Network Six

Now the latest from the Phoenix Television headquarters...

With a couple of weeks gone since the start of the franchise round, Phoenix has had positives and negatives. The positive is the retaining of the Wales franchise with Glyndwr, which is obviously important as we are a Welsh-based company.

The negative is the loss of the London Weekday franchise by LDN, and the impending defeat in the weekend vote as well. Of course there can be no complaints as the voting was fair and the opposition were of high quality, which are the most important things for me personally.

But there could be more positives if Southern is able to overcome another tough vote (seem to be involved in all the big ones this year ) with Compass and TeleSouth providing difficult opposition. Phoenix wishes the other bids the best of luck over the coming weeks, and hopefully Southern can improve on the 1 vote achieved by LDN in both London franchise votes, and we hope for your support in this bid.

Also coming soon is the conclusion of the nominations for Director of Television, of which I am currently the only name in the hat, although I expect some more members to put their entries in over the next two weeks. My plans will be made available just prior to voting (if required).

Now the latest from the Phoenix Television headquarters..

The Phoenix board have released a statement regarding the current franchise round:

Despite the retaining of the Wales franchise with GlyndwrTV, we are disappointed with the overall achievements of the 2010 franchise period. The loss of such a highly-valued franchise in London Weekdays with LDN is certainly a blow, and its a shame that the company couldn't win the weekend franchise either. The signs from the initial votes in the South of England vote are also not good, with a clear lead being established by TeleSouth.

The most disappointing aspect of this franchise round is the fact that only five votes have been received by Phoenix bids over three polls, and that our only win was through an unopposed bid. This is the case because we feel that the bids submitted have been of a high standard and have taken a great deal of time to construct, but have been heavily out-voted by our opponents.

The Phoenix board will monitor the results of the South of England vote, but must announce that it is seriously considering whether to continue with franchise bids in the future and becoming just an independent producer, or even to leave the network as putting work into these bids and then receiving very little in return is pointless.

Now the latest from the Phoenix Television headquarters...

Glyndwr would like to unveil its new look for 2010, which will be introduced on screen in July with the new network schedule. The theme of the idents is 'Air, Fire, Earth and Water', the elements as thought of by the Greeks.

They are a move away from the generic 'view of the region' idents which I've always used in recent years (maybe except one) and I felt it was time for a change.

Your comments are encouraged, good or bad.

Quite like these idents. For some reason, I find it has some similarities to the UK Gold idents from the mid 90's (the gold bar)

Here's a few additional graphics for the new look, featuring an HD ident and end titles for our English and Welsh-language news services.