The 20th Century Files Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Key Moments-TV

July 13, 1960: The Pilkington Committee[]

April 29, 1961: Westward Television[]

September 1, 1961: Border Television[]

September 30, 1961: Grampian Television[]

June 27, 1962: The Pilkington Report[]

September 1, 1962: Channel Television[]

September 14, 1962: Wales (West & North) Television (WWN/Teledu Cymru)[]

1968: TV Times goes national[]

March 4, 1968: Television Wales and West closes down[]

Partly because its regional programming was so well regarded it came as a great shock when TWW lost its franchise in the 1967 franchise review, in favour of the Harlech Consortium, whose bid promised a glittering future of star-filled entertainment and quality documentaries.

Much of the station's closing night was made up of in-house produced output including Live Like A Lord (a music and comedy show with mainstay TWW personality Ivor Emmanuel and Clive Dunn) and Sing Me A Fantasy (a musical film). The feature programme of the night was TWW's penultimate production, All Good Things, a late night variety special presented by Bernard Braden and featuring amongst others, Tessie O'Shea, Stan Stennett, Ivor Emmanuel, Manfred Mann, Clifford Evans, Anita Harris and Morecambe & Wise. The programme was preceded by an introduction from company chairman Lord Derby.

Having felt desperately hard-done-by the ITA, and in the fits of a corporate tantrum, the company showed their final display of anger by closing down with Come To An End, a reflective epilogue with John Betjeman, who had made several films for the station, paying tribute to the personnel, programmes and achievements of TWW (which Betjeman affectionately referred to as Tellywelly).

Ironically recorded at the Granville Theatre in London, Betjeman closed the epilogue and the station with these words:

"The new firm, Harlech, which will be centred in Cardiff, must build up its own personality. Tellywelly, you had a warm, friendly and inspiring one. Like many others, I'm very grateful to you. I'm sorry to see you go. It's like the death of an old friend."

As Betjeman walked out of the theatre and the credits rolled, the camera panned up to the "EXIT" sign on the wall, and TWW ended its transmission for the last time.

May 20, 1968: Harlech Television (HTV)[]

July 28, 1968: ATV closes in London and ABC goes off air[]

July 29, 1968: Rediffusion, London off the air and Yorkshire Television goes live[]

In 1964 Associated-Rediffusion rebranded as "Rediffusion, London", with a very hip 1960s style, the face of Swinging London in the shiny prosperous new Britain. However, the new Rediffusion did not survive for long - in October 1967 the Independent Television Authority announced that there was no place for Rediffusion in the redrawn franchise pattern. Following changes to the ITV network structure, ABC Television lost all its franchises. To preserve the sizeable ABC, the ITA proposed ABC and Rediffusion should form a new company: Thames Television. The parent companies of ABC and Rediffusion created Thames as a separate entity and Rediffusion went off the air on July 29, 1968.

July 30, 1968: ATV goes seven-days-a-week in the Midlands and Thames Television opens[]

Subsequent to the changes made by the ITA to the regional structure of the Independent Television service, ATV was awarded the franchise to provide a seven-day Independent Television service for the Midlands region which carried on until 1982.

ABC and Rediffusion joined forces as Thames Television to broadcast weekdays.

August, 1968: The strike and ITV Emergency National Service[]

August 2, 1968: London Weekend Television[]

November 15, 1969: ITV and BBC1 go colour[]

Advertisement