Scottish Television, now legally known as STV Central Limited and broadcasting on air as STV, is the ITV network franchisee for Central Scotland. On air since 31 August 1957 from studios in Glasgow, it is the largest of the three ITV franchises in Scotland and the second-oldest franchise holder in the UK still active, after Granada Television. Today it is owned and operated by STV Group, which also owns the Northern Scotland franchise, Grampian Television (now STV North), based in Aberdeen. Scottish Television continues as a commercial rival to the publicly funded BBC Scotland, producing regional news, current affairs and feature programming alongside the ITV network schedule.
Roy Thomson and the franchise bid
Scottish Television was founded by the Canadian newspaper magnate Roy Thomson, later Lord Thomson of Fleet. To base the new station he bought the Theatre Royal in Glasgow from Howard & Wyndham Ltd, who became minor partners in the venture, and he brought over the Canadian television producer Rai Purdy as the station's first head of programming. In May 1955 the Independent Television Authority advised Thomson that he had been awarded the contract to set up a Scottish television company, and he signed the formal contract in June 1957. Purdy pledged that the new channel would provide "first class entertainment" and "as much cultural programming as possible", giving Scottish talent every opportunity to develop and be seen on the channel. Thomson expected to produce around ten hours a week of Scottish programmes within the Television Act's limit of fifty hours a week, declaring that the station would be "very Scottish indeed" in its content.
Preparing the nation for a second channel
The launch required a huge logistical effort, because older television sets needed converting with an additional tuning device and nearly half a million sets and aerials in Scotland needed attention. To avoid the chaos that had accompanied the launch of independent television in England — when everyone wanted their sets converted at once and there was a shortage of radio and television mechanics — Scottish Television arranged a series of 21 exhibitions in the principal towns and burghs of its reception area in the months before launch. Admission was one shilling for adults and sixpence for children and pensioners; every visitor received a free 24-page Television Guide, and every set on show relayed either BBC output or the new commercial programmes through closed circuit from a specially constructed Morris Commercial vehicle. An adjoining cinema show offered samples of the programmes to come, including American series such as I Love Lucy and Brave Eagle, home-grown shows such as Sunday Night at the Palladium and The 64,000 Question, and local films made by STV's outside broadcast unit. A Pye outside broadcast unit costing £37,000 was parked outside the hall, and a television camera proved a major attraction as visitors saw their own images projected across the hall.
Launch night, 31 August 1957
Scottish Television began broadcasting at 5.30 pm on Saturday 31 August 1957 with This is Scotland, an hour-long variety broadcast live from the Theatre Royal studios, introduced by the Scottish film star James Robertson Justice. It was the seventh ITV franchise to launch, the first outside the three largest regions of London, the Midlands and Northern England, and the first to broadcast seven days a week. Planned early output included a talent show called Fanfare, a quiz programme, a monthly play drawn from Scottish theatres, a children's programme called Scotsplay, and In Heaven and Earth, described by Purdy as the station's big cultural effort. The first sport-related programme was also Fanfare, which debuted on 2 September 1957, with Archie McCulloch compering as supporters of rival football clubs competed each Monday.
The 1960s: output, deals and criticism
During the 1960s Scottish Television broadcast musical entertainment, variety, documentary films presented by Dr John Grierson and Scottish sports coverage. It sponsored Scottish Opera and televised live opera and ballet, networking more opera than comparable television companies. Much of the early output was supplied by ATV under a ten-year deal worth £1 million a year, and by 1965 ATV's senior producer Francis Essex had become Scottish's programming controller. The station nevertheless gained a reputation for low-budget, entertainment-driven programming; it was jokingly said that STV owned only two pieces of equipment, one telecine to show western films and another to show the commercials. Lord Thomson was criticised for using the station's profits to fund his newspaper interests rather than reinvesting in the channel, a complaint that gave rise to his famous remark that running a commercial television station was "like having a licence to print money". In 1965 the ITA chairman Charles Hill visited the Glasgow studios, watched an edition of the daytime entertainment show The One O'Clock Gang, and was so appalled that he personally axed the programme. Despite these troubles, Scottish Television retained its franchise in the 1967 review against strong competition from a consortium led by the future BBC Director General Alasdair Milne — though the ITA forced Thomson to reduce his stake from 80% to 25%, ending the company's standing as a Thomson Group subsidiary.
Colour, fire and new studios
The start of colour broadcasting at the end of the 1960s was marked by the opening of new secondary studios at the Gateway Theatre on Leith Walk in Edinburgh in October 1969. The following month disaster struck: on 3 November 1969 the Theatre Royal headquarters was badly damaged by a major fire caused by an electrical fault, in which a firefighter, Archie McLay, died after falling through a trapdoor. The company began work on a new purpose-built complex at Cowcaddens in Glasgow in 1972 — original plans for a £2 million site at Millerston had fallen through — and left the Theatre Royal for the last time in December 1974, after selling the building to Scottish Opera for conversion back into a full theatre and national opera house. The association with Cowcaddens lasted until July 2006, when the station moved to new, smaller studios at Pacific Quay beside the Glasgow Science Centre.
Turbulent times and recovery
Like many ITV franchises, Scottish struggled through the late 1960s and early 1970s with recession, increased transmitter rental fees, taxation on income rather than profits, declining advertising revenue and the cost of converting equipment for colour. In 1970 the company made a loss of £39,000, and there were warnings that regionalism might be abandoned and a forced merger with Grampian imposed unless the levy on advertising revenue was reduced. Fortunes recovered by late 1971 after a change in taxation rules cut the company's payments from £466,000 to £234,000 and advertising revenue rose, with profits of £475,000 in the first six months of 1971. A large proportion was spent on expanding programming: improved sports coverage, new dramas by Scottish writers and enhanced local entertainment, with ambitions of becoming a major producer for the planned fourth UK television channel, later Channel 4. In 1975 a spring strike hit the ITV network over pay; after a management lockout, normal service resumed for all stations except Scottish Television, whose staff refused to return until 9 June.
Landmark programmes
Across the decades Scottish Television produced some of British television's most enduring series. The rural soap Take the High Road became one of ITV's longest-running programmes, produced at the Gateway Theatre in Edinburgh. The Glasgow-set crime drama Taggart became the company's most famous network export. Sports programming was led by Scotsport, which ran from 1957 to 2008, and the regional news programme Scotland Today was a mainstay for decades. The company produced Gaelic-language programmes including Speaking our Language and Machair, some of which are now shown on the Gaelic channel BBC Alba, and its religious output — weekly church services, Sunday religious programmes and the epilogue Late Call — was produced by figures including the Rev. Dr Nelson Gray and the Rev. Eric Hudson. In October 1981 Scottish Television became the first ITV station to operate a regional Oracle teletext service, with more than sixty pages of local news, sport and information.
From Scottish Television to STV
In 1966 the company was listed on the London Stock Exchange for the first time. Decades later, as SMG plc (now STV Group plc), it acquired the Grampian Television franchise in Northern Scotland. On 30 May 2006 the company announced that Scottish Television would revert to the on-air brand "STV", the name it had used from the start of colour broadcasting in 1969 until August 1985 and by which viewers still knew it, while Grampian became STV North. The two licences still produce regional programmes, differing mainly in their news services, with STV News at Six broadcasting separate editions for the East and West of the Central region, and for Northern Scotland including a Tayside opt-out. News and current affairs now form the bulk of STV's regular Channel 3 programming, led by the topical analysis programme Scotland Tonight.
Network disputes and independence
STV remains the sole independent member of the Channel 3 network, a status that produced one of British broadcasting's most dramatic commercial disputes. In 2009 STV withdrew networked programmes such as The Bill, Doc Martin, Midsomer Murders and Poirot from its schedules to concentrate on programming made within Scotland. ITV plc sued for £38 million, claiming breach of network agreements; STV launched its own legal action, and chief executive Rob Woodward later admitted the decision had been a "major mistake". The dispute was settled in April 2011 with STV paying ITV plc £18 million, and a new networking arrangement followed in 2012 under which STV became an "affiliate" of the network, paying an up-front fee for the rights to broadcast ITV content. In 2010 Ofcom investigated claims that STV had allowed the Scottish Government to influence its schedules; the regulator cleared the channel of political interference, though eighteen short social action programmes were found to have been too closely influenced by government sponsorship.
Legacy of the longest-serving Scottish franchise
From its Theatre Royal beginnings to its modern Pacific Quay studios, Scottish Television has been a continuous presence in Scottish broadcasting for nearly seven decades, celebrating its sixtieth birthday in 2017. Its history encompasses the pioneering 21-exhibition launch roadshow, the colour-era Gateway Theatre studios, the Cowcaddens era and the creation of enduring programmes that travelled from Glasgow to the whole of Britain. As part of STV Group it continues to serve Central Scotland as the region's independent commercial broadcaster, the senior of Scotland's ITV franchises and, after Granada, the oldest franchise holder still operating in the United Kingdom.
