Genuinely sad moment when Gus said farewell. A metaphor for all things innocent, personable and charming beginning to disappear from ITV from that moment.
Sorry I'm late to the party. Are you referring to Bob the Fish's series on regional channels? My ten year old son put me on to that and I love it! My wonderful boy has some atypical interests, old station idents being just one example.
I am an Indonesian. The only ITV show I grew up with (that I know of) was Mr. Bean. In fact, I certainly remember the Thames TV logo shown after the credit. But, highly regionalised broadcasting network is a very interesting topic for me. Edit: I obviously have never heard of Gus Honeybun before. But, my God, the last episode of the show.... That's just heartbreaking.
I've just been made aware of this series coming back on UA-cam. I watched the 2015 version on Vimeo, it's nice to revisit an old series like this. I'd consider this to be the definitive 60th Anniversary celebration of ITV, just because ITV didn't bother to do it themselves - the bastards!! Thanks very much for the upload.
Sadly ITV don’t seem to care much about their often illustrious history. Perhaps they know it would show the current day network in a very bad light by comparison.
From the clips I've seen & I live in the old YTV area but he seemed such a charming fellow. The mention of him attending Scottish RADA, did he have many acting roles? Especially any on the small or silver screen? Would be great to take a look if so.
I had the opportunity to meet Ian Stirling at the Dorchester Show one year, then learnt some years later that he had died of cancer... I was most upset.
Did you know that Westward had its own airline? Air Westward, they had a couple of small twin-props and operated flights from Exeter. They even had the Westward galleon painted on the tail and the same "Westward" lettering on the side of the aircraft. They didn't last particularly long, operating until 1979 when they got acquired by British Island Airways which itself morphed into Air UK the following year. I didn't know about it until I was working on my Air UK episode of my own series and had to do a double take just in case someone was playing a joke on me ;) I'd have preferred an Air TSW though ;)
Delightfully witty and well presented retrospective. Thank you for going to the trouble of producing it. I remember family holidays at my grandmother's in Dorset and being bemused by the differences between TVS, our usual station in Kent, and TSW. Granny persisted with referring to the station as Westward, which confused me all the more. The continuity announcers definitely cultivated a warm and friendly bond with the viewers. TVS did away with them as early as 1987, but TSW were actually committed to keeping IVC in its franchise renewal bid. Remember Dinah Lawley? She started appearing in the mid 80s and tended to be quite eccentric opposite Gus Honeybun during the birthday announcements. The Kermit's Bra logo was wacky and fun, but TSW never really practiced a consistent implementation of their corporate identity. The feeble seasonal programme openers from 1989 onwards didn't even feature the logo after all. The generic ITV ident and it's associated presentation package would have given the station a slick and sophisticated look, but that would have been completely out of character with TSW's homely image. Musical genius Ed Welch composed numerous catchy signature tunes for TSW's programmes, including their nightly Today magazine programme which had a strong presenting team in Sue King and Dominic Heale. Westcountry was a low budget upstart. Whilst they did have a polished and consistently applied on-screen identity, their programme output was generally very amateurish indeed. The first edition of Westcountry Live was painful viewing with visibly inexperienced reporters, technical glitches and the oily David Foster co-presenting with an uncomfortable Katy Haswell. The latter left not long after the station started, making way for the smug Alison Johns. Westcountry lacked likeable personalities. I don't think many people cared much when Westcountry disappeared after just six or so years. I agree the Carlton idents were rather good. In fact the combination of the eye-catching animation and strong musical fanfares really stood out against the lacklustre efforts of most of the other main channels. But they only lasted three years before the move towards single branding for the ITV network in England and Wales was finally imposed, as by then one company owned the whole lot. RIP independent regional television.
Did u know ? Here in Pembrokeshire,west Wales .. Milford Haven, Pembroke dock and haverfordwest . We could receive westward tv for many years . Sundays here with htv Wales many live big football games were not shown . But westward and tsw did. Great upload
TSW announcers appearing with Gus in the promo video: - Ian Stirling takes photos of Gus - Roger Shaw buys a newspaper at Gus's kiosk - Jennifer Gavin takes him on the merry-go-round - Judi Spiers drives the Hoppa bus and demands Gus pay his fare!
Westcountry had its own characters, Ron Bendall doing the weather, Manfred Roxon, Julie Skentelbery, Julie Benson.....and Ian Stirling WAS on Westcountry then (mid 90s) with a 'soap gossip' slot, appropriately called Stirling Soap, which he would deliver from a very comfy chair somewhere on the Langage Science Park.
Thanks Matt, again, a great documentary. Sad, the ship was no longer used as an ident in 1982. I mean, this is what defined the region, oriented towards the sea! I lived in Bristol from 1999 to 2004 and yes, it was Carlton. Corporate and superficial. Loeki the Lion was also used as a mascot of channel TF1 in France in the late 1970s, before each advert, albeit for a couple of years...
Actually Loeki was created in the Nederlands, to announce and to be filler during ads breaks in the public tv networks. He was retired in 2000, but recently STER (the Dutch Public Broadcasters Advertising Company) introduced a new generation of Loeki shorts: ua-cam.com/video/POkDbpf3Bbw/v-deo.htmlfeature=shared
OH MY FUCKING STUPID BULLSHITTED GOD!!! NOT YOU AGAIN!!! It IS... THE ITV FRANCHISE FOR THE SOUTHWEST OF ENGLAND!!! FIRST, IT IS WESTWARD TELEVISION FROM 1961 TO 1981. THEN, IT IS TELEVISION SOUTH WEST (or commonly shortened as "TSW") FROM 1982 TO 1992. AND FINALLY, IT IS WESTCOUNTRY TELEVISION (or simply known as "Westcountry") FROM 1993 TO 2009. SO, WHY THE STUPID HECK DID YOU BRING THAT BORING BAD-ASS ITV FRANCHISE TO THE HOUSE AGAIN? THAT IS HORRIBLY YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE AND NOW YOU KNOW I'LL NEVER FORGIVE WESTWARD TELEVISION, TSW, AND WESTCOUNTRY TELEVISION. AND I'M REGRETTING THAT BULLSHIT. NOW, HOW DARE YOU FUCKING STUPID BULLSHITTED ASSHOLED BADLY LET A ITV FRANCHISE THAT SERVES THE SOUTHWEST OF ENGLAND IN HERE? THAT IS HORRIBLY IT!!! You are... FIRED, FIRED, FIRED, FIRED, FIRED, FIRED, FIRED FOR YOUR GOD DAMN ENGLAND-ISH SAKE, YOU SON OF A BIG-BAD STUPID FUCKING BULLSHITTED UNITED BITCH!!! By the way, I'll get rid of Westward, TSW & Westcountry for good. What a crazy person. It deserves about what it had done for me.
That Loeki the Lion (or Loeki de Leeuw as he's known more accurately) bit was incredibly random! I did not expect to find out he'd been appropriated by Westward. Loeki is still going strong on Dutch TV today, in case you care (I appreciate you may not).
Interesting that TSW borrowed it's Night Time bits, when TVS had In Vision Continuity of their own. With, we ccasionally, wondered, slightly inebriated presentation. Because of the completely random launches of overnight broadcasting on ITV, I had the dubious pleasure of witnessing the launch editions of Central, HTV Wales and TVS. Because I was tootling around the Country that much.
I visited Paignton in 1977 aged 5 and was fascinated by the strange television they had there, which must have been Westward. They had a strange pentagon thing that popped up between adverts (called a bumper?) and I’d never seen the like before. I can vaguely remember Gus from that holiday and visited him (unintentionally) at Flambards many years later. The only Westward programme that we saw in our YTV region, as I can remember, was about farming so Westward wasn’t very entertaining for a youngster…
Sky Channel went to air in 1981 so official they became the fourth national channel and Channel 4 became the fifth. Be it Sky Channel broadcast across Europe at the time and not many people had cable TV or gigantic satellite dish, that was needed at the time. It was Sky and other cable and satellite channels that pioneered CGI at the time. ITV and Channel 4 followed. Great video. Had a lot of fun watching it. Looking forward to watch your other videos in the series.
It was only upon discovering the original series that I knew there was a South West region. I was going to say that UTV's Gus was the bears Barney and Busker, but they debuted after Gus was pensioned off, so it doesn't count. Or at least mid 90s is the earliest I remember them. In the Republic, The Den handled birthdays with their puppets and a pop video. At Christmas, both, thanks to Dustin the Turkey, who had multiple No. 1 singles and albums. 2015 was the last time RTE did a single with its puppets, 7 years after oh so controversially sending Dustin to Eurovision.
14:58 I know from holidays in the south-west that from 1988 onwards you got to see it a lot more; after the ending of the practice of showing front-cap idents belonging to the company that made each programme, TSW took the opportunity to play its ident right after the IVC and before the programme started, and they carried this on for a couple of years before switching to using the "Summer TSW" etc idents in around 1990 as you say. I've even seen evidence that they sometimes did this before 1988, so that the sequence would be, for example: ads - promos - IVC - TSW ident - LWT ident - Blind Date titles.
And here I am watching this again! 👍 I wonder if you had any plans to do an ILR (Independent Local Radio) in the Face? As I think it has just as much of a disappointing ending as did local ITV. 🤔 I thought it might be interesting to note how some of our favourite local radio stations have been swallowed up by the big corporations & conglomerates and possibly now that most of the stations will now too become Hits Radio and such as Radio Hallam's upcoming 50th Anniversary in October 2024, will probably be ignored as it becomes Hits Radio on 17th April! It's not looking good for local radio these days being swallowed up. Might just be internet radio stations or Community stations that will keep local radio alive!
The reason the transition to Westcountry wasn't as seamless as it could have been is that TSW cost it a small fortune in legal fees fighting the franchise award to the very bitter end. No doubt Gus Honeybun would have been taken on otherwise.
I love how your region felt so neglected not getting colour television until 1972... Meanwhile in Australia, we didn't get colour on any channel, in any region, until 1975. :(
@@robertcomer2767 Especially for a place ranking as the 6th biggest country in terms of landmass. Although there were extremely rare tests in late 60s (at least from what I heard).
@@robertcomer2767 Mostly because of the distance from everyone else that had it. They did make colour programmes before then, but only for export. Could've been worse, South Africa banned television as immoral and non-racist until 1975.
Even us folks in little old New Zealand got Colour before you, ours started in 1973 in time for the following years Olympics, though some programs still were Black and White until 1975.
I'm too young to remember the regional identities disappearing in late-October 2002 (I was born *roughly* a fortnight after it happened) but my region would of likely have been HTV West (as my birthplace was actually the city of Bristol but I grew up and still live within the central part of Weston-super-Mare)
Thank you so much for uploading these / making them if applicable. Really enjoyed. Any chance of an ITV Saturday mornings episode? Ghost Train etc. They often showed the tvam logo
I find the ITV ident from 1998 to 2002 to have an angry feeling to it and embarrassing at the same time. I find the new ITV ident so embarrassing to look at. Luckily where I live (Republic Of Ireland), we received BBC Northern Ireland and Ulster Television and up to recently, they had their own logo. Some parts of Ireland could receive BBC Wales and HTV Wales.
The only programme I remember from the south west (we were from Granada) was "that's my dog" with Derek Hobson from New Faces. Great to see it get a mention here. 😂
TSW was my introduction to British television after seeing their sign-off (closedown) in TVARK. It took over 15 years to learn more about TV in the UK. TSW is my all-time favorite ITV affiliate. And, I love Gus Honeybun and I was sad to see him go back to his family. Shoutout from Atlanta, GA.
Hi, is there anything else you want to know about British television? I have been speaking to some Americans, and I gave them some facts and they did not believe me.
@@johnking5174 No worries. I think I know about British TV in general. And I want to say that the 1991 TV license auction was devastating. I think IBA would have done a better job in reviewing commercial TV.
Expertly paired with Trish Bertram, another London announcer. I guess the whole package was made externally, the local operation not having been up and running long by then.
Bob the Fish Productions Because of the stupid merge of Carlton and Granada agreed by ITV and so as all regions are controlled and sometimes suddenly owned by anyone of them
The whole point of that Carlton ident was that it could morph it in the word London. Surely when they stopped broadcasting Central and Westcountry, they could have updated that. But then again nothing exists outside of London does it?
Would you still consider the idea of doing a "America In The Face", in the near future? If so, I highly recommened watching Conor Higgins videos about the UPN network.
Some other ITV regions had birthday spots Anglia Scottish Grampian(had 2 versions of it) Channel kept theirs the longest until it moved online then done away with
Sob Sob Sob. Good old Westward and TSW. In spite of what others in the rest of the UK might say - it was the best of all the ITV companies and the greatest region too. I was lucky enough to live high enough on the West Penwith moors to receive Westward from day one and I was a fan from then until the ghastly WetCountry took over. Yes WET Country - didn't you notice that 80% of it's idents featured water? Tsk Tsk. and WestCountry for God's sake - Didn't they know that the Cornish believe that the West Country ends in Devon at the River Tamar? Like so many I can't stand ITV these days there is nothing I really want to watch except the increasingly incredibly unbelievable Midsomer Murders. Now there's a story line - Who killed ITV - We all know it was Michael Grade. Bet the writers on MM couldn't put a twist on that story. Great set of video's mate - enjoyed them all especially the rarer stations, Grampian, Ulster, TTTV, Border and the lovely Channel. Congrats
I think that would be unlikely in the near future. I will copy over the text of his rant when Matthew uploads the episode, along with the _full_ lyrics for Sir Dickard Stilgoe's "Portakabin TV".
I can't remake it every time there's something new in the archives. I might, however, do a one-off thing about that as a Patreon reward. I need to come up with more of those.
That map you showed at the start of the region is wrong. Westward/TSW/Westcountry/Carlton only served Cornwall, Devon, the Scilly Isles and parts of Somerset and Dorset. It didn't serve say, Bristol.
17:21 You what, mate?! The decision to brand themselves as a more cohesive network was taken by the ITV companies, as members of the Independent Television Companies Association (ITCA), which renamed itself the ITV Association around that time. Nothing to do with the IBA whatsoever! :D
29:06 - that's Ian Stirling, isn't it? Nonetheless, I don't disagree with you - throwing away TSW's strong bond with viewers, old and young, in the name of 'branding' and 'change' was pretty unforgiveable. And I can say that having only spent about three summer fortnights in the region prior to 1993, but it was enough, for sure.
Wrong, Westward Television transferred all of their remaining broadcasting months to TSW on 11th August 1981. Westward couldn't be bothered to continue and decided to pack up quickly, rather than ploughing on til the end of 1981, so the new kids on the block were forced to launch earlier than planned, however they had to keep the name Westward. So in effect TSW was airing four months earlier than officially expected, because of Westward's laziness.
3:25 The station logo is immediately *RUINED* by the reference to channel numbers. The channels are *UNIMPORTANT* as it is the *STATION* that makes and shows the programmes.
For Old Worlders who are more attuned to sophisticated tastes and no regular expression of which frequency the TV channel is broadcast on, sure, the channel numbers take away the pure aesthetics from the idents. But for New Worlders where channel numbers are everything (because for some odd reason, like in Australia, the capital cities formed networks whereas regional viewers had independence, and thus, having the number be the name of the network is more important than giving it a name or acronym which might end up becoming more of a visual and audial nuisance than any good), it's more weird that you have names for the channels instead of actual numbers. To this day, even the affiliates are not available on the same virtual channels or local channel numbers, let alone the same frequencies, as the metro stations. The US takes it further: the callsign is more important than the fact that the callsign is attached to a network, especially when you take into consideration that it's not NBC that owns the affiliate in somewhere like Little Rock, Arkansas, but a separate business which mainly uses the logo to stamp onto its own local news bulletins while it plays political favouritism with the journalism. And Australia is much the same. There's one part of Australia where the one company owns and broadcasts all three major commercial network channels (and maybe not all of the channels available in the metro areas!). Where my dad lives, there's one company for one affiliate, another for a second, and the two companies split the ownership and responsibilities for the third.
@@KaleunMaender77 The channel number represents only the range of frequencies on which the station transmits its signal. It has no other purpose, but the *Call-Sign* has far greater meaning as it represents the station and all its various staff members in all their relevant departments.
Boaring, what's that then? The breeding of wild pigs? If you're going to be rude for no good reason whatsoever try not to expose yourself as stupid in the process.
Genuinely sad moment when Gus said farewell. A metaphor for all things innocent, personable and charming beginning to disappear from ITV from that moment.
I've never seen Gus before now and that was rough.
'The kids down our way called it "Channel 3"' And so begins the most epic documentary on ITV presentation ever made.
@@DigeeTheGenie Six. Counting the Sky channels.
Sorry I'm late to the party. Are you referring to Bob the Fish's series on regional channels?
My ten year old son put me on to that and I love it! My wonderful boy has some atypical interests, old station idents being just one example.
Oddly enough, I've just watched a piece on Tyne Tees where it's original name was mentioned.
@@KitHubCatsSquare Peg
I still call channel 3 Border
I am an Indonesian. The only ITV show I grew up with (that I know of) was Mr. Bean. In fact, I certainly remember the Thames TV logo shown after the credit.
But, highly regionalised broadcasting network is a very interesting topic for me.
Edit:
I obviously have never heard of Gus Honeybun before. But, my God, the last episode of the show.... That's just heartbreaking.
I've just been made aware of this series coming back on UA-cam. I watched the 2015 version on Vimeo, it's nice to revisit an old series like this. I'd consider this to be the definitive 60th Anniversary celebration of ITV, just because ITV didn't bother to do it themselves - the bastards!! Thanks very much for the upload.
this is the vimeo version. it's just reuploaded to youtube.
Sadly ITV don’t seem to care much about their often illustrious history. Perhaps they know it would show the current day network in a very bad light by comparison.
@@rachel.mcgowan Here, here!
Ian Stirling was a legend in the South West. My earliest childhood memories are of him and his IVC spots. May he RIP.
From the clips I've seen & I live in the old YTV area but he seemed such a charming fellow.
The mention of him attending Scottish RADA, did he have many acting roles? Especially any on the small or silver screen? Would be great to take a look if so.
I had the opportunity to meet Ian Stirling at the Dorchester Show one year, then learnt some years later that he had died of cancer... I was most upset.
Did you know that Westward had its own airline? Air Westward, they had a couple of small twin-props and operated flights from Exeter. They even had the Westward galleon painted on the tail and the same "Westward" lettering on the side of the aircraft. They didn't last particularly long, operating until 1979 when they got acquired by British Island Airways which itself morphed into Air UK the following year. I didn't know about it until I was working on my Air UK episode of my own series and had to do a double take just in case someone was playing a joke on me ;) I'd have preferred an Air TSW though ;)
At the age of 38, I remember TSW, westcountry and the latter rubbish. My parents and grandparents used to call it westward.
Delightfully witty and well presented retrospective. Thank you for going to the trouble of producing it.
I remember family holidays at my grandmother's in Dorset and being bemused by the differences between TVS, our usual station in Kent, and TSW. Granny persisted with referring to the station as Westward, which confused me all the more. The continuity announcers definitely cultivated a warm and friendly bond with the viewers. TVS did away with them as early as 1987, but TSW were actually committed to keeping IVC in its franchise renewal bid. Remember Dinah Lawley? She started appearing in the mid 80s and tended to be quite eccentric opposite Gus Honeybun during the birthday announcements. The Kermit's Bra logo was wacky and fun, but TSW never really practiced a consistent implementation of their corporate identity. The feeble seasonal programme openers from 1989 onwards didn't even feature the logo after all. The generic ITV ident and it's associated presentation package would have given the station a slick and sophisticated look, but that would have been completely out of character with TSW's homely image. Musical genius Ed Welch composed numerous catchy signature tunes for TSW's programmes, including their nightly Today magazine programme which had a strong presenting team in Sue King and Dominic Heale.
Westcountry was a low budget upstart. Whilst they did have a polished and consistently applied on-screen identity, their programme output was generally very amateurish indeed. The first edition of Westcountry Live was painful viewing with visibly inexperienced reporters, technical glitches and the oily David Foster co-presenting with an uncomfortable Katy Haswell. The latter left not long after the station started, making way for the smug Alison Johns. Westcountry lacked likeable personalities.
I don't think many people cared much when Westcountry disappeared after just six or so years.
I agree the Carlton idents were rather good. In fact the combination of the eye-catching animation and strong musical fanfares really stood out against the lacklustre efforts of most of the other main channels. But they only lasted three years before the move towards single branding for the ITV network in England and Wales was finally imposed, as by then one company owned the whole lot. RIP independent regional television.
TVS IS REPLACED BY MERIDIAN
Did u know ? Here in Pembrokeshire,west Wales .. Milford Haven, Pembroke dock and haverfordwest . We could receive westward tv for many years . Sundays here with htv Wales many live big football games were not shown . But westward and tsw did. Great upload
TSW announcers appearing with Gus in the promo video:
- Ian Stirling takes photos of Gus
- Roger Shaw buys a newspaper at Gus's kiosk
- Jennifer Gavin takes him on the merry-go-round
- Judi Spiers drives the Hoppa bus and demands Gus pay his fare!
Judi also appears near the start of the clip as she uses that pair of binoculars, wiping the lens in disbelief realising that Gus is around there!
The regional structure was the channel's USP, unfortunately the 1990 Broadcasting Act kicked off the decline and downmarket slide that became ITV plc.
Westcountry had its own characters, Ron Bendall doing the weather, Manfred Roxon, Julie Skentelbery, Julie Benson.....and Ian Stirling WAS on Westcountry then (mid 90s) with a 'soap gossip' slot, appropriately called Stirling Soap, which he would deliver from a very comfy chair somewhere on the Langage Science Park.
Thank you for this of course, which is most interesting too as with all your other uploads as well too. Well done!
Thanks Matt, again, a great documentary. Sad, the ship was no longer used as an ident in 1982. I mean, this is what defined the region, oriented towards the sea! I lived in Bristol from 1999 to 2004 and yes, it was Carlton. Corporate and superficial. Loeki the Lion was also used as a mascot of channel TF1 in France in the late 1970s, before each advert, albeit for a couple of years...
Actually Loeki was created in the Nederlands, to announce and to be filler during ads breaks in the public tv networks. He was retired in 2000, but recently STER (the Dutch Public Broadcasters Advertising Company) introduced a new generation of Loeki shorts: ua-cam.com/video/POkDbpf3Bbw/v-deo.htmlfeature=shared
thank you, this is beautifully made! i also really like the way TSW presented theirselves.
OH MY FUCKING STUPID BULLSHITTED GOD!!! NOT YOU AGAIN!!! It IS... THE ITV FRANCHISE FOR THE SOUTHWEST OF ENGLAND!!!
FIRST, IT IS WESTWARD TELEVISION FROM 1961 TO 1981. THEN, IT IS TELEVISION SOUTH WEST (or commonly shortened as "TSW") FROM 1982 TO 1992. AND FINALLY, IT IS WESTCOUNTRY TELEVISION (or simply known as "Westcountry") FROM 1993 TO 2009.
SO, WHY THE STUPID HECK DID YOU BRING THAT BORING BAD-ASS ITV FRANCHISE TO THE HOUSE AGAIN? THAT IS HORRIBLY YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE AND NOW YOU KNOW I'LL NEVER FORGIVE WESTWARD TELEVISION, TSW, AND WESTCOUNTRY TELEVISION. AND I'M REGRETTING THAT BULLSHIT.
NOW, HOW DARE YOU FUCKING STUPID BULLSHITTED ASSHOLED BADLY LET A ITV FRANCHISE THAT SERVES THE SOUTHWEST OF ENGLAND IN HERE? THAT IS HORRIBLY IT!!! You are... FIRED, FIRED, FIRED, FIRED, FIRED, FIRED, FIRED FOR YOUR GOD DAMN ENGLAND-ISH SAKE, YOU SON OF A BIG-BAD STUPID FUCKING BULLSHITTED UNITED BITCH!!!
By the way, I'll get rid of Westward, TSW & Westcountry for good. What a crazy person. It deserves about what it had done for me.
I grew up on TSW and HTV West. RIP Gus Honeybun. Thank you for this lovingly crafted bit of nostalgia.
A great slice of nostalgia for me as I'm old enough to remember all the itv companies and their idents ATV was my local station
That Loeki the Lion (or Loeki de Leeuw as he's known more accurately) bit was incredibly random! I did not expect to find out he'd been appropriated by Westward.
Loeki is still going strong on Dutch TV today, in case you care (I appreciate you may not).
Interesting that TSW borrowed it's Night Time bits, when TVS had In Vision Continuity of their own. With, we ccasionally, wondered, slightly inebriated presentation.
Because of the completely random launches of overnight broadcasting on ITV, I had the dubious pleasure of witnessing the launch editions of Central, HTV Wales and TVS. Because I was tootling around the Country that much.
I visited Paignton in 1977 aged 5 and was fascinated by the strange television they had there, which must have been Westward. They had a strange pentagon thing that popped up between adverts (called a bumper?) and I’d never seen the like before. I can vaguely remember Gus from that holiday and visited him (unintentionally) at Flambards many years later. The only Westward programme that we saw in our YTV region, as I can remember, was about farming so Westward wasn’t very entertaining for a youngster…
Sky Channel went to air in 1981 so official they became the fourth national channel and Channel 4 became the fifth. Be it Sky Channel broadcast across Europe at the time and not many people had cable TV or gigantic satellite dish, that was needed at the time. It was Sky and other cable and satellite channels that pioneered CGI at the time. ITV and Channel 4 followed.
Great video. Had a lot of fun watching it. Looking forward to watch your other videos in the series.
I thought Sky went on air in April 1982. Either way that's still before Channel 4
Fun fact: The boat commonly seen in the Westward Television logo is called the Golden Hind.
It was only upon discovering the original series that I knew there was a South West region. I was going to say that UTV's Gus was the bears Barney and Busker, but they debuted after Gus was pensioned off, so it doesn't count. Or at least mid 90s is the earliest I remember them. In the Republic, The Den handled birthdays with their puppets and a pop video. At Christmas, both, thanks to Dustin the Turkey, who had multiple No. 1 singles and albums. 2015 was the last time RTE did a single with its puppets, 7 years after oh so controversially sending Dustin to Eurovision.
14:58 I know from holidays in the south-west that from 1988 onwards you got to see it a lot more; after the ending of the practice of showing front-cap idents belonging to the company that made each programme, TSW took the opportunity to play its ident right after the IVC and before the programme started, and they carried this on for a couple of years before switching to using the "Summer TSW" etc idents in around 1990 as you say. I've even seen evidence that they sometimes did this before 1988, so that the sequence would be, for example: ads - promos - IVC - TSW ident - LWT ident - Blind Date titles.
The bit where Gus Honeybun went home legit made me sad.....
wh3re is that
Me too
And here I am watching this again! 👍
I wonder if you had any plans to do an ILR (Independent Local Radio) in the Face? As I think it has just as much of a disappointing ending as did local ITV. 🤔
I thought it might be interesting to note how some of our favourite local radio stations have been swallowed up by the big corporations & conglomerates and possibly now that most of the stations will now too become Hits Radio and such as Radio Hallam's upcoming 50th Anniversary in October 2024, will probably be ignored as it becomes Hits Radio on 17th April!
It's not looking good for local radio these days being swallowed up. Might just be internet radio stations or Community stations that will keep local radio alive!
The reason the transition to Westcountry wasn't as seamless as it could have been is that TSW cost it a small fortune in legal fees fighting the franchise award to the very bitter end. No doubt Gus Honeybun would have been taken on otherwise.
I love how your region felt so neglected not getting colour television until 1972...
Meanwhile in Australia, we didn't get colour on any channel, in any region, until 1975. :(
Never understood how Australia was so far behind introducing colour.
@@robertcomer2767 Especially for a place ranking as the 6th biggest country in terms of landmass. Although there were extremely rare tests in late 60s (at least from what I heard).
@@robertcomer2767 Mostly because of the distance from everyone else that had it. They did make colour programmes before then, but only for export. Could've been worse, South Africa banned television as immoral and non-racist until 1975.
Australian TV usually sucks imo…so kinda makes sense
Even us folks in little old New Zealand got Colour before you, ours started in 1973 in time for the following years Olympics, though some programs still were Black and White until 1975.
I'm too young to remember the regional identities disappearing in late-October 2002 (I was born *roughly* a fortnight after it happened) but my region would of likely have been HTV West (as my birthplace was actually the city of Bristol but I grew up and still live within the central part of Weston-super-Mare)
What do you mean "roughly"?
All hail Gus Honeybun
Footage has showed up of the transition to tsw from westward. Can you update this series?
Love this series. Pity ITV never bought them for a larger audience.
I doubt very much they'd want their viewership to be reminded of how good genuinely local ITV was.
@@GryphLaneplus the sheer amount of (deserved) ITV plc slander
Set to the tune of the holy and the ivy for reasons beyond the relm of human understanding
3:29
@@Jessica_Kirkthanks
The TSW logo actually appears on the back of Hulleys of Baslow buses in Sheffield and Derbyshire as their logo. It's rather bizzare
I think they've been done by some cowboy graphic designer ripping off Paul Honeywill.
Thank you so much for uploading these / making them if applicable. Really enjoyed. Any chance of an ITV Saturday mornings episode? Ghost Train etc. They often showed the tvam logo
I did a whole series on that. Go to bobthefish.org.uk and look for "Watch and Smile".
I find the ITV ident from 1998 to 2002 to have an angry feeling to it and embarrassing at the same time. I find the new ITV ident so embarrassing to look at. Luckily where I live (Republic Of Ireland), we received BBC Northern Ireland and Ulster Television and up to recently, they had their own logo. Some parts of Ireland could receive BBC Wales and HTV Wales.
The only programme I remember from the south west (we were from Granada) was "that's my dog" with Derek Hobson from New Faces. Great to see it get a mention here. 😂
I think that midnight picture roll, for me, is synonymous with the Broadcasting Act
TSW was my introduction to British television after seeing their sign-off (closedown) in TVARK. It took over 15 years to learn more about TV in the UK. TSW is my all-time favorite ITV affiliate. And, I love Gus Honeybun and I was sad to see him go back to his family. Shoutout from Atlanta, GA.
Hi, is there anything else you want to know about British television? I have been speaking to some Americans, and I gave them some facts and they did not believe me.
@@johnking5174 No worries. I think I know about British TV in general. And I want to say that the 1991 TV license auction was devastating. I think IBA would have done a better job in reviewing commercial TV.
@@MrWEWE5 Did you know before 1972 the government controlled how many hours per day BBC Television and ITV could be on air for?
UTV was acquired by ITV in 2016, and the UTV name is now only used on regional programming.
I was genuinely sad when the announcers were saying goodbye to Gus… and why are they saying 31 years even though TSW existed for only 10 years or so
Gus was on westward
@@WHUFCboy3456 ohhhhhh I get it haha
I hope they would do a reunion someday soon!
It's the Ash releasing his Butterfree of British television history.
If I have the chance to visit Plymouth some day, I have to say hi to Gus 😊
Lol, it's 31 years because Gus goes all the way back to Westward.
7:25
7:29
Bob: NO NOT HIM!!!!
😂
The guy who was doing the voice over for west country is the guy who did THAMES and sky sport. Great videos
That'll be Bruce Hammal
Expertly paired with Trish Bertram, another London announcer. I guess the whole package was made externally, the local operation not having been up and running long by then.
Today (6th sept) has been 20 years since regional tv in the south west disappeared....
At first I thought something had gone wrong at ITV, or the Westcountry feed had gone down and we were being given Carlton instead.
Bob the Fish Productions Because of the stupid merge of Carlton and Granada agreed by ITV and so as all regions are controlled and sometimes suddenly owned by anyone of them
@The Three Group I agree with you. Maybe someday.
The whole point of that Carlton ident was that it could morph it in the word London. Surely when they stopped broadcasting Central and Westcountry, they could have updated that. But then again nothing exists outside of London does it?
Would you still consider the idea of doing a "America In The Face", in the near future? If so, I highly recommened watching Conor Higgins videos about the UPN network.
I think that the TSW logo looks like mountains for green and the water shoreline for blue.
Logo looks like pac man had his jaw ripped open.
"... insanely optimistic...."
Maybe,but you weren't TVS levels of stupid in the 1991 auction!
13:07 - I had that sticker, too!
I wonder what Gus is up to nowadays?
TSW, some called it Westward.
Some other ITV regions had birthday spots Anglia Scottish Grampian(had 2 versions of it) Channel kept theirs the longest until it moved online then done away with
And Border too
Sob Sob Sob. Good old Westward and TSW. In spite of what others in the rest of the UK might say - it was the best of all the ITV companies and the greatest region too. I was lucky enough to live high enough on the West Penwith moors to receive Westward from day one and I was a fan from then until the ghastly WetCountry took over. Yes WET Country - didn't you notice that 80% of it's idents featured water? Tsk Tsk. and WestCountry for God's sake - Didn't they know that the Cornish believe that the West Country ends in Devon at the River Tamar?
Like so many I can't stand ITV these days there is nothing I really want to watch except the increasingly incredibly unbelievable Midsomer Murders. Now there's a story line - Who killed ITV - We all know it was Michael Grade. Bet the writers on MM couldn't put a twist on that story. Great set of video's mate - enjoyed them all especially the rarer stations, Grampian, Ulster, TTTV, Border and the lovely Channel. Congrats
Now the footage has emerged of the Southern last supper with DC Wilson's bitter speech I was wondering if you ever intend to update this series?
Technically, the 2015 version is an update of the original 2009 series.
I think that would be unlikely in the near future. I will copy over the text of his rant when Matthew uploads the episode, along with the _full_ lyrics for Sir Dickard Stilgoe's "Portakabin TV".
I can't remake it every time there's something new in the archives. I might, however, do a one-off thing about that as a Patreon reward. I need to come up with more of those.
where is the footage
@@DiskkiHoax It was it on DailyMotion at one point, but I don't know if it's still there.
The birthday spots were aired before and after Children's ITV
David Fitzgerald was an arse on the TV and 32 years later is still being an arse on BBC Radio Devon. Not for much longer I believe
That map you showed at the start of the region is wrong. Westward/TSW/Westcountry/Carlton only served Cornwall, Devon, the Scilly Isles and parts of Somerset and Dorset. It didn't serve say, Bristol.
Run free Gus Honeybun, wherever you are!
i ive in pembrokeshire /west wales..... we could pick up westward on the old pipe network..... in the 70s till the early 90s and BBC WEST
17:21 You what, mate?! The decision to brand themselves as a more cohesive network was taken by the ITV companies, as members of the Independent Television Companies Association (ITCA), which renamed itself the ITV Association around that time. Nothing to do with the IBA whatsoever! :D
34:00 - Top 10 anime intros
25:19 - Top 10 saddest anime deaths
By "the Dutch equivalent of PBS" I presume you mean NPO?
STER actually. STER is the NPO’s Advertising sales agency. Loeki de Leeuw is basically the Dutch Mainzelmannchen.
If carlton rebranded westcountry and central why didn't they rebrand HTV
Probably because Granada retained ownership of the production facilities.
36:25 Loeki's nighttime
29:06 - that's Ian Stirling, isn't it? Nonetheless, I don't disagree with you - throwing away TSW's strong bond with viewers, old and young, in the name of 'branding' and 'change' was pretty unforgiveable. And I can say that having only spent about three summer fortnights in the region prior to 1993, but it was enough, for sure.
TSW actually opened on 1st January 1982, not 1981.
Correction: TSW opened in 1981 and was explicitly Westward until 1982... and nobody knew that.
Do do dee do, T S W!😂
2:28 Westcountry Ident (1993-1999).
I don’t know where’s the original puppet of Gus honeybun is but it will cost a lot of pounds (usd) for it
The westconsty ident was later given animation but it didn't help
35:50 The Gus-Bus
Westward always had really boring programmes (as a child) but I think I’d rather like them now I’m old…
7:25
Asjemenou?
I once wrote to TSW who told me that the logo was based on the palm trees situated on the English Riviera.
1st January 1982 was when TSW launched, not 1981
Wrong, Westward Television transferred all of their remaining broadcasting months to TSW on 11th August 1981. Westward couldn't be bothered to continue and decided to pack up quickly, rather than ploughing on til the end of 1981, so the new kids on the block were forced to launch earlier than planned, however they had to keep the name Westward. So in effect TSW was airing four months earlier than officially expected, because of Westward's laziness.
@@johnking5174 no
@@KitHubCats TSW launched as a brand name, but were operating Westward from August 1981.
31:07
Sources?
TV-ark, I think.
Fetish object 😂🤣
35:50 How????!!!
Never did like our 1989 look - and the saltire was used on the Border one instead! (I'm in the STV Central region). Always did like Central's..
A better mic setup would be nice.
3:25 The station logo is immediately *RUINED* by the reference to channel numbers. The channels are *UNIMPORTANT* as it is the *STATION* that makes and shows the programmes.
For Old Worlders who are more attuned to sophisticated tastes and no regular expression of which frequency the TV channel is broadcast on, sure, the channel numbers take away the pure aesthetics from the idents. But for New Worlders where channel numbers are everything (because for some odd reason, like in Australia, the capital cities formed networks whereas regional viewers had independence, and thus, having the number be the name of the network is more important than giving it a name or acronym which might end up becoming more of a visual and audial nuisance than any good), it's more weird that you have names for the channels instead of actual numbers. To this day, even the affiliates are not available on the same virtual channels or local channel numbers, let alone the same frequencies, as the metro stations. The US takes it further: the callsign is more important than the fact that the callsign is attached to a network, especially when you take into consideration that it's not NBC that owns the affiliate in somewhere like Little Rock, Arkansas, but a separate business which mainly uses the logo to stamp onto its own local news bulletins while it plays political favouritism with the journalism. And Australia is much the same. There's one part of Australia where the one company owns and broadcasts all three major commercial network channels (and maybe not all of the channels available in the metro areas!). Where my dad lives, there's one company for one affiliate, another for a second, and the two companies split the ownership and responsibilities for the third.
@@KaleunMaender77 The channel number represents only the range of frequencies on which the station transmits its signal. It has no other purpose, but the *Call-Sign* has far greater meaning as it represents the station and all its various staff members in all their relevant departments.
Please try and pronounce 'the' correctly, there is no D in it, very off putting
Cann'elp howztiz I speak, boi
Yawn, boaring voice no thank you
Boaring, what's that then? The breeding of wild pigs? If you're going to be rude for no good reason whatsoever try not to expose yourself as stupid in the process.