[James2001]

And didn't they only make a profit because the ITC cut their franchise payments to less than TV-am bid? Says in that article they paid £12 million to the exchequer the previous year, when they originally bid 34.6 million (and TV-am bid 14.1 million). Which made a mockery of the whole franchise auction. They probably would have gone bankrupt like Gyngell said if they had to keep paying the 34 million every year.

And that's despite the fact they had less costs than TV-am to begin with thanks to renting facilities from LWT rather than having their own.

I imagine if any company had failed on account of not being able to pay the fees they'd bid, it would have really made the ITC and the franchise system look even more farcical than it already did (especially after TVS and TSW were rejected for "bidding too much"), so no wonder they cut loads of companies payments a couple of years in. Not that it's stopped equally farcical franchising systems being introduced since- especially for rail (as someone who frequently travels on the ECML I can especially attest with three failed franchisees in less than a decade!)!