[Witchend]

Thing is, they couldn't buy into another franchise at that point, and capitalism being what it is they were expected to grow. The fact that syndication revenues went through the floor literally at the point of acquisition really screwed things over and left them vulnerable. Perhaps this is the one case where the acquisition frenzy post deregulation would have helped rather than hindered.

Well, they were initially going to sell their archive to LWT in early 1992, which would have had the same effect anyway, allowing it to be owned by ITV plc when the time came.