ITV in 1988: TSW 

23 March 2023 tbs.pm/77530

TSW – TELEVISION SOUTH-WEST

SOUTH-WEST ENGLAND

Derry’s Cross, Plymouth, Devon PL1 2SP
Tel: 0752 663322
Bowater House, Knightsbridge, London SW1X 7NN
Tel: 01-589 9755
The Colston Centre, Colston Street, Bristol BS1 4UX
Tel: 0272 21131
5 Frederick Place, Quedam Centre, Yeovil BA20 1LD
Tel: 0935 20607

Directors Sir Brian Bailey, OBE (Chairman); Sir John Colfox, Bt., DL (Vice-Chairman); Harry Turner (Managing Director); Martin Bowley (Sales Director); John Roberts (Financial Director); Michael Reinhold (Director of Programmes); David Jenkin (Director of Engineering); Patricia Cookson (Director of Facilities and Services); David Sunderland (Director of Presentation and Public Relations); Fred Hain; Douglas Hale; The Earl of Iddesleigh, DL; David Johnstone; Gareth Keene; Pat Morris (Staff Director); John Peters, MBE; Norman Thompson; Bernard Webster.

Officers Richard Griffiths (Head of Contracts and Rights); David Atkins (Head of News and Current Affairs); Paul Stewart Laing (Head of Features); Frank Wintle (Head of Documentaries); John Bartlett (Head of Religious Programmes); Thomas Goodison (Head of Education); Michael Boddy (Chief Accountant); Elizabeth Mahoney (Head of Programme Planning); Eric Kennaugh (Industrial Relations and Training Manager); Karen Woodward (Personnel Officer); Wendy Bowes (Head of Office Services); Brian Warner (Deputy Head of Engineering); Tony Smith (Presentation Manager); Bob Bounsall (Facilities Manager); Keith Lloyd (Operations Manager – Production Facilities); Peter Rodgers (Operations Manager-Central Services); Elayne Downing (Contracts Officer); Ann White (Programme Planning Officer); Sarah England (Community Education Officer); Tess Alps (Sales Controller); Adrian Corbin (Business Development Manager); James Cavanagh (Senior Group Sales Manager); Jane Williams (Group Sales Manager); Derek Prosser (Regional Sales Manager – Bristol); Robert Clilverd (Regional Sales Manager- Plymouth); Martin Morrall (Head of Press and Public Relations); Susan Rolling (Press Officer); Christine Collins (Viewer Liaison Officer).

Advisory Boards TSW has 108 members on six separate advisory boards covering agriculture, arts education, industry, politics and religion. There are also fisheries and gardening and horticulture sub-committees.

Studio Facilities After completing a £4.5 million expansion and re-equipment programme, TSW this year started construction of additional administrative accommodation. The company also took the opportunity to redesign the reception area, enlarge the staff restaurant and to increase the TSW social club facilities.

Training In September, TSW took on the first four apprentices ever to be trained by ITV in the South West. In addition the company had five trainees from the Youth Training Scheme and two general engineering trainees.

Regional Offices In addition to its regional sales office in Bristol and a representative in North Devon, TSW opened a new regional office in Yeovil at the new Quedam shopping complex. This new office is the base for two journalists and news crew, and it affords the public the opportunity of making enquiries about TSW and its programmes and purchasing TSW merchandise. In addition to its regional offices, TSW was represented by its 1200 sq. ft. exhibition vehicle at events throughout the South West, including the Devon County Show, Royal Bath and West Show, Royal Cornwall Show, Stithians Show, Yeovil Festival of Transport, Exeter Air Days, Plymouth Navy Days, North Devon Show, Cornwall Gardens Festival and the Dorchester Show.

Awards 1987 brought TSW’s total number of awards to more than 40 in five years. The Houston International Film Festival alone gave nine awards to TSW programmes, including gold awards for local news and religion and ethics, a silver award to the Tuesday View consumer affairs programme, and bronze awards for the documentaries Two Acorns From Pre-History, One Per Cent of Us, Hilda’s Book, and War At Sea and the experimental video poetry programmes The Silver Trail.

Robert Robinson gets a check-up from the ‘doctor’ of the Mummers of Symondsbury in one of TSW’s seven-part series of Robinson Country for Channel 4.

Programmes TSW’s nightly news programme Today benefited from last year’s introduction of portable single cameras by increasing the number of regional news items in programmes. The use of PSC also meant increased visual coverage of news in TSW’s four daily news bulletins. Friday’s Today Programme was expanded from 30 minutes to the hour-long The Friday Show with Kenneth MacLeod, where the regional news is followed by a light-hearted look at local events. Tuesday evenings provided an early-evening slot for Tuesday View, a monthly current affairs programme; Consumer File, The Boat Show and the natural history magazine Wild About the West.

Network programmes from TSW included the seven-part instructional riding series Horse Sense with former Olympic medallist Mary Gordon-Watson; the natural history quiz Amoebas to Zebras with Nigel Rees; the five-part Bats in the Belfry series for About Britain; another series of That’s My Dog with Derek Hobson, the hour-long documentary Surcouf: Diving to Disaster; the health education series Food-Fad or Fact? with Joan Shenton, which launched the health and family strand of ITV’s daytime schedule; Get Fresh (Yeovil, Plymouth and Newquay); Morning Worship (Dartmouth and Torquay) and Highway (Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly). TSW productions for Channel 4 included a second seven-part series of Robinson Country; and Some Day Man, an hour-long play by Barbara Angell for the ‘First Sight’ series of plays by writers new to television.

TSW’s continuing commitment to the arts was realised in the nationwide TSWA-3D art exhibition, the most ambitious public art event ever staged in Britain. On nine sites throughout the country, 12 artists produced three dimensional work. Dartmoor’s Bellever Tor, the only rural site in the project, was the subject of the regional documentary There Are No Plugs On Dartmoor. The emphasis on arts continued in The Silver Trail, two programmes which offered eight poets the challenge of representing their work in visual form.

DOCUMENTARIES: Glenthorne – A Stage of Recovery; A Head of Time; One Per Cent of Us; Surcouf: Diving to Disaster; Hilda’s Book; War At Sea; Bats in the Belfry, Hurried Into Eternity (Exeter Theatre Royal Fire); Ward’s World. NEWS AND MAGAZINES: Today; The Friday Show; TSW News and Weather, The South West Week (for the deaf and hard of hearing); Fisheries News; Farming News; Action South West; South West Weather and Shipping Forecast; Newsport; Tuesday View Current Affairs; Consumer File. SPORT: Newsport; TSW Inter Pub ’87; Surfing Championships; Rugby; Soccer Specials. POLITICS: Today Election Specials; More Than A Simple Cornishman (A tribute to David Penhaligon). RELIGION: Postscript; Look and See; Highway (Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly); Morning Worship (Dartmouth and Torquay); And the Word Was God; Michael Tony Ralls: Out of His Darkness. GARDENING: Gardens For All. FEATURES: Televiews; The Boat Show. YOUNG PEOPLES PROGRAMMES: Gus Honeybun’s Magic Birthdays; Get Fresh. LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT: That’s My Dog; Amoebas to Zebras; Miss TSW; Mr TSW. NATURAL HISTORY: Wild About the West. EDUCATION: Horse Sense; Food – Fad or Fact?; The South West Week; Getting On …Plus; South West Link; and Public Service Announcements. MUSIC: Jazz Cafe; Young Baroque. ARTS: Tuesday View Arts; There Are No Plugs On Dartmoor, The Silver Trail. FISHING: Fisheries News; Tightlines.