West Television Thread

Went to dinner with Alex Lovell and her boyfriend, and they are gettng married. Gavin asked her while on holiday. Her channel 5 brainteaser programme prob wont air again, and she is looking to do mostly voice overs soon.

Great less PW.

But she is so nice as a friend and even she is the first to say that she just read the news not actually writes it.

Regards,

bbc140

St Hilary had carried the separate Welsh and West versions of TWW (later HTV) since Feb 1965 on VHF (Chs 7 and 10) five years before the use of Wenvoe and Mendip for UHF/625/Colour.

The decision to use Wenvoe for UHF (already the BBC VHF site with separate services for Wales and the West) and build Mendip, was only in part driven by the IBA's requirements, it actually stemmed from the Stockholm 1961 UHF plan.

Remember that Newport and Cardiff could receive (whether on VHF from St Hilary, or UHF from Mendip) West regional programmes, significantly not in Welsh. Later of course Welsh language programming was moved from BBC and HTV Wales, to one easily avoidable place, S4C. This just increased the need for many people in Cardiff/Newport to use Mendip to get 'proper' C4.

The IBA had no choice but to keep Welsh and West ITV under the same company, otherwise the loss of advertising revenue in SE Wales for a Welsh only contractor would have been significant. There's a smaller drain in N Wales with punters using Winter Hill (Granada). Such considerations for the BBC were, and still are irrelevant.

Is is true that until the VHF shutdown in the early 80s, HTV continued to run a combined West/Wales service on VHF frequencies branded simply as HTV...?

I think it's also the case that before the UHF transmitters at Wenvoe and Mendip opened (1964?), the BBC's regional output for the West and for Wales were shown across both regions - half the opt for the West, half for Wales...! Someone will correct or confirm I'm sure...

That's right.

And to correct Markymark in the previous post, VHF channel 10 never carried a "West" service.

Channel 10 carried what was called the "General Service", with bits of programming for Wales mixed with a VERY SMALL amount of programming for the West of England.

A specific "West" service didn't come into existence till the Mendip UHF transmitter opened.

The General Service always carried West news from 18:00 to 18:15, followed by Welsh news in English from 18:15 to 18:30.

The Welsh Service (St Hilary 7 and the other transmitters in Wales) carried Welsh news in Welsh from 18:00 to 18:15, followed by Welsh news in English from 18:15 to 18:30, as on the General Service.

Many years later, when the West Service arrived, it carried part one of the West news from 18:00 to 18:15, as on the General Service, followed from 18:15 to 18:30 by part two of the West news, with mainly lighter, feature stories.

From the birth of UHF until the VHF switch-off, HTV were actually providing THREE services at the same time, the Wales Service (on St Hilary 7, plus all the other VHF and UHF transmitters in Wales), the General Service (on St Hilary 10, plus Bath channel 8 VHF for technical rebroadcast reasons) and the West Service (on Mendip UHF).

Wenvoe carried BBC 2 from around 1966. However BBC 1 Wales and HTV Wales didn't appear on UHF/625 from there until early 1970.

Mendip wasn't built until about 1969. There were delays finding a suitable site, the BBC/IBA originally wanted Dundry, but the CAA objected because of its proximity to Filton and Bristol airports. The Pen Hill site was finally chosen, which is less than ideal for serving the city of Bristol. HTV West service date was 30 May 1970.

Thanks to Nick H for his correction about the 'General Service'.

Well this stuff all very interesting - thanks for the information about the General Service. I suppose HTV must have been pretty unique amongst ITV providers in having such complex issues when the VHF/UHF swicthover process was happening. This is much more what this forum used to be like - instead of people going on about newsreaders they don't like or posting who had presented the weather on last night's programme... yawn!

Do you remember all those dreadful billboard advertisements all over the west saying "Turn to Mendip, Tune to HTV West"?

They were supposed to placate me and the rest of the campaigners for the split from Wales and the merger with Westward.

I don't know how much money HTV spent on all the billboards (instead of spending it on PROGRAMMES for the west), but you had to be mildly technical in the first place to even understand what the message on the posters meant.

This isn't as much of my specialist subject as ITV, but I've just checked two of my archive copies of Radio Times, one from 1964 and one from 1969.

It looks as if the BBC DID do a complete split, once "Wenvoe Wales" on channel 13 opened.

Wenvoe West on channel 5 carried all the programmes for the west, while channel 13 carried the programmes for Wales.

I can find no evidence of the BBC providing the equivalent of a "General Service", with bits of both programming, after channel 13 came on stream.

There's a bit of further reading on the subject on these two sites:-

http://www.vintage-technology.info/pages/history/histwenvoe.htm

http://www.hhg.org.uk/tech.html

Bit of an irony considering the litter of FM transmitters on top of that hill now. On a good day you can see the lot of them from as far back as Brandon Hill.

Yes, I think the stumbling block with the CAA was that the Beeb needed a 500/600 ft mast there. In the end they ended up with 1000ft at Pen Hill, ironically to try and 'see' over Dundry and into Bristol

Isn't it the CAA who've, effectively, caused the current litter up on Dundry Hill?

I think it's their tower height restrictions which have limited the number of services on each tower and, therefore, increased the number of towers required.

It's about five towers up there now, on three different sites, isn't it?