[720p/50p] ITV ATV | closedown | 7th September 1981 

This came from VHS…

They'd known since December 1980 - though they didn't know they were to become 'Central' until mid 1981. IBA kind of reissued ATV with it's franchise but under certain conditions. One was the region was t be a dual news area, the other, was a Rebrand. They submitted the changes to the IBA as "ATV Midlands" - but the IBA wanted further changes to management structure and a totally different name - and along came "Central Independent Television" - this wrangling went on until late summer 1981. The Central globe wasn't decided on until the autumn - prior to this Central had a different logo that looked like the Capitol Records logo. While I was at Central - much later on - some staff still referred to it as ATV....

@@RB-kc9by I remember seeing the original Central logo somewhere. I've seen part of a news report about ATV from September 1981 which mentions they're soon to become Central.

Central fast became a very different company from ATV who were very good at making programmes for international as well as home grown audiences. Central's focus was a bit more UK centric. With new people at the top and the loss of ITC, plus the quick sale of Elstree to the BBC, the end result was not the continuation of ATV under a new name.

@@RB-kc9by When were you at Central?

@@DMiddleton-bj5wc Central did seem to cater more for it's region and from being a dual region in 1983 it became a tri-region in 1989 with the creation of Central South to go with the East and West. Bob Southgate in 1988 said that it was inevitable that parts of the region wouldn't get great coverage from news as it is a very vast region.

Correct, Centre Radio closed on 6th October 1983. The franchise was readvertised, and was won by Radio Trent, who launched Leicester Sound on 7th September 1984 Leicester Sound became Capital in January 2011

All this despite having Timmy Mallett host the breakfast show.

​@michaelhall6178 He was only there for 6 weeks, he got fired!

Don’t know.

Each of the ITV companies had their own IBA branded Test-Card F with the station name on the bottom. It's likely this was shown for a while before the morning startup. It was certainly used internally - along with electronically generatedd Colour Bars for calibration of equipment.

It’s in character for their presentation. ATV from the mid/late 70s tended to be a bit “different” from the others, like their use of a track with lyrics as startup music, an electronic clock (British TV’s first!) then this. That willingness to be more different was the seed from which Central’s presentation style grew.

Central was simply ATV under another name. ATV did NOT lose their franchise in 1980 but one of the conditions was the ATV name had to be changed, the IBA gave a 4-week deadline for their plans otherwise they'd have reconsidered. The name Central was confirmed around July 1981.

@@pak8606 It wasn’t ATV under another name at all. ATV Network’s parent company, ACC, set up a new company called ATV Midlands Ltd. to apply for the franchise instead of letting ATV Network apply for it. ATV Midlands won the franchise but was given those conditions by the IBA and so became Central. ATV Network did not become Central, ATV Network had lost the franchise by default by not applying so would cease to exist. So ACC owned ATV and Central, who were two different companies with their own different boards of executives. But this allowed the ACC to make the transition appear smoother than it actually was.

@@stickytapenrust6869 I forgot they applied for the licence as ATV Midlands as they knew it would need to become a dual region from January 1982. I think what I meant was more that Central had the same announcers generally and was not different from ATV in the same way that Carlton was from Thames. Of the new companies in 1982 would you say TVS was the most different from the predecessor?

@@stickytapenrust6869 *Do you have southern closedowns?*