Page "Southern Television" Paragraph 6

The winning bidder, TVS, spent months trying to persuade Southern to sell its studios ; until it finally succeeded, TVS was forced to use portable office buildings ( known as Portakabins ) in Southern's car park, something repeated later by Meridian while it waited to take over from TVS.

Finally, Southern agreed to lease its studios for the production of TVS programmes and sell them to TVS outright at the end of 1981.

The handover was tinged with acrimony on behalf of Southern, which appeared to take its anger at the decision out on TVS rather than the IBA, which had made the actual choice.

In Southern's final programme, And It's Goodbye From Us, a song was featured, composed and performed by Richard Stilgoe, deriding the incoming TVS as Portakabin TV and mocking TVS for choosing Maidstone as a production base in the newly-enlarged dual region despite the fact that Southern itself had already purchased the site in Vinters Park, Maidstone, for a planned studio complex which Southern would have built had it retained its franchise.

Southern sold the land on to TVS at a considerable profit.