ATV were the weekend contractor in London and weekdays in the Midlands so they could justify making some of their programmes in London. ABC had the rather curious weekend contract for the Midlands and North but actually made most of their programmes at Teddington. They wanted to share the Granada studios in Manchester but Granada didn't want them in there so they converted an ABC cinema in Didsbury. One of the first programmes made there was the original Avengers. A dubious distinction of Didsbury was that an actor collapsed and died during a live transmission of Armchair Theatre in 1958 after which production was moved to Teddington and recorded.Being the weekends ABC had very little local news to worry about. Granada did actually maintain a studio in London for a while.
Only if you lived in a good reception area. Even by the end, the analogue TV reception in parts of Sheffield was mediocre at best.
It was great here, ok you still needed a pretty good aerial to pick up the signal at it's best, but most people did have good ones.
the problem when we went digital we had to pay out for a new aerial, and most people had to do that if they did not have Sky. People had to get wide band ones and got ripped of by a few installers, which charged twice as much for something that was called a digital aerial and as most of us on here knows, there is no such thing as a digital Aerial.
The digital switch over cost people and the government did notgive a crap as long as they had money and it will be the same with DSO 2 if it ever happens., The government will not care how much it costs people as long as they can sell space and get money.
My parents at the time did not have a digital Tv or a digital box, but he had to spend out money, thankfully we did have the aerial changed as my parents went for on digital until they mucked up the payments. on digital that is not my parents.
So my parents had to get a digi box and I bet there was a few people in that situation.
Oh to try and get back on topic, I remember watching Harlech Tv years ago, then it vanished after a few years and we could never get it back.
East of Manchester in the seventies/eighties apart from BBC North West and Granada I could recieve BBC Wales with a good quality picture, HTV Wales not so good and ATV/Central poor quality. In the 2000's I could pick up Channel M with a less than perfect picture.
The area around Oostende, Zebrugge and Bruges always claimed some supremacy for off-air reception of broadcast telly. All the Dutch, Flemish and French channels were readily available, plus with a little effort RTBF from Bruxelles, Dover and Tacolneston. Cable brought in the German and Luxembourg channels too.
Comments
It was great here, ok you still needed a pretty good aerial to pick up the signal at it's best, but most people did have good ones.
the problem when we went digital we had to pay out for a new aerial, and most people had to do that if they did not have Sky. People had to get wide band ones and got ripped of by a few installers, which charged twice as much for something that was called a digital aerial and as most of us on here knows, there is no such thing as a digital Aerial.
The digital switch over cost people and the government did notgive a crap as long as they had money and it will be the same with DSO 2 if it ever happens., The government will not care how much it costs people as long as they can sell space and get money.
My parents at the time did not have a digital Tv or a digital box, but he had to spend out money, thankfully we did have the aerial changed as my parents went for on digital until they mucked up the payments. on digital that is not my parents.
So my parents had to get a digi box and I bet there was a few people in that situation.
Oh to try and get back on topic, I remember watching Harlech Tv years ago, then it vanished after a few years and we could never get it back.