1: Thames Television, 31st December 1992
32 years and one day ago (at time of writing), I watched Thames TV leave the airwaves, which they did with a real sense of dignity. Much has been written about the Death-On-The-Rock-inflicted injustice of it all, and the resulting crassness and haplessness of British broadcasting from that point on – but let’s not go over all that again. Instead, let’s take a look at some pre-90s moments where various ITV stations bit the big one.
Before we get to them, though, we’ll take a quick look at Thames TV bowing out with their final programme. Embedded above is their End Of Life Entertainment Scenario curtain-closer, an hour-plus long compilation of their many highlights. This upload is a brand new 50fps rip of it which was put up on YouTube by Sticky tape ‘n’ rust.
Of special note is the fact that this was recorded in the Central region. Most recordings of Thames’ death come from That London, so it’s interesting to see how this went out somewhere where it was effectively business as usual. I was surprised to see the final ITN news bulletin of 1992 with Dermot Murnaghan actually went on a few minutes beyond midnight, and in the Midlands it wasn’t cut off by some bellowing HEAR YE HEAR YE twat in the pay of Carlton Television.
Oh look, what’s coming up in 1993? Norman Lamont’s going to do another budget! Yes, that’ll go well, I’m sure. Talk about a red box…
2: Southern Television, 31st December 1981
Southern Television was “The Station That Serves The South”, although that tagline maybe should have been “The Station That States The One Thing You Can Guess From The Name”. Like Thames, they went out with a massive compilation show on their final night of broadcasting. Unlike Thames, they were complete dicks about it.
The management of Southern TV took the loss of their franchise with an unusual amount of ill-grace. They were well aware of the criticisms that they had been neglecting parts of the region they were meant to be covering, with local news and other local programmes often ignoring great big chunks of the area. On top of that, the station was viewed as staid, dull, and complacent.
But! Rather than properly address these problems, they chose to spend 1980 making a bunch of sitcoms and dramas and things with well-known light entertainment names. They did this rather than improve their regional output, like that one farming show that only lives on as a bit on It’ll Be Alright On The Night… that I can’t find a clip of right now.
I’LL ADD IT IN THIS SPACE HERE, IF I EVER FIND IT LATER. IT’S THE ONE WITH THE ODD 70s BLOKE TALKING ABOUT “A FIRM LAY” OR SOMETHING
Anyway, if that was meant to prove to everyone how great they were at telly and that they were really interesting and could sit at the big boy’s table and had their own personal Telebug, it backfired for the clear reason that the whole regional thing was the main problem. Although this behaviour did result in the extraordinary spectacle of their weatherman hosting a variety show.
That company-ending compilation programme has since become infamous for the footage of Richard Stilgoe singing a dreadful song about how shit TVS (the incoming ITV station starting the following morning, of course) is definitely going to be, somehow made worse by the fact it was most likely written to order by someone who didn’t have any real horse in the race.
Notably, everyone roars with laughter at it despite that a lot of them would be retaining their jobs under the incoming company anyway.
It seems there also wasn’t the standard “take out the plug from your creaking old fire hazard of a telly” warning at the end, either; according to all available sources, there was just eerie silence after their jingle got played one final time through a delay effect. Clearly Southern’s directors were so pissy about the whole franchise loss thing that they would have quite happily seen a few of their former viewers burn to death during the night.
In any event, TVS did quite well getting on the air on their first day, considering that Southern famously refused to let them use the studios they were meant to share for the final year or so, before TVS could get round to completing their purpose-built studios. That’s the the meaning behind the “Portakabin TV” jibe (they were forced to use them during 1981 – apparently having to set them up in Southern’s car park).
Southern locked them out until the wee hours of 1st January 1982. It was only then that the management left the building, presumably trudging in single file like captured war criminals; ties askew, stinking of whisky, with a signed photo of Stilgoe in one fist and shaking the other at those damned portakabins.
As a bonus, here’s a continuity announcer’s attempt at making light of the misery surrounding Southern’s final days from a start-up just a few days before. The announcer doesn’t quite make the joke land, unfortunately, so it just ends up seeming more odd than anything. It’s not helped by some other ITV region playing out Stingray a bit too late, and some behind-the-scenes talk leaking through to the audio:
Blimey, that entry went on a bit, didn’t it? Onward to Westward.
3: Westward Television, 31st December 1981
From the same time as the above entry, but entirely the opposite in tone – despite some major wrangling the previous year.
After losing the franchise, Westward TV’s management basically underwent some sort of massive existential crisis, with boardroom battles threatening to render the entire company asunder before they’d had a chance to actually complete their final year.
And so, the IBA – imagine Ofcom, but made up of people who gave a shit – took the unusual step to take away the franchise early, and forced the sale of all of Westward’s facilities to the incoming station Television South West in the middle of 1981.
This meant that TSW technically started running things about six months early with full legal approval, while maintaining the old on-air “branding”, as I wish people wouldn’t call it. All the staff stayed on too. This means that the eventual changeover was the most cheerful example of a station closing down that you could possibly find.
Things were a bit less successful with the notorious official opening show the following day, which is full-on Partridge, and features the above announcer (Roger Shaw) doing some astonishing dance moves toward the end.
4: Rediffusion London, 29th July 1968
An ITV company who bowed out so early on, it was when they were put to sleep in the summer. This is the earliest example of an ITV station going off air forever, except for another notable example coming up later, and another even more notable example related to the latter which I’m not covering because there’s zero footage of it. With this one, we only have the audio. So here it is, courtesy of Transdiffusion on Soundcloud.
Unlike the previous entries, I’ve not got much to say about this one, except that I love how oddly low-key and sweet this is, although “Laurie” the weatherman is a bit shouty. I also like how they let the “new boy” have the last word, as part of the closing “your telly might catch fire” announcement.
Incidentally, Laurie did give a complete forecast, which has been edited out here. He didn’t just go “YOU’VE GOT MY STATEMENT ON THE WEATHER” or whatever it was, like he was being pestered by a reporter from the Daily Met Office over a “backhanders for sunny days” scandal.
Incidentally, I was going to pad this entry out a bit by including a scan of Rediffusion’s final schedule from the Daily Express. I won’t be doing that, as one of their last programmes – shown at 11pm that night, and highlighted in the listings available to me – was a documentary made by Rediffusion that just has a slur for a title. To be precise: a single word slur, with a question mark after it, and nothing else. An ableist one. For fuck’s sake, 1968. Maybe that was why Laurie was so upset.
(Please direct any postcards with the word “SNOWFLAKE” scrawled across them in green ink to the following address: Your Mum’s Big Arse, Your Mum, The Toilets In Victoria Station, London.)
5: Confusing Welsh double-closedown pissabout, March – July 1968
Alright, so – first of all there was a company called TWW, who were the main Welsh ITV company, and then the only one. They lost their license in 1967, and following a brief legal battle and some very bad financial advice from the TV regulator of the day, decided to end it all early and let the incoming station, Harlech (later better known as HTV) to take over ahead of schedule.
Of course, nothing was allowed to go smoothly in the long gone world of regional ITV, and due to various complications that final three month period ended up as a prolonged bout of confusion for the viewers at home.
TWW bowed out in March, with an early example of the doomed ITV region big blow out party / last supper sub-genre. They broadcast a live variety show titled “All Good Things…”, followed by a brief pre-filmed epilogue straight after that called “…Come To An End”. The latter was presented by John Betjeman, where he said this:
The new firm, Harlech, which will be centred in Cardiff, must build up its own personality. Tellywelly [Betjeman‘s nickname for TWW], you had a warm, friendly and inspiring one. Like many others, I’m very grateful to you. I’m sorry to see you go. It’s like the death of an old friend.
The Wikipedia entry for TWW continues: “As Betjeman walked out of the theatre and the credits rolled, the camera tilted up to the “EXIT” sign on the wall, and TWW ended its transmission for the last time.” Aw.
However, this melancholy and dignified conclusion was then complicated by a bizarre interim service, which featured an unsettlingly abstract ident with a weird electronic jingle. This was a 1960s liminal shopping mall of an ITV region, calling itself “Independent Television Service For Wales And The West”, like a Dalek was responsible.
This service also used all of TWW’s old announcers and showed the final TWW productions that hadn’t been broadcast yet. For your average 60s TV viewer who were even less media-literate than the average type today, this would have been headswimmingly odd.
And eventually one night they just stopped dead, with not a single mention of a portakabin or “Maurice Jones, Town Crier, Streets Of London” anywhere. Back into the backrooms they went.
And so Harlech started properly, and got things back on the straight and narrow again with the aid of an unsettlingly abstract ident with a weird electronic jingle.
(Alright, so the jingle was actually pretty tuneful, and continued to be used well into the 80s after being edited down a tad. But the ident has come in for a lot of bashing over the years, particularly from the late Victor Lewis-Smith. Personally I sort of like it, although I get the complaints, and it would have looked horrible on newer colour sets of the time. Apparently it looked better on older lower resolution B&W tellies. You could say that it’s the late 60s prototypical version of 1980s video games using violent strobing to indicate pain.)
But after that, they really did get back on the straight and narrow, really properly proper this time, with a major incident of network-wide industrial action.
D’oh!
The third and final article covering the 1979 ITV strike is coming soon. Peter Bradshaw is not ill, but is taking refuge up a bell tower.
