[WillPS]

Apart from Thames losing, it's all moot now anyway of course. Everything would've still consolidated. Thames survived as an indie, so they're the one thing that would've been different. They'd surely have eventually been taken over by Granada instead of Fremantle Media.

How on earth can you be so certain? It was a hostile race to become the biggest. Even ignoring Thames, different calls at different moment could've led to LWT becoming a major power, or UNM becoming bigger than they were... perhaps Granada would've ended up as the minnow steadfastly refusing to sellout.

Thames didn't continue because they were a staunch independent, they continued because Thorn EMI and BET sold what was left of them off to Pearson. Perhaps that would have happened anyway and Pearson would have proceeded to buy up whichever other Channel 3 franchises were available to them.

Or perhaps Carlton would have bought the Channel 3 operation, sold the production business to Pearson and the rest would have been exactly the same.

There is no way of knowing, you can't remove one critical item from a chain of events and conclude with certainty the outcome would definitely be the same; even if "the outcome" in this case is a single ITV plc.

[Brekkie]

I'd say prior to the final merger there were probably two or three key acquisitions which led to the inevitable creation of ITV PLC - Granada buying LWT and Yorkshire and Carlton buying Central. I'm guessing the London licences at the time still blocked Carlton from buying LWT, but was there much resistance at the time to these acquisitions and were there other viable bidders.

The only issue I recall of the consolodation process of the late 90s/early 00s was when the UBM suite of channels (including Meridian and Anglia) was sold to Granada but HTV had to be separated off and was sold to Carlton for the deal to go through - but I'm sure it was all much more controversial than that. Even in the late 90s I'm quite surprised the big 5 were permitted to buy each other.

[Spencer]

The only issue I recall of the consolodation process of the late 90s/early 00s was when the UBM suite of channels (including Meridian and Anglia) was sold to Granada but HTV had to be separated off and was sold to Carlton for the deal to go through - but I'm sure it was all much more controversial than that. Even in the late 90s I'm quite surprised the big 5 were permitted to buy each other.

I presume the reason Granada had to dispose of HTV was for competition reasons, to stop one company having a dominance over the Channel 3 network. So why were Granada and Carlton subsequently allowed to merge, meaning one company had almost total domination? Did the Competition Commission just roll over and say, ‘Oh, go on then’? My memory of the time is getting a bit hazy now.

[eyeTV]

It didn't just get waived through they had to agree to regulation of sale of airtime (Contract Rights Renewal?) because at the time they had over 50% of the TV advertising market share.

I'm not sure if this remedy is still in place or whether it has changed. I recall ITV wanted it scrapped arguing that with multi-channel and streamers it was actually too restrictive.

[robertclark125]

Maybe an early sign of the consolidation came in 1993, when Yorkshire took over Tyne tees. It was apparently a merger, but it wasn't really. Both had bid high to keep their franchises, and the takeover allowed costs to be cut, with lots of things moving to Leeds. I do wonder if the ITC could, at the franchise application process, have sought guarantees from the bidders they wouldn't buy or sell to another for a period of time.

[WillPS]

I presume the reason Granada had to dispose of HTV was for competition reasons, to stop one company having a dominance over the Channel 3 network. So why were Granada and Carlton subsequently allowed to merge, meaning one company had almost total domination? Did the Competition Commission just roll over and say, ‘Oh, go on then’? My memory of the time is getting a bit hazy now.

It wasn't too much of the Channel 3 licensee market, it was too much of the overall commercial television market. The % share of a Channel 3 license fell dramatically between when they were awarded and digital switch over, because year to year each consumer spent an average of less time looking at Channel 3 vs the growing number of other options they typically had available to them.

When the first Channel 3 license takeovers occurred there was contemporary commentary which suggested that the Monopolies and Mergers commission wouldn't have allowed, say, Yorkshire (with Tyne Tees), Carlton (with Central) or Meridian (with Anglia) to grow any bigger at that point - and that reflected the dominant audience share the ITV network still had. That's part of the reason relative minnows like Border, Grampian, Westcountry and of course Channel survived as independents - the 'major powers' were not interested in them in that initial phase because the game was to get as big as you could without 'overeating', and such a merger would potentially have scuppered their ability to get a bigger catch elsewhere.

Obviously by the end of the 90s that was provably no longer the case, but Granada finally found the line with their takeover of UNM and the consequence was they had to divest the excess from their new asset.

[Spencer]

That all makes sense. But it seems surprising that from Granada buying UNM’s regions in 2000, and not being able to keep all of them, to one company only four years later, being allowed to own all regions in England and Wales. Did viewing of commercial TV fragment that much in so little time? Maybe it did.

[Humphrey Hacker]

How on earth can you be so certain? It was a hostile race to become the biggest. Even ignoring Thames, different calls at different moment could've led to LWT becoming a major power, or UNM becoming bigger than they were... perhaps Granada would've ended up as the minnow steadfastly refusing to sellout.

Thames didn't continue because they were a staunch independent, they continued because Thorn EMI and BET sold what was left of them off to Pearson. Perhaps that would have happened anyway and Pearson would have proceeded to buy up whichever other Channel 3 franchises were available to them.

Or perhaps Carlton would have bought the Channel 3 operation, sold the production business to Pearson and the rest would have been exactly the same.

There is no way of knowing, you can't remove one critical item from a chain of events and conclude with certainty the outcome would definitely be the same; even if "the outcome" in this case is a single ITV plc.

This article from Transdiffusion speaks of an "alternate" ITV:
transdiffusion.org 

Undoing the inevitable - Blog - Transdiffusion Broadcasting System
Carl Ellis wants to unpick the Carlton-Granada tie-up
  Source: transdiffusion.org

[WillPS]

That all makes sense. But it seems surprising that from Granada buying UNM’s regions in 2000, and not being able to keep all of them, to one company only four years later, being allowed to own all regions in England and Wales. Did viewing of commercial TV fragment that much in so little time? Maybe it did.

There's a cliff edge with these sort of things I suppose - either the commission determines there is a need to keep one company from having an overwhelming majority of Channel 3 licenses, in which case they needed to ensure no one part became too big (as in 2000), or they don't, and a merger is allowed.

There's not really another compromise possible when you're down to 2 - I suppose they could have ruled that it'd be acceptable if one of the London franchises, GMTV as well as a couple of other licenses were divested, but what competition would that really have preserved? What market benefit would there have been other than some continued duplication of roles? Would there even have been a suitor (SMG is the only obvious candidate really)?

I dare say there was an element of acknowledging the direction of travel in terms of the overall market, which by that point had been in the process of being diluted for more than a decade, and allowing consideration of where the market would be in 5 years/post DSO. I'm sure a complete rationale from the commission at the time is online somewhere...

[thegeek]

Did any of the bids publications ever end up in certain library's across the land?

Having looked into this further, the entire IBA archive has ended up in Bournemouth University's care - should anyone have the time and inclination to go searching through it.
libguides.bournemouth.ac.uk 

Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) Archive - Archives and Special Collecti…
Bournemouth University's Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) Archive a…
  Source: libguides.bournemouth.ac.uk