Scottish Television - History
Scottish Television - History
A licence to print money
(Roy Thomson)
Getting the Money
There was a gap of over a year before ITV would extend out of the
London, Midlands and the North of England. Applicants needed to
demonstrate financial backing of £400,000, and this was none to
easy to raise with the performance of the existing contractors. The
Canadian newspaper magnate Roy Thomson approached a number of Scottish
organisations to join in with his bid, but could only attract outside
money of £80,000, with the smallest investor, Sir Compton MaKenzie
contributing a mere £10. They were to be handsomely rewarded.
The Canny Deal
Roy Thomson approached ATV to provide Scottish
with all their network programmes - in effect to become an
affiliate, showing the ATV schedule when
they weren't showing local programmes. He agreed with Lew Grade to
pay £900,000 for the first year, and £1 million for another
seven. Two years later similar franchises were paying £10 million
for their network programmes.
The Rogue Transmitter
The transmitter employed at Black Hill was of a new type. However,
aerial installers over Central Scotland, particularly to the east of the site
were puzzled - not only was the signal weaker than they had been
told, it had a different polarisation. This strange behaviour
deprived many potential viewers particularly in the Dundee area of
any decent signal at all for about two years until it could be
replaced.
This area later became disputed when Grampian
started.
The rewards
Like the other companies the initial investors were to witness a
spectacular rise in their fortunes. When Scottish Television was
floated as a public company in 1965 the value was 22 times the
original investment. Roy Thomson alone made £13 million, with
which he purchased the Kemsley newspaper business.
Franchise Challenges
Like most of the companies Scottish sailed through the 1963/4 round. In
1967/8 they had much tougher opposition, in the shape of a consortium
of The Economist (edited then by Alistair Burnet), and The Observer,
with Jo Grimond as Chairman and Alistair Milne as Director of
Programmes. They didn't win, and Alistair Milne has attributed this
to the ITA, particular the member for Scotland, being sympathetic to
Scottish, compounded by being too strongly critical of the performance of
Scottish Television in their presentation.
In 1981/2 they were opposed by two groups but again won through.
No-one attempted to beat them in 1992, where they secured the franchise
with a bid of £2,000 pa and 2% of their qualifying revenue.
Now they have become part of the Scottish Media Group, and have
incorporated old rival Grampian.
Dates & Transmitters
Start: 31/08/57
Transmitters:
VHF
Black Hill: 10V 31/08/57-03/01/85
Rosneath: 13V 13/12/68
Rothesay: 8V 30/08/68
Lethanhill: 12V 31/01/69
UHF (Main)
Black Hill: 43H 13/12/69
Craigkelly: 24H 27/09/71
Darvel: 23H 01/12/72
Torosay: 25H 11/06/76
