Historical details of Central and other ITV Companies

I don't think it was a case of technology improving overnight on January 1st 1993 though. The 'clunk' in TV-am days was a man (either at BT or the transmitter) changing the position of a mechanical switch at 0925; after TV-am this switch was no longer necessary as GMTV passed through the same line as the rest of the day's ITV output.

(Hence why UTV were able to make an unauthorised opt-out.)

I can only remember with any clarity the GMTV/LNN analogue days. LNN only had one LMS (plus the spare of course) with only one output so I don't think, in those days, GMTV had anything other than national commercials so I'm not sure about macro regions at that time? I appreciate that later they went over to the profile servers etc which would have given the capability.

GMTV Studio 5 was always genlocked permanently to TLS station black - it was up to LNN to make it synchronous to whomever, wherever. When Daybreak & Lorraine started in St7 and St3 the pulse arrangements became 'interesting' to say the least. I always described it as a rubber band waiting to break which would have resulted in St3 being unable to be put to air. Still, they got away with it.

Well no, but of course the presumably there was a degree of advance, purely because of the new facilities being brought online.

My point was more that no matter about the change in operational layout at ITV, it was a phenomenon of its time

Only having 1 or 2 LMS's doesn't mean that they could only broadcast one set of adverts, they could have just used one to compile the breaks onto tape in advance. TVam also regionalised their ads and apparently this was how it was done. Although of course they had more downtime to do it, I know at one point they manually compiled their breaks.

I know that Thames used a similar method for their breaks at one point because they didn't trust their LMS equivalent (MARC) to do them live

Yes, I should have said, this was from 1999 when LNN totally revamped their Tx facility, with Profile servers etc,
that paved the way for Oct 2002, and the centralision of ITV's playout and continuity, although when the project
started (in 1998) I don't think the swallowing up of UN&M by Granada had started ?

I remember also modifying ITV2's audio only continuity booth, into an in vision facility with lighting, and a fish tank ! Didn't last long, the booth was exactly the same size and layout as the ITV 1 one, that Glen Thomsett and Trish Bertram were briefly seen in on LWT's 'last day of continuity' in Oct 2002

I didn't say it couldn't be done, I said it wasn't done - at least not for the first year of GMTV as they only sold commercials nationally.

Well actually you said you didn't think they did it!

Anyway it seems quite surprising that they didn't considering their predecessors sold ads that way

Can't help you with UN&M, I'm sure a quick Google would reveal all. I well remember the ITV2 continuity studio which LNN insisted on calling ST4.

Did you ever realise why the corridor the other side of the wall to the ITV1 continuity was covered in carpet? LNN designed the continuity booth themselves. There was no proper solid floor to help eliminate exterior noise. Every time someone wandered along the corridor their footsteps and conversations simply went under the computer flooring straight into the 'sound proof' continuity booth. Hah. Only discovered at the last minute of course. The solution was to remove the lino computer flooring and replace it with tiles with carpeting. Please don't tell me you were actually employed by these people on a permanent basis?

You have to consider the history to GMTV. LWT never expected to win the breakfast tv franchise and it came as a complete surprise to be honest. In the run up the 1992 licence rounds, LWT had specced a new transmission facility for their use only, although they had clearly stated in their application that they would enter into negotiations with whoever won the London weekday franchise to share this new facility to both's advantage. When Carlton won, and then GMTV won, suddenly a facility initially designed for weekend use, was going to be in use 24/7. The design was tweaked and expanded to accommodate all these users but it could only go so far given the immovable deadline. (and there was more than enough problems with Lough's automation/interface software just getting the 3 different scheduling systems talking to each other). I believe it was GMTV themselves who decided the cost of providing macro advertising regions was not worth the additional costs and effort - that was to change after the first 12 months. So they knew what TV-am were doing, but decided it was not for them, so it was a conscious decision.

When TV-am started they had none of this LMS malarkey, in fact I don't think LMS or Marc kit was even on the market in 1982. TV-am equipped themselves with 1" kit (I think Marconi). Overnight these banks of VTR's were automatically controlled by a third party control system to compile the breaks. Clever, but it never worked. In the end VT engineers at Hawley Crescent and Knutsford were furiously compiling these breaks manually overnight. Possibly the software did eventually work. I do know that at some period during their franchise the compilation of these breaks were outsourced to a third party too. Did TV-am actually buy an LMS themselves in the end then?

There appears to be a website for the former company here: http://www.tv-am.org.uk if anyone wants to contact them and ask the questions. I'm not interested enough I have to say.

Ha no, I worked for the System Integrator that equipped the facility, 'bogs and boilers' were (thankfully) someone else's job !

They made the right decision I suspect, considering the audience figures at the time


Me neither really, although that website is that of Ian White, a former TVam journalist who bought the rights to the name and logo so wouldn't have any answers.

I only know a bit about what went on there from a former colleague of mine who was at TVam almost until the end.

Not true he holds a lot of archive about TVAM and contacts with many Ex TVAM, so there is a high chance can point you in the right directions.