[Humphrey Hacker]

That BBC report has always annoyed me. TSW did not lose because it offered "nothing special", that was nonsense - if they had bid nine million, for example, they'd have won, as their programme quality (in common with all the other incumbents) was quite sufficient to meet the requirements.

Not necessarily, it wasn't always the highest bidder that won, though that was the original plan in the first place.  If it had then then things would have been a lot different and we'd see problems down the line.

The obvious example here was CPV-TV, which bid the most for London daytime, but we have since found out that their news provision was going to be provided by TV-am.  But there was no plan for what they'd do instead if TV-am didn't win.  Purely on the case of not having the highest bid, TV-am loses.  So CPV-TV suddenly has no news provider.  This may be easy enough to resolve, but going  to another provider and not the one you said you were going to use doesn't look good (unless of course it's due to  circumstances beyond your control).

TSW I believe was failed because of an unrealistic business plan and they apparently wouldn't be able to afford £16m a year, so Westcountry TV, come on down.  Not that it mattered in the end anyway regarding those payments because they all went cap in hand to the ITC and got them reduced.

Did CPV plan to use Eggcup Towers?