Borders

The Borders franchise covers of 1 mainland city and 1 city on the Isle Of Man. The franchise sits in between the North Western and Central Scotland franchises on the Western side of the country. The franchise holder broadcasts to parts of both England and Scotland. So far on Network Six the Borders & Isle Of Man has been held by 5 franchise companies.

The beginning
At the start of Network SIX or the APFS Network which it was called back then in late 2003 the Borders & Isle Of Man franchise failed to secure a permanent franchise holder. When this happens a temporary operator needs to take the franchise on until a permanent franchise holder is found. In this case the temporary franchise was Frontier Television from TotalAccess who provided the network with imports of programmes from around the globe. Frontier Television provided the region with local news, local information and programmes from around the network. The channel began broadcasting at 11:40am on New Years Day 2004 and a special evening from programming was broadcasted with a pre-launch party at 5pm and the opening gala presentation went live at 6pm, the first night also featured the world television premiere of The Lord Of The Rigs The Fellowship of the Ring at 8:15pm. To continue the celebrations Frontier hosted a House Party Live in there studios at Whitehaven which was broadcasted on Saturday 3rd January 2004.

The permanent franchises
In February 2004 the Borders & Isle Of Man was still being served there APFS Network by the temporary franchise Frontier Television from TotalAccessUK but in early February 2004 a new company called Park Television came into the network and placed a bid to buy out Frontier and run the Borders & Isle Of Man franchise as a permanent franchise. There bid was called Television Borders or TVB for short, the company had brought studio space in The Botchergate Studios in the centre of Carlisle and were awaiting a response from network control when the company dGMw Media came into the game and also placed a bid to apply for the permanent franchise of the Borders & Isle Of Man, so now we had a franchise round and both companies were waiting for the result from network control when the two companies Park Television and dGMw Media striked a deal that the Park Television bid TVB would operate Monday To Friday and the dGMw Media bid TVSolway would operate on the weekends as SWT (Solway Weekend Television). In late February 2004 Frontier Television ceased and TVB took to the airwaves of the Borders & Isle Of Man for its first week of programming and SWT took to the airwaves on the Friday following that.

Sample TVB graphics at launch
Used before APFS Network programming

Used before regional programmes and the news

Network endboard

Regional endboard

Caption shown in between the shutdown of Night TV at 5:55am and the start of programmes from TVB at 6:00am

TVB fault caption

Sample SWT graphics at launch
NON AVALIBLE AT THIS MOMENT

Move To Wigton
During 2004 a survey was taken out on TVB's studios at The Botchergate Studios which they filly owned by then. It was decided it was no cost effective to bring The Botchergate Studios up to standard so a new studio complex was built in The Wigton Complex and TVB moved there about 3 months after. This left The Botchergate Studios empty to decay. Park Television later sold it to a organization that wanted to turn the first 2 floors into a Television Museumn and rent the other floors out for Offices. This never happened and the building is scheduled for demolition.

Franchise round 2005
Around Christmas 2004 all franchises came up for renewal, with all the franchises the Borders also came up for renewal. dGMw Media that operated SWT back in early 2004 but a bid in to operate the Borders franchise fully as TVSolway, TVB also put a bid in to renew there franchise. After a poll where all network members can vote for who they think is the best. The results were released and TVSolway were the winners and were granted the right to broadcast to the Borders & Isle Of Man for the year 2005 and were set to takeover from TVB in a few weeks after the franchise round. During this period the Borders were hit by terrific floods which ruined TVSolway’s and they could not takeover from TVB and the date set so TVB continued as the regions temporary franchise. After a survey of TVSolway’s studios dGMw decided that they could not takeover the franchise in the near future and sore it not fair on the viewers to keep them hanging on a temporary franchise and gave the right to broadcast to the Borders & Isle Of Man in the year 2005 to TVB.

The effect of the 6-Net switchover on the Borders
In summer 2005 proposals were put forward by network control to relaunch APFS Network as 6-net to promote its number on the remote control. With the relaunch new stricter rules were introduced and a renewal franchise round was announced for the autumn of 2005. This franchise round was gripping one and different from all others, TVB bidded for the right to broadcast to the region and was the only bidder. Network control sore TVB not good enough to have a 6-net franchise and lost the right to broadcast to the Borders & Isle Of Man and ceased broadcasting shortly after. After TVB had ceased the temporary 6-net service launched until a franchise holder could be found.

A New Year, A New Station
Shortly after the start of 2006 6-net changed owners and the rules were reversed back to the APFS Network days. A new company Emoa Television came into the network made a bid to broadcast to the Borders & Isle Of Man franchise, they were successful and began broadcasting shortly after.

Sample graphics from Emoa
Original generic ident; the Borders name appeared underneath prior to some programmes

A few months after Emoa began broadcasting, Park Television came back into the network after merging with Coast Media to form Coastpark plc, and reached a deal with Emoa to purchase the Borders franchise. In return, Emoa was given Mercia Weekend Television, the Network Six franchise for Midlands Weekend. Emoa accepted and handed over the right to broadcast to the Borders & Isle Of Man back to Coastpark plc and TVB was reborn. TVB launched shortly after the sale and Emoa sucessfully acquired the rights to broadcast to North East England.

Today and the future
Today the Borders & Isle Of Man franchise is operated by TVB from Coastpark plc with many of the orginal programmes and presenters but what does the future hold, with dGMw Media still in the game with TVSolway could we see TVB disappearing from our screens once again in the future, maybe, you will just have to keep checking this page or www.networksix.co.uk.