The story
Formation
When Kemsley-Winnick, one of the consortia that had been awarded two franchises in the new Independent Television network in 1954, collapsed, the ITA approached ABPC to step into the breach. The Corporation agreed to assume the franchises to broadcast on Saturdays and Sundays to the Midlands and the North of England. The contract agreeing to do so was signed on 21 September 1955, the day before Independent Television (ITV) began in London.
This left the new ABC five months to begin broadcasting in the Midlands, the service beginning on 18 February 1956. Soon afterwards, it was also up and running in the North; it began broadcasting in the North West on 5 May 1956, and in Yorkshire on 3 November 1956. It was aided in part by the failure of the original contractor; Kelmsley-Winnick had ordered over £1 million (equivalent to £22.7 million today) of production equipment from manufacturer Pye, which it sold to ABC at a much-discounted price.
ATV
The London weekend contractor had launched under the name "Associated Broadcasting Company" (ABC), but ABPC wanted to use the ABC brand for its own service, to match its existing ABC Cinemas brand, so it took legal action against the Associated Broadcasting Company who subsequently agreed to rename as Associated Television (ATV) after broadcasting for three weeks as "ABC". This allowed ABPC to launch its own station as "ABC".
ITN
ABC's late entry into Independent Television meant that some of the details of how the new system would run were already agreed between the ITA regulator and the other three contractors. ABC felt that some of these details were unfair on itself as the smallest contractor, and the only contractor that broadcast only at weekends.
In particular, ABC objected to paying one-quarter of the costs for ITN, provider of national news broadcasts for the network, as there would be fewer news programmes at the weekend than on weekdays. ABC's managing director Howard Thomas, former head of Pathé News, felt that ABC could provide its own news for a fraction of ITN's price, but the ITA would not allow this: regional companies were responsible only for regional news, and national news should be independent of the regional companies. ABC lobbied both ITN and the ITA for change, which eventually resulted in a cutback to the amount of programming to be provided by ITN to the network and a substantial reduction in ITN's costs.
Presentation
Once the "Big Four" companies were in profit, the ITA reviewed the performance each of them. ABC escaped with little criticism, except for its presentation, which was considered to be dull and too closely aligned with its sister "ABC Cinemas" brand. ABC took this to heart and launched a new look in September 1959.
ATV again
Of the original four ITV contractors, ABC had difficulty getting its programmes shown in the London region, which was hampering its reputation. Two of the other contractors had London franchises, and Granada seemed to have a good working relationship with Associated-Rediffusion to show its programmes. ABC found itself in a head-to-head battle with ATV, as, in the early years, these were the only two companies whose franchises operated at the weekend.
ATV had close connections with the Moss Empires theatre chain (through ATV's Val Parnell) and the Grade Organisation theatrical talent agency (through ATV's Lew Grade and his brother Leslie) and felt they had the expertise to make expensive, high-status drama, variety and comedy shows, and leave the cheaper "provincial" off-peak weekend programming to ABC. This would have been to ABC's financial disadvantage, since ABC (with its two regions to ATV's one region at the weekends) would have to pay two-thirds of the expensive costs of ATV London's shows, while ATV would pay only one-third of the costs of ABC's cheaper shows.
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ABC fought back, first of all, by selling some of its pre-recorded shows to Associated-Rediffusion (instead of ATV) to broadcast to London on weekdays. Secondly, it refused to buy some of ATV's top-rated shows such as Sunday Night at the London Palladium and broadcast its own alternatives such as Blackpool Night Out. Eventually ATV gave way and agreed to buy more of ABC's shows.
Loss of franchise
Structural changes in the regional contract areas meant that ABC no longer had a contract to reapply for in 1967. The Northern area (split into North West and Yorkshire) was to become a seven-day operation, as would the Midlands. Existing weekday contractors (Granada and ATV respectively) were correctly considered the favourites. ABC consequently submitted two applications: one for the service for London at the weekend, the other for the Midlands seven-day operation, although it favoured the first contract.
It was expected that ABC would be awarded the weekend London licence, but the strength of another application (from the London Weekend Television consortium) ruled this out. This led to a situation where a successful company could be closed down through no fault of its own. To prevent this, the governing body of ITV, the Independent Television Authority, ordered a merger with the existing London weekday company Rediffusion, with ABC having majority control of the new operation.
Despite protests from Rediffusion, the two companies eventually became Thames Television. ABC ceased weekend broadcasting in the North and Midlands regions on Sunday 28 July 1968 and resumed on Tuesday 30 July in the London region as weekday company Thames.
From Wikipedia’s article on ABC Weekend TV, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3