|
TV-am was a TV company that broadcast the ITV franchise for breakfast television in the United Kingdom from 1 February 1983 until 31 December 1992. The station was the UK's first national operator of a commercial breakfast television franchise. Its daily broadcasts were between 6 am and 9.25 am. Throughout its ten years of broadcast, the station regularly had problems resulting in numerous management changes, especially in its early years. It also suffered from major financial cutbacks hampering its operations. Though on a stable footing by 1986 and winning its ratings battle with BBC ''Breakfast Time'', within a year further turmoil ensued when industrial action hit the company. Despite these setbacks, by the 1990s TV-am had become the UK's most popular breakfast show. However, following a change in the law regarding TV franchising, the company lost its licence. It was replaced by GMTV in 1993. ==Foundation== The Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) awarded the breakfast franchise to TV-am on 28 December 1980.〔Southern and Westward TV lose franchises and others to be restructured.By Kenneth Gosling. The Times, Monday, 29 December 1980; pg. 1〕 Although the initial launch date was set for June 1983, the IBA allowed the station to bring forward its start-date to 1 February 1983 in response to the launch of the BBC service ''Breakfast Time'' two weeks earlier. This hurried start affected the company in two ways. Firstly, ITV had failed in its negotiations for royalties and rates for advertising on the new Channel 4 and the breakfast service with the actors' trade union, Equity. The union instructed its members to boycott the new station, which meant there was little or no revenue from advertising in the early days. Secondly, it was believed that the BBC's breakfast service would be highbrow, focusing on news and analysis, so TV-am had developed its new service to copy that. However, the BBC launched a lightweight, magazine-style programme that mimicked the style of United States breakfast television. With the launch of the BBC's ''Breakfast Time'' brought forward at short notice this gave little time for TV-am to redevelop its plans. TV-am was spearheaded by the 'Famous Five' who were not only lined up as presenters on the station, but were also shareholders: Michael Parkinson, David Frost (1983–92), Angela Rippon (1983), Anna Ford (1983) and Robert Kee. Esther Rantzen had originally been one of the station's 'star' line up of presenter/shareholders, but pulled out in 1981, due to the birth of her first child. Both Esther and company agreed the early morning starts would make it much harder for her to spend time raising her child.〔Breakfast TV to lose Esther Rantzen.By Kenneth Gosling. The Times (London, England), Saturday, Sep 05, 1981; pg. 10〕 There had been many difficulties for the other presenters in the run-up to launch. When the franchise was announced in December 1980, Angela Rippon's contract with the BBC was about to expire, and was not renewed as a result of her new employment. This left her seeking freelance work before TV-am went on air. Anna Ford was dismissed by ITN, which had been part of another consortium bidding for the breakfast contract. ITN had presented Ford as their female programme anchor as part of their bid, unaware that she was planning to defect to TV-am. ITN heavily criticised her disloyalty and said that her dishonesty had made their bid seem 'ridiculous' to the IBA.〔Leapman, Michael. Treachery: The Power Struggle at TV-am. Unwin Hyman 1984. ISBN 978-0-04-791041-8〕 ITN replaced Ford with Selina Scott, who herself landed a double blow to ITN when she defected to the BBC to present ''Breakfast Time'' towards the end of 1982. Michael Parkinson did remain with the BBC, who hoped to persuade him to stay as they had with Rantzen, but he finally left the corporation in 1982. TV-am's headquarters and studios were at 'Breakfast Television Centre', Hawley Crescent, Camden Town, London. Designed by Terry Farrell and converted from a former car showroom, Henlys Rover. The building included a number of large plastic egg-cups along its roofline facing Regent's Canal, these egg-cups also served as the programme's closing credits copyright year identifier. Programmes originally ran from 6 am to 9.15 am, with ''Daybreak'', then ''Good Morning Britain'' (neither related to the 2010 and 2014 ITV shows of the same name) filling weekday mornings. This was followed by a 10-minute interval before the start of the regional ITV franchises at 9.25 am. The IBA later extended TV-am's hours to 9.25 am to allow continuous programming, following which ''Good Morning Britain'' was reduced to a two-hour slot from 7 am to 9 am. The 9 am to 9.25 section was relaunched as a female-orientated lifestyle magazine segment titled ''After Nine''. Although TV-am was a separate broadcaster occupying the ITV network channel during the morning, from the late 1980s the ITV stations extended their hours to 6 am to provide 24-hour television, handing over to TV-am at 6 am, which may have further fuelled the viewer's technically incorrect impression that TV-am was a programming slot within the ITV schedule. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「TV-am」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|