Television South West

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Television South West

This is the TSW logo/ident, which was designed by Paul Honeywill & was used on-screen for their entire 11 years on-air.
Based in	Plymouth
Broadcast area	Devon Cornwall South & West Somerset West Dorset
Launched	1 January 1982
Closed	31 December 1992
Replaced	Westward
Replaced by	Westcountry
Owned by	Self-owned

Television South West (TSW) was the ITV franchise holder for the South West England region from 1 January 1982 until 31 December 1992, broadcasting from the former Westward Television studios in Plymouth, Devon.

[edit] History

On 28 December 1980 Television South West was awarded the contract to serve the south-west of England from 1 January 1982 for a ten-year period, succeeding incumbent Westward, which had served the area since 1961.

TSW promised greater investment in the area including the introduction of Electronic News Gathering facilities at a number of sites in the region (a process already started by Westward) and a stronger emphasis on local programming (an area in which Westward were particularly successful).

However TSW's success in winning the contract may have been helped by boardroom friction within Westward which had blighted the company for several years and incurred criticism from the Independent Broadcasting Authority. During negotiations to purchase Westward's facilities at Derry's Cross, Plymouth the management of TSW bought the whole company for £2.38million and thus went on-air four months early in August 1981, although they transmitted under the Westward name until the end of the year.

The studios, which had suffered from underinvestment, were completely refurbished with an additional studio being constructed, this programme being completed in 1984.

[edit] Programming

Like its predecessor, TSW produced few programmes for the ITV network. Exceptions to this included the game show That's My Dog and children's cartoon Tube Mice, about mice who lived beneath the London Underground. It also produced The Cut Price Comedy Show, a short-lived production broadcast in the early days of Channel 4. The station continued using the Westward star Gus Honeybun, a rabbit puppet that (along with the TSW continuity announcers) read out birthday dedications on-air to children from the area, who had sent in their cards to him. Gus was broadcast twice a day on weekdays (before & after Children's ITV), and usually once a day at weekends. The show was called Gus Honeybun's Magic Birthdays, and usually lasted about 2 or 3 minutes per episode. TSW used to sometimes opt-out of showing the first & last Children's ITV links of the day, so it could fit in Gus' birthday slot on weekday afternoons, although this gradually stopped by early 1990. Gus had a theme tune composed by legendary TV composer, Ed Welch, and a short video was made to accompany it, featuring Gus & several TSW presenters walking around in Plymouth. A 7" single of the theme song was released in several local record shops. Other Gus merchandise available were cuddly toy puppets, keyrings and car stickers. One car sticker said "Watch Gus on TSW!" and had both his face & the TSW logo on it.

TSW specialised in making relatively highbrow programmes for their region; in the arts world, it had some big names who worked with them, including Moura Lympany, who was one of Britain's leading concert pianists at the time, potter Bernard Leach, and sculptor Barbara Hepworth.

TSW was one of the last ITV companies to start broadcasting 24 hours, which it did in September 1988. However, it was one of the first ITV companies to start broadcasting in Nicam Digital Stereo, which it started doing in summer 1990. Also in 1990, it made a quiz show called Sounds Like Music, which was presented by Bobby Crush, and was networked by ITV, becoming one of the few programmes TSW actually made for the ITV network.^{[citation needed]}

In September 1989, when ITV introduced it's first official corporate logo and national on-air identity, TSW was one of the five regions that refused to use the generic idents that were designed for their respective regions, each preferring to stay with their distinctive on-screen branding instead. The other four regions that refused the 1989 look were Anglia, Channel, TVS & Ulster.

TSW was seen as slightly more ambitious than both its predecessor Westward Television and its successor Westcountry Television and its presentation, although still homelier than much seen on ITV and not dissimilar to that of Westward, was considered more professional than its forebear.

[edit] Scheduling foibles

TSW was a notably regional company, declaring itself as a channel in its own right, rather than just being part of the ITV network. It had a reputation for scheduling to suit its own requirements, and would often broadcast particular shows at different times to the other ITV regions or even opt out of network activity completely.

• The Christmas Day Movie

Christmas Day 1982 saw TSW replace the main evening movie, The Black Hole, with a film of its own choice - The Inlaws starring Peter Falk (ref. The Times, November 8, 1982).

• The Saturday Show

From its inception TSW broke new ground with its own dedicated regional children's Saturday morning series. Originally titled The Saturday Show, it was presented by local DJ Ian Calvert and (initially) teenager Joss Cook. When TSW began broadcasting The Saturday Show was broadcast in place of the final series of Central Television's Tiswas. When Central finished Tiswas, its new Saturday morning offering was titled The Saturday Show, potentially causing confusion. Children's ITV presenters often had to explain at the end of Friday transmissions that South West viewers would not get the same programme as viewers elsewhere. After a period of overlap, TSW retitled its programme Freeze Frame to avoid confusion, but by 1986 TSW was taking TVS's networked Saturday morning show Number 73.

• Follyfoot

In March 1988, TSW controversially opted out of a repeat showing of the 1970s children's classic Follyfoot - which was being shown as part of the Sunday morning Children's ITV offerings - mid-run. While the other ITV regions continued to show this series, TSW moved its popular local gardening magazine, Gardens For All, into the slot. Pressure from viewers forced TSW to broadcast the outstanding Follyfoot episodes.

• Children's ITV continuity

From 1987 until January 1990, on weekday afternoons, TSW used to often opt-out of showing the first & last Children's ITV (CITV) links of the day, so it could have some more air-time for Gus Honeybun's Magic Birthdays instead (which was shown twice a day on weekdays, right before & after CITV). If they opted-out of the first link, they would go straight from Gus' slot into the opening titles of the first CITV programme of the day & if they opted-out of the final link, they would go straight from the end credits of the final CITV programme of the day, into a short commercial advert break & then into Gus' slot. They would also occasionally opt-out of other links too, by going straight from the commercial breaks (during CITV) into the following programme, bypassing the preceding link introducing the show! This all got to be really annoying, as it meant that south-west viewers often missed out on competitions, special guest interviews, programme trailers and general chat by the presenters. This all began sometime in 1987, when the presentation of CITV finally went 'live', instead of having the pre-recorded links that had been used before. However, the most upsetting CITV link to not be broadcast by TSW, was on 22nd December 1989, which was the then current presenter Jerry Foulkes' final day on CITV. His last link was to be at 5:08pm, straight after the final programme of the day, which was Knightmare. However, TSW went straight from the end credits into an advert break & then into Gus. This was a real shame as south-west viewers never got the chance to hear him say "Goodbye". In TV magazines such as TV Times & Look-In, TSW's schedule listings used to always show that CITV was 2 or 3 minutes shorter than in all the other ITV regions, with Gus listed as a separate programme in these spare minutes. However, in January 1990, for some unknown reason, TSW stopped opting-out of any more links, only thrice opting out early thereafter - one day in early 1990, once again on the 20th December 1991 & finally on one day in August 1992. So from January 1990 onwards, Gus Honeybun's programme was slightly reduced in length each day, so that the CITV links could always be shown too.

One afternoon in February 1983, TSW opted out of the Children's ITV links entirely, the programmes being introduced in the normal fashion by Roger Shaw.

• Home And Away

Perhaps most controversially, on Wednesday 20th September 1989, TSW moved the repeat showing of the popular Australian soap, Home And Away from its teatime slot of 5:10pm, to an earlier afternoon slot of 3:27pm. It replaced another Australian soap, Sons And Daughters, which the final episode of had been shown the day before. The show was shown at this precise time as TSW's daily birthdays slot, Gus Honeybun's Magic Birthdays, followed it at 3:57pm (before Children's ITV started at 4:00pm). The move of Home And Away was viewed as a very bizarre thing to do, seeing as the first showing of the show was at 12:30pm (later moved to 1:20pm in 1991), meaning the same episode was broadcast twice in three hours. Also, it meant a lot of the shows' teenage audience would still be in school when the repeat was shown. TSW argued the move was necessary to avoid having to schedule two quiz shows together, but as the years passed and programmes came and went their argument became increasingly non-existent.^[1] In September 1992, it was finally returned to a teatime slot of 6:30pm, for TSW's final three months on air. However, on Monday 4th January 1993, it was moved back to its original 5:10pm slot by Westcountry Television, who had replaced TSW three days earlier on 1st January 1993. It then stayed in this time-slot (5pm from 1999) until ITV lost the rights to the show in 2000. After moving Home And Away to an earlier time, TSW showed a number of other different programmes in the 5:10pm slot instead. These included the popular quiz show, Blockbusters, Sportsmasters (a short-lived sports-related quiz show, which was hosted by Dickie Davies) & the UK/Australian soap opera, Families.

At one point in early 1992, TSW schedules were showing a distinct lack of investment and a heavy reliance upon acquired material. Various afternoons had five consecutive Australian imports from 1.20pm starting with Home and Away, A Country Practice, The Sullivans, The Young Doctors and then the Home and Away repeat.

• Networked comedy

In 1990 TSW opted out of showing the comedy series The Piglet Files, starring Nicholas Lyndhurst, whilst every other region showed it. They did eventually broadcast it a while later though. Another networked comedy series, The Nineteenth Hole, starring Eric Sykes was pulled mid-run after viewers complained about its politically incorrect humour. Ironically, TSW filled the slot with compilations from the Carry On films. South West viewers denied the chance to see the entire series of Nineteenth Hole had to wait for a re-run on UK Gold almost ten years later.

• The ITV Chart Show

In January 1989, the popular music show, The Chart Show was moved from its original home of Channel 4 to ITV & was shown at 11:30am on Saturday mornings by all ITV regions. It was renamed "The ITV Chart Show" in September 1989. Following this show each week at 12:30pm on TSW, was a local programme called The South-West Week, which was a review of the week's news for the deaf & hard of hearing. It was presented by Lawrie Quayle. However, occasionally when a networked event or special programme (such as a 'live' football match for example) was due to be shown at 12:30pm on all ITV regions, TSW opted-out of showing The Chart Show at 11:30am, so it could fit in The South-West Week instead. As this show was only half-an-hour long, it also used to show another random programme to fill up the hour time-slot, which on several occasions were some episodes of the original 1960s TV series of Batman, which starred Adam West.

• Station Ident

TSW's original ident (a jingle that preceded station output) attracted much derision for failing to reflect the identity of the area it served. Although the static version showed green hills and a river to symbolize the West Country, the bubble and wave animation of the moving version was said to confuse viewers. In 1985 the ident was remodeled solely on the hills and river motif with a reworking of the accompanying tune. Whereas the original used a mixture of CGI and stop-frame animation the latter comprised purely of CGI.

[edit] Franchise loss

On 16 October 1991, following changes to the way ITV contracts were issued (now via a blind auction rather than a bid on merits and potential) it was announced that TSW had lost its franchise because of an 'unrealistic business plan' related to its bid, which was viewed by the Independent Television Commission (ITC) as being far too high. This triggered TSW to apply for a judicial review against the ITC, on the grounds that its bid had been unfairly dismissed. The case went right to the House of Lords, but was rejected in February 1992. The implications of the court case did change the behaviour of the ITC into being more open with regards to its business.

Westcountry Television were the south-west region franchise winners & took over from TSW at midnight on 1st January 1993. Westcountry chose not to purchase the studios of TSW, preferring new facilities just outside Plymouth, at Langage Science Park, Plympton. The old TSW studios were then stripped with the equipment being auctioned, and the building itself was converted into office space. Currently, a solicitors' practice uses the premises, but the site (occupying prime building land in the heart of Plymouth) is earmarked for closure and scheduled for demolition and future redevelopment.

[edit] The End of TSW

On 31st December 1992, TSW said goodbye with its final closedown in Derry's Cross Studios in Plymouth. This final closedown - or rather, by this time, final message before the franchise changeover at midnight, for we were now into the era of 24-hour transmissions on ITV - is most notable for TSW’s asserting itself in a continuum, as though there had been no franchise change 11 years earlier, as announcers Ian Stirling and Ruth Langsford spoke of “the last 31 years” (since 1961 when Westward began). This, in many ways, was quite true - after a brief assertion of its comparative youthfulness and modernity, TSW had become effectively “son of Westward”; when Westcountry took over at midnight on 1st January 1993, in-vision continuity disappeared, the Derry’s Cross building was abandoned in favour of the nondescript Langage Science Park, near Plympton, and Gus Honeybun was axed.

At 11:57pm, after the final message, it went into a 3-minute news report called Into The New Year from ITN (now ITV News) which aired on all ITV regional stations (except Television South (TVS), which also ended on 31st December 1992, as instead they were broadcasting a farewell programme called Goodbye to All That at the time before Meridian began live via satellite from Winchester Cathedral at midnight). Thames Television also ended on that night too. The report ended with Big Ben's loud bells which was cut into an image of Big Ben ending an era of 32 years and beginning Westcountry Television.

[edit] South West Film and Television Archive

On losing the franchise, the directors of TSW decided to establish a public film and television archive, based around the back catalogue of Westward and TSW programmes they owned. They created the "TSW Film and Television Archive", one of the first and largest of what has now become a network of regional film archives. The archive is a charitable trust, existing to preserve the region's moving image heritage. It is open to the public and holds film and television recordings from a wide variety of sources, including donations from the general public. It is an invaluable source of rare footage reflecting the region's cultural heritage.

TSWFTA (renamed the SWFTA in 2003) holds the entire surviving back catalogue of Westward and TSW programmes, together with several tens of thousands of other items (which all have a connection to the south-west of England) donated by members of the general public. The SWFTA aims to preserve moving image material as a resource for future generations. With five staff, four of whom came from TSW, they regularly supply material for a wide variety of educational and other uses. They provide community film shows, and help anyone with an interest in using or viewing the material they hold.

[edit] UK Safety Group

After the franchise loss, TSW undertook a reverse takeover with the White Ward Group, makers of safety footwear and associated articles. The name of the company was changed to UK Safety Ltd, and traded for a number of years, before entering administrative receivership.

[edit] Programmes

• Today South West
• TSW Today
• TSW Newsport
• Tube Mice
• That's My Dog
• Sounds Like Music

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• SWFTA
• Transdiffusion Ident
• Recreation of TSW's clock Shockwave Flash required
• Television South West at TV Ark