, but given the fact that I couldn't find an appropriate thread for it, I decided to make a new one anyway. Still this New Year's Eve marks the 40th annviversary of ATV, Southern Television and Westward Television's final day of broadcasting after they lost their licence in the 1980 franchise round
Here is ATV's last ever closedown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhY8oh9eFxE
Here is the end of Southern Television's farewell programme And It's Goodbye From US
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2QS-aLGSGE
Regrettably no video of the handover between Westward and TSW has ever surfaced EDIT CLIP FOUND
https://twitter.com/UKPRES1/status/1476885849505632259

[Neil Jones]

Must be remembered Westward sold out to TSW early in 1981 (and flogged the whole operation to them), so technically their last six months or so on air was TSW in different clothing with the Westward brand.

Whether anybody noticed is another question.

[James2001]

Regrettably no video of the handover between Westward and TSW has ever surfaced

Yes it has, it was floating around a few years back. Does seem to have disappeared again now though.

[Roger Darthwell]

Regrettably no video of the handover between Westward and TSW has ever surfaced

Yes it has, it was floating around a few years back. Does seem to have disappeared again now though.

That is a huge shame

[Whataday]

EDIT CLIP FOUND
https://twitter.com/UKPRES1/status/1476885849505632259

That clip is somewhat ironic considering how TSW looked when they bowed out in 1992.

[Roger Darthwell]

EDIT CLIP FOUND
https://twitter.com/UKPRES1/status/1476885849505632259

That clip is somewhat ironic considering how TSW looked when they bowed out in 1992.

Yeah you are right, I think it's ironic because as Neil Jones said previously Westward had already been sold to TSW by that point

[Markymark]

I remember Southern's demise, and TVS's launch. I was 18 and at a wild New Year's Eve party. Got home at 4:30am and played back the recording of the end Southern's final programme. Amazingly I went to bed at 5am, and still woke up at 9am in time to watch TVS's start up. Can't believe it was 40 years ago. I seem to have forgotten to have a mid life crisis too ?

[Blubatt]

A very interesting set of goodbyes. ATV are rather demure in their farewell, as were Westward (albeit the latter was already bought out and TSW branding was on air at Midnight on New Year's Day). I assume this has to do with the fact that, essentially, both companies only had a change of name and management, and nothing else. ATV, technically, won the Central England Franchise, but Lew Grade had to divest himself of the company, and new stakeholders bought shares in the company. And, as we know, Westward sold itself to TSW, so they just carried on with a rebrand.

Southern was the only one that truly was going away, even though TVS would buy their studios and hire many of the on screen and off screen people. And from what I've heard, they were rather bitter.

[James2001]

More than bitter, on the final edition of Day by Day they showed the chairman of Southern giving a very bitter and angry speech at their AGM followed by the infamous "Portakabin TV" song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r-iU85uTcA

Starts around 21 minutes in

[Neil Jones]

Many examples down the years of ITV companies being bitter because they'll be off the air the year after next. The bitterness just varies depending on the company and the circumstances.

TWW for example threw all their toys out the pram and then some more when they learnt they were losing their licence in the 1968 round and flogged it all to Harlech for a one-off payment. They weren't ready to go on air, so the ITA as it was at the time had to get involved with a makeshift service.

And of course TVS had their own battle with the ITC after the 1991 round, and Bruce Gyngell had a swipe at the government for introducing the legislation that led to the demise of TV-am. Southern played hardball with TVS as well, forcing them to start working in portacabins in the studio car park, even though they'd sold the studios to TVs but kept using them until the end of the year.

[Inspector Sands]

The Westward/TSW clip only existed as an audio clip for years until Kaleidoscope discovered it a few years ago

Of course it's the 40th anniversary of this classic:
https://youtu.be/bILspuKgfyM

[Hatton Cross]

I love how Southern seemed to spend more time blaming TVS for them loosing the franchise, rather than aiming both barrels and ranting against the IBA more strongly.

Although, if the IBA watched the final Day By Day and its Goodbye From Us, then you can't help but feel that the IBA probably felt they correctly made the right decision.

[Brekkie]

Clicked on this thread thinking it must be talking about the 1968 changes only to realise that 1982 is indeed now only 40 years ago. :roll: hock:

Obviously the 1993 changes are talked about a lot but I'd argue the modern ITV was actually born in the 80s and the likes of Central and TSW had much more influence over the direction the network took on screen at least than the arrival of Carlton, Meridian and Westcountry etc. a decade later.

[Inspector Sands]

Southern played hardball with TVS as well, forcing them to start working in portacabins in the studio car park, even though they'd sold the studios to TVs but kept using them until the end of the year.

To be fair to Southern the portacabins themselves weren't the problem, the taunting about the new company being based in them was.

TVS had to have temporary offices somewhere so the best place surely is in the complex that they'd eventually own? Its not 'playing hardball' its just a solution to a problem. 11 years later Meridian did exactly the same thing in exactly the same portacabins

[Roger Darthwell]

More than bitter, on the final edition of Day by Day they showed the chairman of Southern giving a very bitter and angry speech at their AGM followed by the infamous "Portakabin TV" song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r-iU85uTcA

Starts around 21 minutes in

They were so bitter that during that final day of broadcasting they put the channel's logo with the words Southern Television 1958-1981 in the continuity booth behind the announcers. In the words of the great ITV In The Face documentary series ''If you lived in Surrey and only watched ITV, you might have come away with the impression that the world was going to end on New Year's Day''