funfact: as a French, i only knew about ITV with Thames when i was younger and watching some videos on RU-vid, and now i kinda developped an interest about British TV History (and learning about all of the ITV franchises is one of them)
Having lived in the London television area most of my life. I grew up with Thames tv. Dangermouse was a Cosgrove Hall production, Thames took over Cosgrove Hall. So that is why you had the Thames endcap.
Fascinating stuff. In the US, the "Thames" skyline ident would run in front of some episodes of "Danger Mouse," which aired on Nickelodeon from 84 to about 88.
Watching this whilst drinking coffee from my Thames XXI mug. Only discovered your channel recently but already loving it and it's wonderful to feel some love for broadcast television.
As a Londoner there was a real noticeable drop in quality when Carlton took over. Thames produced shows such as Minder thankfully went on for another couple of years as Carlton simply didn’t have its own shows ready.
Carlton's policy was they were a publisher-broadcaster (in a way like Channel 4) whereby programmes were produced by independent production companies but Carlton only had editorial control over the output.
The independents weren't good enough in 1993. That was the problem and no ITV company should have been awarded a licence on those terms back then. That's why the likes of Carlton and CPV could put in ridiculously high bids and then the rest is history. Carlton could pay the £43 million and had to rely on Thames to keep making the programmes to keep the ITV schedule going. What an absolute disgrace! Where was the bloody ITC to revoke that contract? Well it's 30 years ago now...
Even though it wasn’t my region I remember the photo one that lasted until the late 80s on begining or end of various programme I had on VHS. Never remember seeing the triangle one after it though.
@@robertcomer2767 I'm afraid television has to reflect the changing trends of the time. In the 1980 franchise round a lot of money was required due to the changing technology required in broadcasting at the time which was why ITV and Channel 4 depended on a lot of advertising revenue. In 1993 Channel 4 had been going 10 years and the 1990 Broadcasting Bill required the BBC and ITV to take in 25% of programming from out-of-house.
Thames Television famously used their opening theme tune to taunt the BBC in 1980 when they introduced The Morecambe and Wise Show, which had jumped from the BBC to Thames in 1978. In 1980, for Eric and Ernie's first proper series with Thames, the intro had a sung "Here they are now, Morecambe and Wise" to the Thames theme tune, just to annoy the BBC, and it worked. Bill Cotton, BBC One controller hated the intro tune.
Hi Jeremy, the ITV system of old is very strange to look at from an American perspective. It is the closest we ever got here in Britain to an American "affiliate" style system of television. However British TV was far more restricted in broadcasting than America up until the early 1990s. In fact until January 1972, the British government controlled the amount of hours any British television station could be on air for per day - in 1971, the limit was set at a maximum of 8 hours per day for entertainment. Only programming classed as adult educational, for schools, sporting coverage, state occasions and religious programming were exempted from the 8 hour daily limit. Only in 1972 was that abolished. However restrictions on the number of minutes per hour for commercial breaks on ITV remained, and still do to this day. Also there was severe restrictions placed on game show prizes right up until 1994.
Carlton - symbolic of, and partially responsible for, everything bad that happened to ITV in 91 and beyond. I hope in a parallel universe there’s an ITV owned by Granada and Thames
Just Thames, seeing along with Carlton, Granada would ruin regional ITV forever. I had a thought that maybe Fremantle or whoever owns the Thames brand, should bring a national channel out on Freeview, Freesat, etc. I'm sure it would get a good audience with some of the great back catalogue it holds.
I bet also the Thames tune was heard by millions of Americans every time they watched an edition of The Benny Hill Show. I remember the late great Johnny Carson commenting on Benny Hill and the Thames Television shows. Johnny loved Benny Hill.
3:15 - the caption and skyline idents were used alongside each other. The earliest Thames programmes from Teddington - recorded under ABC - had the caption, as did all stuff from Kingsway. Teddington stuff actually recorded by Thames had the vignette skyline.
Thames Television region didn't just cover the City of London Ian. My home town of Windsor, Berkshire was part of the Thames region, as we got our signal from Crystal Palace transmitter, as did all of Windsor, Slough and Maidenhead. We still do.
Random recollections: I remember a couple of 70s shows which subverted the classic mirrored skyline ident: Before the start of the Kenny Everett Video show cuddly Ken used to 'rip' through the screen and before the start of Armchair Thriller (I think) the skyline was given a spooky night-time makeover.
There was also a rude version of the Thames ident that appeared before Kenny Everett's show that replaced the London landmarks with women's breasts & the night-time version of the ident was seen before a special Christmas film called Quincy's Quest that starred Tommy Steele & aired at Christmas 1979 & Armchair Thriller used the night-time ident was well.
@@AllenJeremy You know, after posting my previous comment I did remember the 'boobies' version - I wasn't sure if it was a figment of my (puerile) imagination lol. Thank you for the confirmation.
Surprised you didn't show or atleast mention the "Morecambe and Wise" special Thames ident. Only shown before some M&W shows it was essentially the same classic skyline ident but with the words "Here they are now, Morecambe and Wise" sung in the tune of the normal ident.
I know for a fact that special song for Morecambe and Wise was designed by Thames to annoy the BBC, and it worked. Bill Cotton, BBC One controller said it was awful hearing it, very tacky he felt. He never forgave Eric and Ernie for leaving the BBC in the way they did. They have no notice to Bill of their departure. It came as a shock. Bill said Eric and Ernie treated him the same way as Sid Green and Dick Hills (their former writers) did to them in 1968, when Eric had his first heart attack and was recovering, they jumped to ITV without any notice to Eric and Ernie.
Cool video Adam Thames Television was a great regional released in 1968 after Rediffuision left Thames was there well until 1992. Thames had iconic good tv shows like The Sweeney,Rainbow and Magpie I think.
It was just an iconic part of my childhood, the classic Thames scene. Maybe it's what made me move to London 🤣 I remember the 3D one but have never seen XXI that I recall. That one passed me by somehow.
Getting quite good this, you seem to do alternate weeks with Matt (Applemask/BobTheFish) so it's this or the Hardsell seemingly every Friday. Very good indeed!
Have been looking forward to this Ident Review - Living in the London region all of my life, I have fond memories of Thames/LWT and their classic logos; on top of that they were absolute ITV leaders at the peak of their output. It's also worth considering that Thames might arguably the most internationally recognised ITV 'brand' due to the amount of things they sold overseas over the years - you know something is well recognised when the logo makes an episode of 'The Simpsons'! ('Missionary: Impossible', season 11). There were also several "night sky" versions of the classic logo used over the years as well. Before 24-hour broadcasting, young me always used to wonder if the logo played in reverse (as in "rolled back down into the Thames") at the end of the broadcasting day!! I still remember my disappointment when the logo changed so much in 1989, didn't care for the colour palette and just longed for a computer-driven version of the classic logo instead; things never quite felt the same after that. Looking forward to the London Weekend Indent Review.
Hi Adam, are you considering reviewing the new BBC One ‘lens’ idents as I first saw a couple of them yesterday and thought it was an opportunity for a review. Look forward to hearing from you!
The Thames Television Logo Is Taken From ITV Studios Shows Like Mr Bean The Original Series In 1990 And The Wind In The Willows The Original Series In 1984 And Rainbow The Original Series In 1972 And Button Moon In 1980 And Learn With Sooty In 1989 And 1991 Which Is A Spinoff To The Sooty Show And It Was Co Produced By The Video Collection And VCI. Awesome. Thanks Mate. X
Thames TV have a brilliant RU-vid channel with some interesting archive footage. In my opinion the quality output from ITV took a massive hit when Thames lost their franchise. What I was not aware until a few years ago was that Carlton tried to buy Thames when Thorn EMI divested their stake in the company.
The most famous one from 1969 to 1988-89 is the best by a long way. Some of them sounded a little warped but from 1979, the logo was "cleaner" and more clearer. Classic THAMES sound, miss it so much
As an Irish viewer, I would like to heartily thank New Zealand for 'The Mad Dog Gang'. And forever curse you to being known as 'Part of Tasmania or something' for Shortland Street! ;^) [EDIT] Ahh, C'mon... It was a joke! Look, I take it back. In fairness, if (Southern) Ireland was to be judged on some of its TV, we'd deserve to be known as 'West~Britshire'!
I think you should look at the two skyline idents in detail, as they convey some subtle changes from b and w to colour - does the Post Office tower move location ? , and the change in history of Londons skyline was not entirely reflected, the docklands area as docks was still implied beyond Tower Bridge, even as the Docks themselves moved to Tilbury, (its also worth a re-cap of the primary area Thames/ LWT was meant to cover , as indeed it was defined by the Thames, though one associated Thames with the Teddington Lock Facilities (particulary Opportunity Knocks and Magpie !) and LWT with the South Bank tower (as trendy weekend broadcasting kicked in. Went to a recording of Fresh Fields at Teddington ,(about 1986?) cannot recall if that was after Carlton had taken on the franchise , but Thames were being the production company.
Yes, as in fact ABC Weekend Television merged with Rediffusion to form Thames Television, the new weekday London franchise in 1968, a sort of "shot gun merger" as Sir Lew Grade called it at a meeting.
On Monday 29th July 1968, Rediffusion Television went off air for the last time, then on the following day on Tuesday 30th July 1968 Thames Television was bron lasting until Thursday 31st December 1992 when Thames Television losing it's franchise to Carlton broadcasting, on Friday 1st January 1993.
Fact: Did you know that the original 1969 colourised logo started up on the cult kids classics dvd from 2001/2002 I still have some dvds with the colourised logo
LWT and Thames had different studio bases in London Jake. LWT was based at Kent House from 1972, later renamed The London Studios on the South Bank which they sold off in 2018. Thames had two studio buildings. Their smaller one was based at Euston Road and housed Thames News, current affairs, sport, documentaries, admin and technical playout. Their main studio productions was based at Teddington Studios, around 12 miles from their Euston centre. The Thames Euston centre was demolished in 1996, Teddington Studios closed in 2014 and was then demolished in 2016. Hope this helps clarify?
@@AdamMartyn Are you planning to cover, or have you already covered, ITN (later ITV News) ? It's always stood out to me as the obvious omission from Applemask's ITV in the Face series, given that it operated independently of the other ITV companies, with its own identity, and produced it's own current affairs programming for the network, at least from time to time, in addition to the standard news bulletins it was set up to provide. At one point in the seventies they reworked the late night bulletin, and extended it slightly to make it reach the minimum programme length that TAM would measure audience figures for, and the resulting new 'News At Ten' started to chart on the weekly TAM charts almost every weekday, cementing it as ITN's flagship brand.
The Bill This Week The Sweeney Minder The World At War The Tomorrow People Sooty Rainbow Button Moon Mr. Bean Danger Mouse Count Duckula The BFG The Wind In The Willows Charlton And The Wheelies Jamie And The Magic Torch George & Mildred The Benny Hill Show
A great broadcaster was lost to the world, all because some Iron cowbag forgot that we live in a Democracy and are allowed to report the facts in news & current affairs!
