Bring The Magic Home!: The Story Of ITC's Carlton Video Home Entertainment

2 - Before Carlton

The 1990s had seen a mass resurgence of interest in classic television shows from the 1960s and 1970s. It started back in 1990 when BBC Radio 5 aired 8 out of the 19 audio episodes of Thunderbirds, which were the original 1960s audio albums.  With introductions by Gerry Anderson and extra linking dialogue from Shane Rimmer, the success of these radio broadcasts prompted BBC TV's head of youth programming Jane Street Potter to buy the series for early evening viewing on BBC2. The "minority channel" had started to air several other cult series at around the same time, such as Star Trek, Battlestar Gallactica, Doctor Who, and even The Simpsons! The ratings of the first episode, Trapped In The Sky, achieved over 7 million when it aired at 6PM on Friday 20th September and astonished program controllers and the BBC's schedulers.

 As a result, Thunderbirds mania had returned, and over the following years, the BBC would air other Anderson programs Stingray, Captain Scarlet, Joe 90, UFO, and Space: 1999. New merchandise was available from the popularity of these showings and many of these shows would also begin airing on other channels such as Gold and Bravo. Therefore, it could be down to the success of Thunderbirds showings that we could claim that the series was the main driving force of the resurgence of interest in classic series. Similarly, shows such as The Prisoner would get to air on Gold, whereas on BBC1, a week-long tribute to ITC's Lord Grade and his series was celebrated. Space: 1999's War Games episode was among one of the multiple series to be included. Meanwhile, the majority of the ITC series were now available, at least the majority of episodes of each series, on VHS. 

The compilation films were still available, and the original episodes weren't because the movies still had the video rights to them. Fan clubs such as Fanderson and Six Of One were around to further help keep the flame alive of these now modern classics. Also available were Polygram videos were five volumes titled, "A Night In TV Heaven", or "Another Night In TV Heaven", released in the mid-90s. These complied multiple series on each tape; including Supercar, Fireball XL5, Stingray, Joe 90, The Secret Service, The Protectors, Space: 1999, Danger Man, The Saint, Department S, The Persuaders, and The Champions. The variety of tapes and inclusion of videos combining each series not only, as said before, allow them to be watched and enjoyed by future generations, but have such a vast market they can put multiple episodes of a collection of series on one video.

Meanwhile, the hands of ITC were being changed variously. As of 1995, the ITC catalogue was now in the hands of Polygram, who purchased the company for $156 million. Lord Grade would remain as the consultant of these programs, whilst the possibility of bringing these classic shows back as remakes would become a reality. A 1997 movie version of The Saint starring Val Kilmer as Simon Templar was loosely based on the original books by Leslie Charteris from 1928, and rumours were fast circulating about a Thunderbirds and Joe 90 feature film. On the 10th December 1998, Universal Studios' parent Seagram purchased Polygram for $10.2 billion. A few days later, Lord Grade sadly passed away on 14th December, bringing an end to the career of one of the biggest men in show business. Grade's productions would still live on however as in early January 1999, Carlton Communications purchased the entire ITC film and TV catalogue for £91 million, bringing over 15,000 hours of entertainment with it. Carlton chairman Michael Green said: "The ITC Library is a jewel in the crown. We can now unite it with the other gems from Britain's film and television heritage in our excellent library." Carlton could then sell the broadcast rights to the films as well as use the library for its own channels.

Carlton was a British media company set up in 1983, and by the late 1990s, they were technically ITV. It had been the first time in many years that these British TV series were now in the hands of a company based in the UK. Finally, after over a year, Carlton would begin to release these classic shows in a new digitally remastered format and begin to bring these shows well into the 21st century...