Westward Television was the first ITV franchise-holder for the South West of England. It held the franchise from 29 April 1961 until 31 December 1981. After a difficult start, Westward Television provided a popular, distinctive and highly regarded service to its region, until heavy competition led to its franchise not being renewed by the IBA. Westward launched the career of many broadcasters who became well known nationally, won numerous awards for its programming, and heavily influenced its successor, TSW.
History
The company's first chairman was Peter Cadbury, who had left the board of Tyne Tees Television to set up the company and bid for the south-west franchise, which he won against 11 competing bids.Obituary: Peter Cadbury, Daily Telegraph, 18 April 2006 Cadbury named the company after the golf course at Westward Ho! in north Devon, where he played. Ironically, Westward Ho! was part of the region that found reception of the television signal most difficult, until the construction of the Huntshaw Cross relay transmitter in 1968. Westward's region was surrounded on three sides by the sea, which was strongly reflected in Westward's output and its company logo, a silver model of the Golden Hind.
In early January 1969, plans were drawn up for a merger between Westward and the Keith Prowse company, as Peter Cadbury was chairman of both."Westward in merger discussions", The Guardian, Thursday, 16 January 1969, p.10 By 17 January, the deal was done. EMI purchased Keith Prowse Music Publishing from Westward in the latter part of 1969."EMI: A brief history", BBC News, 24 January 2000. Retrieved 3 June 2013. Soon, the Westward board was in continual disagreement, and in January 1970 Cadbury was sacked and re-hired within days as the chairman of the Westward board, after he made outspoken remarks against the levy imposed on advertising revenue imposed by the IBA"Mr Cadbury back as chairman of Westward TV", The Guardian, Friday, 30 January 1970, p.22 while also withholding a Westward corporation tax bill to the Inland Revenue over the same matter."ITV company will not pay its Tax bill", The Guardian, Monday, 19 January 1970, p.1 By July 1980, Cadbury was finally removed from the Westward board"Westward oust Cadbury as head", The Guardian, Tuesday, 15 July 1980, p.1 and over the following six months, he tried to regain control.
Westward began broadcasting in colour in 1971, initially from the Redruth transmitter, and a few months later colour was extended to the Stockland Hill and Caradon Hill transmitters. To mark the change, Westward's ident was re-shot in colour.
Franchise loss On 28 December 1980, while the ITV network was showing Drake's Venture (Westward Television's two-hour filmed drama to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Sir Francis Drake's circumnavigation of the globe, starring John Thaw), ITN interrupted a commercial break to announce ATV was to undergo major changes and Southern and Westward had not had their licences renewed by the IBA; the south-west franchise was awarded to TSW (Television South West).
Following the loss of its franchise, Westward's management decided to sell up quickly, and the company (including its staff, premises and programme library) was purchased by TSW, early in 1981, for £2.38 million. TSW continued using the Westward name and symbol on screen until 31 December 1981; thereafter, it was re-branded on screen as TSW.
A special programme, 20 Years of Westward, was broadcast on 21 December 1981British Film Institute, BFI Database TX listing for 20 Years of Westward to look back on the company's achievements. It was presented by Roger Shaw, and recorded in front of a studio audience. Hastings Mann's Westward Ho!The Robert Farnon Society, original start-up theme title and composer identified was used as the theme music. Studio guests included Angela Rippon, Kenneth MacLeod and Sheila Kennedy. There were filmed contributions from Alan Freeman, Jan Leeming and David Vine and many clips of Westward programmes were shown. The special programme ended with a message from Peter Cadbury, in which he wished TSW well.
Closure Unlike the other ITV stations that lost their franchises in this round, Westward (having been run by successor TSW since August 1981) opted to hand over at midnight on 31 December 1981, and continued as Television South West. No recordings of the end of Westward Television were known to exist until 2012 (the 30th anniversary of the end of Westward), but then a full video recording of the evening, including the segment of STV's wiped Hogmanay show, was recovered by the classic television organisation Kaleidoscope. Parts of the recording were featured at a Kaleidoscope eventKaleidoscope Christmas Event and Grand Charity Auction 2012 Saturday 1 December 2012 and at that year's Missing Believed Wiped at the British Film Institute.
Studios Based at purpose-built studios at Derry's Cross in Plymouth, with a London office (sited at various locations including New Bond Street, Marble Arch and Sloane Square) and a sales office in Bristol.
The Derry's Cross studios were designed by the architects Treadgold and Elsey, who had previously designed the TWW Studios at Pontcanna, Cardiff and Arno's Court, Bristol (Howett 1994).
During Westward's tenure, Derry's Cross had three studios. Studio 1 was , Studio 2 was and used for news, sport and interview programmes and an announcers' studio was located beside Master control.
The studios were originally fitted out by Marconi, using top-of-the-range studio equipment. Westward engineer Peter Rodgers recalled: "From the start, where we could afford it, we bought the best." (Howett 1994) By the time Westward began broadcasting, Derry's Cross had cost Westward over £500,000, with the company committed to spending another £20,000 on the studios by April 1962.
In 1981 the studios, along with the company, were purchased by TSW; in 1993 the building was sold to a firm of solicitors and converted into offices. In 2010 the buildings were demolished to make way for a new retail development.
Identity Westward Television's corporate branding focused on the sea, and mainly used a ship emblem for their on-screen look. The first ident featured an image of a boat on the water, before replacing the image with a stylised ship image in a circle, complete with Westward legend and channel nine and twelve identifiers (representing the Stockland Hill and Caradon Hill transmitters of the time), to a tune of four chimes. Retrieved 2 June 2013. This was replaced in the mid-1960s by a model of the Golden Hind, shot against a black background with a simple Westward caption beneath accompanied by the Holly and the Ivy tune on brass instruments. Retrieved 2 June 2013. This ident was altered slightly in the late 1960s to update the font to Compacta Bold.
When colour television came to the region on 22 May 1971, the Golden Hind was re-shot against a blue background with the caption altered to include a small stylised ship image in a box in the lower left corner, followed by an outlined 'Westward TV' caption, with 'TV' in red. The tune that accompanied the colour television ident was originally a nautical fanfare on brass instruments, based on the song "Come Landlord Fill the Flowing Bowl", arranged by Paul Lewis. This formed part of a longer ident theme titled An English Overture, used at the start of each day's broadcasts.Westward Television Transdiffusion.org. Retrieved 2 June 2013. The short ident theme was changed around 1978 to a seven-note fanfare.Westward Television Ident from 28.12.1980 Retrieved 2 June 2013. This was Westward's final ident and remained with the company until the end of the franchise.
Gus Honeybun, a puppet rabbit and star of Gus Honeybun's Magic Birthdays, was the station mascot for Westward Television, and later Television South West, from 1961 to December 1992. Gus Honeybun attracted a cult following and it was not unknown for adults to write in requesting "bunny hops" etc. 12 was the official age limit for having a birthday read out on air, so people of 40 were presented as being four and so on. Gus Honeybun was so identified with regional television in the south-west that when TSW's managing director Harry Turner presented the station's ITV franchise renewal in 1991 he took Gus with him.
Programming Westward's small size and the structure of ITV (which, at the time, deliberately made it hard for small and medium-sized ITV companies to contribute to the network) meant it produced comparatively little output for the network. Instead, the company concentrated on regional programming. From 1968 until the end of its franchise, the ITA (later the IBA) gave Westward a target of providing 6.5 hours of new regional programming a week - a target which they always exceeded.
Westward's programming schedule was always published as a magazine for the public to access. Initially, they published weekly programme listings in its own programme journal, Look Westward. The first edition cost 5d, and featured a special article by Westward board member Daphne du Maurier. Many Westward personalities, such as announcer Sheila Kennedy, also contributed articles to the magazine. As part of the 1968 franchise round, the ITA created Independent Television Publications (ITP), and Westward's weekly listings would be obliged to appear solely in the local edition of the national listings magazine TVTimes, which was published by ITP.
Local programming Westward Television had a dual policy for its local programming: it produced a wide range of programmes of particular interest to the south-west's rural and agricultural communities, whilst simultaneously producing programming designed to stimulate its audience's interest in new areas.
One of the best known programmes was Treasure Hunt, a game show presented by Kenneth Horne and Keith Fordyce, among others, which ran for 14 years and at one stage featured Jethro as the pirate co-host.The Guardian, 1 April 2011 Keith Fordyce obituary. trieved 3 June 2013.
News and current affairs By 1969, Westward had more than 100 correspondents across the region, reporting newsworthy local events, and eight film cameramen who would travel the region gathering footage and compiling reports. The flagship programme was Westward Diary, which began as a regional magazine programme broadcast three times a week (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays) between 6:15 pm and 7 pm. Originally, there were three presenters – Barry Westwood, Reginald Bosanquet and Kenneth MacLeod – who rotated on a weekly basis. The regional news was contained in a separate ten-minute Westward News bulletin, broadcast every weekday at 6.05 pm, and subsequently supplemented by afternoon and late-night bulletins.
Westward Diary was soon merged with Westward News, to become what was known at the time as a 'regional news magazine', and was broadcast every weekday between 6.00 pm and 6:30 pm. Kenneth MacLeod was asked to present the new programme permanently. The news would be read by the duty announcer, so MacLeod's role on the Diary was not as a newsreader but a presenter holding the whole package together.