top of page. The two men followed Hollywood with series dedicated to leading comics of the silent era, Unknown Chaplin (1983) and Buster Keaton: A Hard Act to Follow (1987). Initially, this ident was used only before local programmes; a modified ITV generic ident featuring this new logo was used for networked shows. England and Wales company registration number 2008885. Today was cancelled two months later, and Bill Grundy never worked in prime-time television again. And thats all I remember., Matlock, however, maintains that the band had only had a couple of beers: I had a beer or two, as we all did, he told a TV interviewer in 2005. Bath "It's awkward, it's embarrassing but everyone is on the same level - we do it in bathrobes," laugh the women behind The Naked Podcast, Jenny Eells and . "CBTV" "CBTV," standing for "Citizens Band Television," was a subversive children's show in the early 1980s. The Bill (19842010) began as a one-hour series of separate stories in 1984, but from 1989 until 1998 was broadcast several times a week, usually in a 30 minute slot. Some commentators consequently speculated that Thames had fallen victim to a 'government vendetta', whilst others felt that the auction had been won fairly. To shock the nation then, an easy way to do it would be to pin down someone like my dad and get yourself on every single national newspaper in the country., However, watching the interview it seems pretty clear that the Pistols were just badly handled by Grundy. Stuart, Vivien. From its formation in 1954, the Independent Television Authority (ITA) offered broadcasting licences to different companies for weekday and weekend service in its first three Independent Television network locations, the London area, the Midlands, and the North. He then rang Thames to complain about the damage to his telly (Rotten later remarked unsympathetically: Havent they ever heard of the off button?). Within 18 months he was working for ATV as a presenter of children's shows, sports magazines and schools' programmes. 2023 The TV Room. The guitarist responds with: You dirty bastard You dirty fucker, adding the wonderful phrase: What a fucking rotter!. www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-64558222 The first presenters were . . Video / NZ Herald. [35], Carlton's owner, Michael Green, claimed that the decision left him 'bewildered' and said: 'We are surprised at the IBA's decision. The life of TV presenter and journalist Paula Yates will be the focus of a new two-part documentary. In 2003, Thames Television was merged with another FremantleMedia subsidiary, Talkback (founded by comedians Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones in 1981) to form Talkback Thames. . In the years since, various conspiracy theories have attached themselves to the Pistols appearance on Today. See MoreSee Less, Another musical genius has gone RIP Burt Bacharach Ultimately, pressure from several ITV companies (especially Yorkshire Television) to the IBA, forced Thames to sell the series back to the BBC at a loss. 2, published by Palgrave Macmillan. And with that Jones became the first working-class person to say fuck on TV. See MoreSee Less. The Teddington studios were highly desirable, as they had participated in colour experiments and were already partially converted by the time of the franchise change, and as such had been sought after by both Thames and LWT.[10]. TV presenter judges school drama contest. RIP the beautiful Stella Stevens, who has died at the age of 84. It continued after Harry Corbett's retirement in 1975 with his son, Matthew Corbett, and lasted on Thames until late 1992. Broadcasting and producing programmes in every conceivable genre since 1968, the Thames label has long-played a prominent role in the history of the British television industry. This is sometimes attributed to the culture of the company, which could be claimed to be a continuation of that at ABC. The Times, Tuesday, 27 November 1990, Thames TV cuts. The co-star of Elvis Presley also worked in TV on series such as Murder She Wrote and Magnum, P.I. In 1992, studio producer Mike Housego remembered: They were only allotted 90 seconds, and I thought, Well, not much can go wrong However, in one of the Thames documents outlining just what had gone wrong, an unnamed producer writes that the programmes researcher, Christine Whitehead, had warned Mike in advance that they might say fuck. Reviews aren't verified, but Google checks for and removes fake content when it's identified. The Bill Grundy incident is pretty accurate visually but even tamer than the real life incident. This name had been previously considered and rejected by London Weekend Television.[7]. [40][41], However, by October talks had stalled, with EMI and BET still controlling Thames before heading into the 1991 franchise round.[42]. [49] Programmes from the Thames archive include: The first idents to be used comprised a plain screen with the words 'from Thames' written in white in the Helvetica font, and a vignette that resembled the famous ident, containing famous London landmarks. ROYAL TELEVISION SOCIETY. The press continued to be interested in the incident for several days. The consortium became the only bidder for the licence in December 1992 after two other groups dropped out. This article is about the former ITV franchise holder and production company. The twinkly smile of news presenter, political anchor and motoring magazine frontman Andy Craig will no longer beam out of TV screens in Berkshire, North Hampshire and Wiltshire when he leaves to . Richard Evans and Richard Ford and Dominique Searle "Trial by TV' row over IRA killings film", Dunn to Thames Board, July 1983 (uncatalogued deposit), ITVA Archive from, Cherry, S. ITV: The People's Channel, Reynolds and Hearn, 2005, p196. Thames Television, commonly simplified to just Thames, was a franchise holder for a region of the British ITV television network serving London and surrounding areas from 30 July 1968 until the night of 31 December 1992. Jul 2022. [28], For the Thames board, the dispute represented a huge, but necessary, cost if the company was to expand its production operations profitably. The outcome proposed by the ITA was a "shotgun marriage" between ABC and Rediffusion. 30, "Thames Television up for sale". See MoreSee Less, David Bowie's handwritten Jean Genie lyrics sold for 57,000, edition.cnn.com/2023/01/30/entertainment/cindy-williams-dead/index.htmlMore sad news Failure to reach agreement on pay increases and shift allowances in the 1979 pay round resulted in technicians switching off power to the transmission facilities at the Euston Road centre on 6 August. I'm absolutely certain it would not have been a major change to Thames. Another BBC favourite was comedian Benny Hill, the star of The Benny Hill Show (196989), who was placed under contract. With the introduction of colour, the ident was remodelled on the vignette, this time using photographs rather than drawings. You cannot do a job like I do without being sober.. Melinda Wittstock. The site of the studios is currently occupied by Triton Square and the registered headquarters of the British operation of Spanish bank Santander. Visit our corporate site (opens in new tab). I could talk to Bill through his ear-piece and tell him to cut the interview right there and then and we could actually get into a film very quickly. In 1968 he moved to Thames Television and began presenting Magpie, a new children's programme, with Susan Stranks and Pete Brady. Great British Presenters can help! Like all ITV franchisees, it was a broadcaster, a producer and a commissioner of television programmes, making shows both for the local region it covered and, as one of the "Big Five" ITV companies, for networking nationally across the ITV regions. Mary Green. Thames's share was bought out by Flextech in 1996.[61][62]. Plenty of plugs abound here for the Thames branded . In 1974, he joined BBC Radio London and then Anglia Television and HTV West (now ITV West Country) where he worked in producer and reporter/presenter roles. See MoreSee Less, For those interested, the complete Jules and Sandy is available on Audible. These programmes were made in the then standard 'hybrid' studio video/location film format, but the British industry was in the slow process of dropping the multi-camera studio format for drama, excepting soaps, to making the genre entirely on film. It was widely expected that the company would be awarded the London weekend franchise. Dead at 82. Thames TV/ ITV. She was also a daytime continuity , Peter was a continuity announcer in various ITV regions: Ulster TV (1967 1969); Anglia TV , Australian-born former pirate radio disc jockey (known as Jim Gordon, or Jumbo Jimmy Gordon during , Evadne is a former Central TV continuity announcer. The IBA said it had nothing against Carlton owning part of an ITV company, but believed 'any' single ownership of an ITV company was undesirable.[36]. Bill Grundy. Michael Clark. He's right. A few years after The World at War, Thames broadcast Hollywood (1980), a 13-part documentary series about the era of the America silent cinema. [24] On Monday 22 October, a management-run service started operating; the company claimed the revised schedule was popular with the viewers. Weve fucking spent it, aint we? says Steve Jones. Thames produced the daily live entertainment and information programme to reflect "what is going on in London". This led to a serious problem for the ITA as ABC was a popular station, whose productions earned vital foreign currency - one such series was The Avengers. Lovely riah. RIP the beautiful Stella Stevens, who has died at the age of 84. Say something outrageous). Through the early 1980s, Thames experienced a series of local disputes while management deliberately confronted contractual rackets, and pursued the introduction of new technologies based on operational requirements rather than precedent. Producers don't often get credit for great TV series but they are an integral part of the creation process. The following month, both sides backed down over the issues, with all technicians returning to work. The television presenter was taught drama by Rhodri Punter, head of drama at the independent girls' school. [13] The comedians had worked for the BBC since 1968 with major national success, but the decisive factor leading the duo to leave the corporation was Thames's offer to feature them as main leads in a film made by the company's Euston Films subsidiary. : With Mavis Nicholson, Jasmine Bligh, Mary Berry, Judith Chalmers. A two-week technicians strike in the summer of 1975 shut down the whole of ITV with the technicians being bought off with a 35% pay rise. Thames Television broadcast from 9:25 Monday morning to 5:15 Friday afternoon (7:00 Friday night until 1982) at which time it would hand over to London Weekend Television (LWT). Today was launched on 30 July 1968 when ITV switched from their ATV/Rediffusion contracts to the new Thames Television/LWT model. L. orraine Kelly has returned to work with a full bill of health after previously being sent home with a "buglet". The structure of the new company was also a problem. This series, produced by Kevin Brownlow and David Gill, was followed by the company sponsoring Thames Silents, a project undertaken by Brownlow and Gill of the restoration and screenings (in a limited number of cinemas and on television) of major films from the silent era. A programme on Harold Lloyd (The Third Genius) followed in 1989. FERNE COTTON (b1981-).British Television and radio presenter,best known for presenting the last series of the music chart show,Top of the Pops,ocassionally co hosting the annual Red Nose Day charity comedy telefon,and for being a regular on Keith Lemons acerbic comedy panel show,Celebrity Juice,from 2008 to 2018. Granada Television won daytime service in the North, and ABC the weekends. Dec 12, 2022. Thames paid 55,000 a show compared to the 29,000 of the BBC. There were no internal discussions of the potential savings that could be derived from new shift patterns, but there was a strong sense that union controls had to be removed before the company embarked on increasing its operations. See MoreSee Less, Burt Bacharach, one of pop's greatest songwriters, dies aged 94. In the interview she dismissed a photo of Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre . BA1 1UA. Wish You Were Here.? Bona! In March 1990, EMI and BET tried once again to sell off their shares in Thames, with Cartlon and CLT (a Luxembourg-based media company) both in the running. A Guide to British television programmes shown at Christmas time, throughout the years. However, on 1 January 2012, the Thames brand was revived and Talkback Thames has now been split into four different labels: Boundless, Retort, Talkback and Thames, within the newly created FremantleMedia UK production arm. The loss of Thames's franchise was seen as controversial by many, and highly significant by most, given Thames's history within ITV, as a long-standing franchisee in its own right, its heritage from the start of the network through its founding parents ABC and Rediffusion London, and the fact that it was one of the major contributors of content to the ITV network. Within four days, all but one ITV station had gone off-air after the ACTT asked members at other companies to walk out in claim for a 15% pay rise. The show at its peak had 21 million viewers, while the last episode had nine million. The Times, Friday, 7 July 1989; pg. Yes, all of this actually happened . Grundy (and British television audiences) would never forget 1 December 1976 the day he attempted to interview theSex Pistolslive to air. Some of our biggest TV talent lies not in A-list actors and big name presenters, but everyday Kiwis residing in the provinces, writes Duncan Greive. 1977. [32][33], In 1982, The Independent Broadcasting Authority decided to change the Thames franchise area, which resulted in the Bluebell Hill transmitter in north Kent, its associated relays and the main relay at Tunbridge Wells being transferred from London to the new South and South-East of England, TVS franchise, in order to serve the new region better. It was live TV and the Sex Pistols were front-page., Steve Jones memory of McLarens reaction is markedly different: He was terrified. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Hill spent most of the rest of his career with Thames. Two of its post-franchise sitcoms found more success when they transferred away from ITV Men Behaving Badly, which moved to the BBC in 1994 and Is It Legal?, which moved to Channel 4 in 1998. Enjoy this retrospective about this British-designed and assembled car, and then take some time to delve into Thames TV's treasure chest. open.spotify.com/show/7DIM1wfGKwDis0uzsjHeP7?si=pG0_U0TjRKGzVDvrePs4vA The answer was found to be a new holding company, Thames Television (Holdings) Ltd.[6] ABC's parent, the Associated British Picture Corporation was taken over by EMI in 1969, and in 1979 became part of Thorn EMI. 7 ] was cancelled two months later, and lasted on Thames late. Over the issues, with all technicians returning to work the wonderful phrase What! Dismissed a photo of Prince Andrew and Jeffrey Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre live entertainment and information programme reflect. Melinda Wittstock he was terrified throughout the years since, various conspiracy theories have attached themselves the... Front-Page., Steve Jones memory thames television presenters McLarens reaction is markedly different: he terrified! 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