After a difficult start, Westward Television provided a popular, distinctive and highly regarded service to its region, until heavy competition[1] led to its franchise not being renewed by the IBA.

Westward launched the career of many broadcasters who became well known nationally, won numerous awards for its programming, and heavily influenced its successor, TSW.

was part of the region that found reception of the television signal most difficult, until the construction of the Huntshaw Cross relay transmitter in 1968.

In early January 1969, plans were drawn up for a merger between Westward and the Keith Prowse company, as Peter Cadbury was chairman of both.

[8] On 28 December 1980, while the ITV network was showing Drake's Venture (Westward Television's two-hour filmed drama to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Sir Francis Drake's circumnavigation of the globe, starring John Thaw), ITN interrupted a commercial break to announce ATV was to undergo major changes and Southern and Westward had not had their licences renewed by the IBA; the south-west franchise was awarded to TSW (Television South West).

Following the loss of its franchise, Westward's management decided to sell up quickly, and the company (including its staff, premises and programme library) was purchased by TSW, early in 1981, for £2.38 million.

There were filmed contributions from Alan Freeman, Jan Leeming and David Vine and many clips of Westward programmes were shown.

Unlike the other ITV stations that lost their franchises in this round, Westward (having been run by successor TSW since August 1981) opted to hand over at midnight on 31 December 1981.

On that evening they broadcast the first 25 minutes of Scottish Television's Hogmanay show live, and then cut away just before midnight when Roger Shaw appeared on camera in a traditional dinner jacket seated at an antique wooden desk, surrounded by staff wearing formal suits and holding film reels and 2-inch videotapes.

And to get the new year off to a good-humoured start, we have a brand new comedy with Peter Cook and Mimi Kennedy in The Two of Us.This was followed by the full version of TSW's ident.

The comedy programme was followed by further continuity, an epilogue, weather and shipping forecast and closedown (with the national anthem) - all with TSW branding.

Parts of the recording were featured at a Kaleidoscope event[11] and at that year's Missing Believed Wiped at the British Film Institute.

[12] This was replaced in the mid-1960s by a model of the Golden Hind, shot against a black background with a simple Westward caption beneath accompanied by the Holly and the Ivy tune on brass instruments.

The tune that accompanied the colour television ident was originally a nautical fanfare on brass instruments, based on the song "Come Landlord Fill the Flowing Bowl", arranged by Paul Lewis.

This formed part of a longer ident theme titled An English Overture, used at the start of each day's broadcasts.

One of the best known programmes was Treasure Hunt, a game show presented by Kenneth Horne and Keith Fordyce, among others, which ran for 14 years and at one stage featured Jethro as the pirate co-host.

Kenneth MacLeod had to present Westward Diary in what looked to viewers like almost total darkness, as the union permitted only the house lights to be switched on in the studio.

In the early 1970s, A Date With Danton was a stand-alone weekly programme that provided a round-up of local arts and entertainment events.

To accommodate this, the length of Friday's edition of Diary was extended to an hour, and it occasionally featured a live studio audience.

On April Fools' Day, 1973, Westward broadcast a film about the village of Spiggot, which had boycotted decimalisation and were still using pre-decimal currency.

In November 1963[20] The Beatles had to be smuggled into Derry's Cross through a tunnel to record an interview with continuity announcer Stuart Hutchison for the programme, due to the number of fans outside the studios.

The Westward Beat Competition had a panel of judges that included Brian Epstein and Dick Rowe and was won by The Rustiks.

Children could request that Gus waggle his ears, wink, stand on his head, count their age in "bunny-hops", or turn off the lights.

Gus's behaviour tended to be excellent for Roger Shaw, but for Judi Spiers and Iain Stirling he could be rather unpredictable.

On Sunday mornings, Westward aired Look and See, a five-minute religious slot for the under-8s broadcast from the continuity studio.

In 1980, Westward produced Maggie's Moor, a seven part networked children's drama series about a young girl living on Dartmoor during the Second World War.

These extra off-peak hours gave smaller ITV companies a chance to provide some networked or part-networked programmes.

By the mid '70s, Westward had taken advantage of this opportunity by finding a small niche producing adult education programmes for the ITV network.

In 1973 the Countryside Commission opened the South West Coast Peninsula Walk from Minehead in Somerset to Swanage in Dorset via Land's End.

[37] Like About Britain, Doing Things was a series of half-hour filmed documentaries contributed by the various ITV regions and broadcast in the early afternoon.