TWW (Television Wales and the West)
Television Wales and the West, known almost universally as TWW, was the Independent Television (ITV) contractor that served South Wales and the West of England from 14 January 1958 until 3 March 1968. As the eighth ITV franchise to come on air, it occupied a unique position in the early history of British commercial television: a single company whose licence area straddled the Bristol Channel, broadcasting in English and Welsh to two distinct audiences. For six years it ran one of the most distinctive single-transmitter services in the network, and from 1964 it absorbed its failing neighbour, Wales West and North Television, creating a dual-region service branded Teledu Cymru for Wales. Although its local programmes were widely respected and it was profitable for most of its life, TWW controversially lost its franchise in the 1967 review to the Harlech consortium, and closed five months early in protest, forcing the regulator to mount an emergency interim service with its staff.
The franchise award and corporate origins
The Independent Television Authority (ITA) awarded the franchise for South Wales and the West of England to Television Wales and the West on 26 October 1956. The company set up its corporate headquarters in London while establishing operational bases in the region it served: studios at Pontcanna, near Cardiff, and at Bath Road in Bristol. The chairman of the station was Lord Derby, and among the figures associated with its establishment were the programming director Sir Ifan ab Owen Edwards and Alfred Francis. Rumour held that NBC of the United States had an interest in investing in the new contractor, though the ITA demanded that such involvement be set aside. TWW was structured as a self-owned regional company within the wider ITV network of independent contractors, taking the ITN national news service and contributing its own local and regional output. Its franchise area initially covered South Wales and the West of England, making it one of the most geographically compact yet culturally divided regions in the ITV system, with a large Welsh-speaking and Welsh-identifying audience on one side of the Bristol Channel and English counties on the other.
Launch night: 14 January 1958
TWW opened transmission at 4:45 pm on Tuesday 14 January 1958 with a live, fifteen-minute opening ceremony led by Lord Derby, Sir Ifan ab Owen Edwards and Alfred Francis, with chief continuity announcer Bruce Lewis acting as master of ceremonies. The first programme to be broadcast by the new station came at 6:00 pm: Youth Wants to Know, a children's interview programme produced by Granada Television, in which Lady Megan Lloyd George and Raymond Gower answered questions from Welsh schoolchildren. It was followed at 6:30 pm by ITN's early evening news, read by Huw Thomas from TWW's Pontcanna studios in Cardiff. The main opening programme at 7:00 pm was The Stars Rise in the West, a filmed special produced in association with ITN and introduced by Jack Train, then a regular on It's That Man Again. The special featured an extraordinary line-up of British entertainment talent: Ralph Richardson, Stanley Baker, Naunton Wayne, Donald Sinden, Tessie O'Shea, Donald Houston, Petula Clark, Tommy Cooper and Ralph Reader. Harry Secombe appeared in a short film clip performing "Nessun Dorma". Stanley Baker's presence was an irony that would only become apparent a decade later: he went on to become one of the founders of Harlech Television, the very company that would displace TWW from its franchise.
Studios at Pontcanna and Bristol
TWW operated from two studio sites: a converted farm at Pontcanna, near Cardiff, and similar facilities at Bath Road in Bristol. The Pontcanna studios, now demolished and replaced by a housing estate, were the heart of the Welsh operation, while Bristol served the West of England. After TWW took over the Wales West and North Television service in 1964, it inherited Teledu Cymru's studios in Western Avenue, Cardiff, but decided to sell them and consolidate both operations at Pontcanna. To accommodate the dual presentation regime and the increase in production that the takeover created, the company spent £2 million on updating and extending the Pontcanna studios, adding a new studio and separate transmission control suites. The scale of this investment underlined how seriously TWW took the challenge of serving two audiences with distinct programme services. Separately, TWW played a notable role in the development of 625-line colour transmission for the ITV network. While most of the test transmissions and research for the ITA were conducted at the ABC studios at Teddington, TWW leased two prototype EMI colour cameras and associated equipment in 1966 and began running trials, with shows transmitted on internal networks for viewing by employees.
A single transmitter and the dual-region answer
For the first six years of its existence, TWW's service was provided from a single VHF transmitter serving both south east Wales and the west of England: the ITA transmitter at St Hilary, located on Stalling Down near Cowbridge in south Wales, broadcasting on VHF channel 10. Because one transmitter could not carry separate programme services, TWW provided a combined service to viewers on both sides of the Bristol Channel. Although the company had studios in both Cardiff and Bristol, the outputs of the two centres were combined at Cardiff into a single programme stream to feed the St Hilary transmitter, so local news bulletins typically involved an on-air switch or handover between the two studios, with viewers alternately seeing items from both sources. The situation changed after the 1964 takeover of WWN: a second VHF transmitter, using VHF channel 7, was added at St Hilary in 1965, effectively extending the Teledu Cymru network into south east Wales and permitting programmes of specific Welsh interest to be broadcast exclusively to Wales while a separate schedule ran for English and South Wales viewers on channel 10. This was the first significant step towards two distinct and separate programme services for Wales and for the West, and it established TWW's area as a "dual region" for the last few years of its tenure.
The takeover of Wales West and North Television
Another company, Wales West and North Television (WWN), had originally held a separate franchise licence for a much larger but far less densely populated part of Wales, broadcasting under the on-screen name of Teledu Cymru. In 1963 the company shut down its non-news services, and in January 1964 it became the only ITV company ever to fail financially. Rather than re-advertise a franchise widely regarded as financially unviable, the ITA arranged for TWW to acquire the service of its neighbour. TWW ran it as a separate service under the banner "Teledu Cymru, TWW Network for Wales", and the two franchises were merged into a single Wales and West franchise. Although WWN's buildings were not retained, some of its on-air talent were kept on by TWW, including the in-vision continuity announcer Iris Jones. The new Teledu Cymru outlet was expanded to serve Southern Wales as well — ironically, the very audience WWN had needed in order to survive as an independent company. The Teledu Cymru transmitters at Preseli, Arfon and Moel-y-Parc, together with St Hilary, carried the Welsh service. A curious footnote to this history is that the Teledu Cymru signal could be picked up in the south east of the Republic of Ireland, where it gained a following at a time when Ireland had only one domestic channel. Announcers such as Iris Jones acknowledged this audience by wishing viewers goodnight in both Welsh and Irish, and Jones travelled to Wexford in 1966 to meet Teledu Cymru's Irish fans.
On-screen identity and presentation
TWW's original on-screen identity consisted of a circle containing the letters TWW, with a large "T" in the centre and a small "W" to either side. This apparently static caption was used for the first few years of the station's existence before the more familiar box logo appeared. The box ident was animated: the boxes rotated, revealing one letter at a time, accompanied by a twelve-note fanfare. Following the acquisition of WWN, TWW used the Teledu Cymru branding for the North and West Wales service, placing the TWW logo beneath the Teledu Cymru dragon along with the caption "Network for Wales". TWW's continuity announcers became well-known regional personalities in their own right. Iris Jones, Ivor Roberts, Vincent Daniels, Linda Lee, Maureen Staffer, John Mead, Guy Thomas and Christine Godwin were among the most familiar voices and faces of the station. Bruce Lewis, the master of ceremonies on launch night, became one of the station's main news presenters; his son Peter Lewis also announced for TWW and later for HTV West and, most famously, for London Weekend Television.
Programming: respected local output
TWW did not produce many programmes for the ITV network as a whole, but its local and regional programming was widely respected. Its best-known contribution to the national network was Land of Song, a monthly Sunday evening Welsh musical entertainment show that ran for six years from 1958 to 1964 and proved very popular. Its news and local programming earned particular respect, winning many plaudits for its sensitive coverage of the Aberfan disaster of 1966, when a coal-tip landslide engulfed a school in the Welsh mining village. The Welsh magazine programme Amser Te (Tea Time) featured, among other items, a regular cookery slot hosted by Myfanwy Howell and the popular Welsh music show Gwlad y Gan. TWW's musical and light entertainment output included shows such as Live Like A Lord, a music and comedy programme featuring the station stalwart Ivor Emmanuel alongside Clive Dunn, the teenybopper music show Discs a Go-Go, which was hosted by Tony Prince — later of Radio Caroline and the United DJs — and the pop show NOW!, one of whose presenters was Michael Palin, years before Monty Python. The Cider Apple gave Adge Cutler his first television exposure, and his appearances there led directly to the formation of The Wurzels. TWW also launched the television careers of figures including John Humphrys and Claire Rayner. The writer and broadcaster John Betjeman made several films for the station over the years, a connection that would give TWW's final night its most memorable sequence.
The 1967 franchise review and the shock decision
In June 1967 the ITA announced changes to the structure and contracts of the ITV network, to take effect in July 1968. The most dramatic news, as the press saw it, was the loss of the Wales and West contract, which TWW had held since 1958, to a consortium headed by and named after Lord Harlech. Because TWW's regional programming was so well regarded, the decision came as a great shock both within the company and among its viewers. No reason was given for the dismissal, as was standard practice for franchise changes, but several explanations circulated. It was widely believed that TWW's decision to keep its corporate headquarters in London rather than move them into the region was a significant factor. A darker theory held that the decision was government revenge against the broadcaster's major shareholder, the News of the World newspaper, which had printed a series of critical articles about the then Prime Minister Harold Wilson — though the ITA was a wholly independent body, which made this explanation unlikely. TWW had also applied to the franchise review under both its own name and that of the defunct WWN as a tax arrangement, which may have irritated the authority. TWW's management, and Lord Derby in particular, felt betrayed by Lord Hill, who headed the ITA. TWW fought the decision both formally and through the press, but the ITA remained resolute that it was legally entitled to remove any contract at any time for any reason. As an appeasement, the ITA offered TWW a 40 per cent stake in Harlech; under ITA rules Harlech would have been expected to keep on TWW's entire workforce, but the new company intended to dismiss all of TWW's on-screen personnel and launch with a fresh team, and the TWW board declined the stake on advice that accepting it would depress the company's share price.
Early closure and the interim service
TWW's franchise was not due to end until 30 July 1968. However, early in 1968 the company's share price declined to a point where, on 12 February 1968, the TWW board decided to end its operations early, selling the last five months of the contract to Harlech for £500,000 — a move that allowed the company's shareholders to salvage the remaining profits and which had the tacit backing of the ITA. The closing date was set as 3 March 1968, and the company dissolved the following day. But Harlech was not yet ready to begin production, so the ITA arranged an emergency interim service: the Independent Television Service for Wales and the West, which broadcast from the old TWW Pontcanna studios in Cardiff, staffed by former TWW workers — many of whom had their wages doubled by Harlech to persuade them to stay on, despite knowing they would lose their jobs once Harlech launched properly. The interim service, using neither company's name, carried "in the can" TWW productions while Harlech prepared its own programmes for its eventual launch on 20 May 1968, after which the TWW staff were dismissed, though Harlech retained the studios.
Closing night and legacy
Much of TWW's closing night on 3 March 1968 was made up of in-house productions: Live Like A Lord, Discs a Go-Go and Sing Me A Fantasy, a musical film. The feature programme of the night was TWW's penultimate production, All Good Things, a late-night variety special presented by Bernard Braden and featuring Tessie O'Shea, Stan Stennett, Ivor Emmanuel, Manfred Mann, Clifford Evans, Anita Harris and Morecambe and Wise, preceded by an introduction from Lord Derby. This was followed by Come To An End, a reflective epilogue in which John Betjeman paid tribute to the personnel, programmes and achievements of the station he affectionately called "Tellywelly". Recorded at the Granville Theatre in London, Betjeman closed with the words: "The new firm, Harlech, which will be centred in Cardiff, must build up its own personality. Tellywelly, you had a warm, friendly and inspiring one. Like many others, I'm very grateful to you. I'm sorry to see you go. It's like the death of an old friend." As Betjeman walked out of the theatre and the credits rolled, the camera tilted up to the "EXIT" sign on the wall, and TWW ended its transmission for the last time. Harlech Television took over on 20 May 1968, renaming itself HTV on 4 April 1970. TWW is remembered as a warm, friendly and popular regional broadcaster whose ten-year, forty-nine-day life gave Wales and the West of England a distinctive television voice, and whose abrupt departure remains one of the most controversial episodes in ITV's franchise history.
