TVS
With the shock demise of Southern Television in the
second franchise shakeup that took place in 1980, 1 January
1982 saw TVS (Television South) take over the ITV franchise
for the South and South-East of England region. TVS was
determined to be different from its Southern predecessor in
most respects but TVS used the same Northam studio base as
Southern, along with retaining nearly all of the staff
which had worked for Southern; in essence TVS was initially
just a change of management from the workers' perspective.
Unlike some other ITV franchise changeovers, Southern
continued to operate its service right up to the end of
transmission on 31 December 1981 and were less than
charitable when it came to the issue of studio access; it
did not allow TVS to use any of the studio facilities
unless they weren't being used at the time, therefore all
planning for the launch of TVS had to be performed from
inside portacabins based in the Northam studio's car park.
Southern's nickname for the TVS operation as a result was
'Portacabin TV' which was slightly unfair given the special
circumstances. At least one of the portacabins remained on
site right up to 2004 when the unwanted contents of the
Northam studios were being sold off; it was listed as one
of the items for auction, though the purchaser had to make
their own arrangements for its transport.
The difference between Southern and TVS was clearly
noticeable on-screen even before TVS broadcast its very
first programme; the startup sequence before the start of
programmes at 9.30am (breakfast television was still over a
year away) didn't just look different from Southern's but
also featured a list of programmes that strictly speaking
was technically against the rules for inclusion in the
formal sequence used to commence each day's transmission.
The startup sequence naturally used a new piece of
accompanying music, which was formally entitled The New
Forest but gained the unofficial nickname of "TVS Gallop".
The inaugural show was entitled
Bring In The
New and was basically in introduction to TVS and its
new and 'improved' service (essentially a corporate video)
but also incorporated a news bulletin.
Khalid Aziz was the first face to be seen on the new
channel, and he was to present the flagship news programme
Coast to Coast.
Bring In The New showed him
flying above the South of England in TVS' new helicopter to
the studios after surveying the region from
above.
TVS had precious little opportunity to plan its news
operation in advance of launch day due to the
aforementioned restricted access to the Northam studios
whilst Southern still had the ITV franchise. Therefore much
of the reorganisation of the newsroom had to take place
during the early hours of the morning on the first day of
operations.
Also new was the Vinters Park studio complex in
Maidstone, Kent, which was still being prepared for use
when TVS launched its service. This investment in new
Kent-based studios was part of the conditions that were
attached to TVS' successful franchise application, and were
intended to improve both the news service (Southern owned a
building in Dover but it was small) and the regional
programming.
Central to this new improved service for the South
East of England was the switching of the Bluebell Hill
transmitter from Thames/LWT to TVS, effectively making the
UHF coverage area similar to that of the old VHF Dover
service so viewers in this area were hopefully better
served in terms of regional programming from the new TVS
studios.
Despite the new faces and presentation style, a few
familiar people were still present, such as long-serving
weatherman Trevor Baker (or "Trevor the Weather"), who was
on hand to provide the first TVS weather forecast.
With the launch over, TVS had succeeded in proving
that it was at least radically different from its
predecessor but now needed to show that it could produce
programming that was at least as good as what had come
before.
TVS basically retained 'the best bits' of Southern
including familiar faces (such as Fred Dinenage and Trevor
Baker) whilst recruiting new staff including additional
reporters for
Coast to Coast, the new teatime local
news programme to replace Southern's
Day By Day
which now offered a true dual-region news service. Not long
after TVS took over, the Falklands War erupted giving a
major news story for the TVS news team to cover.
Other new programmes soon followed after the TVS
takeover, such as
A Full Life which featured
celebrity interviews,
Radio Pheonix,
The Real
World,
On Safari and
No 73, which was a
new Saturday morning children's programme - Southern had
previously given the world
The Saturday Banana in
the late 1970s which featured a giant inflatable banana in
the studio car park, and was presented by Bill Oddie.
No
73 by comparison was a studio (sorry, house)-bound
affair with no Bill Oddie (or inflatable banana) in sight.
Does anyone know where the banana went to - perhaps it
floated off somewhere?
By the end of the 1980s TVS was probably churning out
more networked programmes than either Southern or Meridian
to date, which proves how ambitious TVS was compared to its
Southern predecessor. Whilst Southern was just content on
providing a good quality regional service targeted at a
'conservative' audience along with some networked drama and
entertainment, TVS by contrast wanted to be on an equal
footing with the largest franchises such as Thames and LWT
for peak time light entertainment and thanks to a
relationship with the latter it more or less succeeded in
its aim. This shiny blue TVS logo replaced the original
white/colours logo during the autumn of 1987 and was used
until TVS stopped broadcasting.
 |
TVS News titles video clip (requires
RealPlayer) |
The major TVS productions which are probably best
remembered from this period were the shows featuring
comedian Bobby Davro, though the popular
Catchphrase
quiz was also which was produced independently after the
demise of TVS. However during this time TVS had ambitious
plans elsewhere which ultimately contributed to be its
undoing; it bought the MTM production company in the US
which soon ran into financial difficulties, and that alone
was a significant factor in persuading the government of
the day to look elsewhere.
The final programme shown on TVS on 31 December 1992
was entitled
Goodbye To All That, which was a
suitably tearful retrospective of what TVS had acheived
since 1982. After this final programme had finished, this
caption was briefly displayed and the TVS era had drawn to
a close. To summarise, TVS was the dynamic opposite to its
distinctly conservative Southern predecessor and matched
the corporate mood of the 1980s; Southern failed to evolve
quickly so paid the price in not doing so, but TVS ended up
being far too overambitious for its own good and came
unstuck as a result.
