[nwtv2003]

The biggest gripe most people had with the franchise change was that Carlton never lived up as a replacement to Thames, and it is something I agree with. However, I think one of the biggest reasons for that was due to a change in how ITV commissioned programmes.

You had the Big 5 who determined and carved up the schedule, which was rightly deemed as unfair and uncompetitive, and in its place you had the Network Centre, which not only allowed other ITV companies a fair shout at offering programmes, but you also had to work with independent producers after 1993.

I guess for a newcomer like Carlton this was a double edged sword. You could still pay for Thames’s most popular programmes and enjoy the success that came with them, but on the other hand it’s harder to get your own new shows dominating prime time like your predecessor. An ever changing commercial environment also meant that it was harder to take risks, and a lot of Carlton’s original commissions from 1993 didn’t really do well.

As said, LNN would have happened in some capacity. I guess what it did do as well putting London ITV News into one place, it simplified network transmission in one fell swoop. Getting GMTV, Carlton and LWT to share the same facilities was a good idea. Had both TV-am and Thames retained their licences, I’m sure this would have happened but not instantly.

The process of awarding the licenses was controversial, but in hindsight, TVS losing their licence was probably for the best. If they were going to pay £60,000,000 to the treasury per year before a single programme was made, then their output really would have suffered. From what I’ve seen online over the years, it seemed that Meridian simply picked up where TVS left.

I’d have been intrigued to see how TV-am would have been like after 1993, but again after a few blips GMTV simply became TV-am v2.0.

The system was controversial from the outset. Yes, there were changes, but did too much change? I don’t believe so. The most popular programmes continued. All of the companies survived the change. The Treasury did get more money, but nowhere near as estimated, and in some cases the value of the contracts reduced anyway. ITV would have ended up similar to what we have today anyway. You’d have probably ended up with a Granada-Thames merger had the franchises not changed, rather than a Granada-Carlton one.