[Larry the Loafer]

Richard talks about how Granada beat the other regions and won the contract for This Morning, but it just got me wondering. IIRC this predated the ITV Network Centre by a few years, so who actually had the say on who got the new daytime slot?

[James2001]

Didn't the big 5 (Thames, LWT, Central, Yorkshire and Granada) work together to make those decisions before then?

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Richard talks about how Granada beat the other regions and won the contract for This Morning, but it just got me wondering. IIRC this predated the ITV Network Centre by a few years, so who actually had the say on who got the new daytime slot?

There used to be a 'top table' of the 5 biggest/ influential companies that agreed the schedule. That's why you would get more than one network documentary strand, different dramas and LE etc. In my opinion it was better for the viewer, if not for the smaller TV companies like Border or Westward.

[James2001]

And mentioning Westward, it was ironically during one of their very few network commissions that the newsflash announcing they'd lost their franchise to TSW was aired.

[RDJ]

Richard talks about how Granada beat the other regions and won the contract for This Morning, but it just got me wondering. IIRC this predated the ITV Network Centre by a few years, so who actually had the say on who got the new daytime slot?

The other unsuccessful regions being TVS and (I think) Tyne Tees.

Fern Britton hosted the TVS pilot with Dale Winton being one of the members of the “family”.

[nwtv2003]

I’m sure Richard is on the record to say that Thames also put in for the show as well. He strongly believes the decision to give the contract to Granada was partly because of the Albert Dock location.

Easy to forget now that there was a year gap between Schools on ITV ending and This Morning coming on air, one would hazard a guess that the schedule was still decided by the Big 5 as it was for the rest of the day.

[Milkshake]

The Five companies were to bid for the national contract:


* TVS: with a show called Home Today, hosted by Andy Craig and Fern Britton.
* Thames Television
* Yorkshire Television
* Tyne Tees Television
* Granada Television offered a show called This Morning

However not much is know about YTV or TT offering. London were like give it to Granada because of that View.

[Si-Co]

The Five companies were to bid for the national contract:


* TVS: with a show called Home Today, hosted by Andy Craig and Fern Britton.
* Thames Television
* Yorkshire Television
* Tyne Tees Television
* Granada Television offered a show called This Morning

However not much is know about YTV or TT offering. London were like give it to Granada because of that View.

It would have been interesting if a smaller station like TTT had ended up producing a long-running show similar to This Morning. If it was still running in the 2000s, the City Road studios may have survived longer. More likely, after takeover by YTV or GMG, the programme would have been cancelled or moved to Leeds or Manchester, and if it still existed today it would be very different to the original Newcastle-produced show.

[Tola]

Launch of the short lived early BSkyB network The Comedy Channel:
youtu.be 

[Larry the Loafer]

AIUI Sky launched The Comedy Channel to burn off a lot of the content they inherited from Galaxy after the merger with BSB. It bit the dust when the rights expired to a lot of BBC shows, which were in turn used for the launch of UK Gold. Makes me wonder what The Comedy Channel could've become (if anything) if UK Gold (or the BBC's involvement in it) never came along.