I blame everything on the decline of ITV, you know. And the decline of ITV on the Tories, obviously. I had that Roland Rat in the back of my cab one, guv.
An extended ITV self-promotion video with the late 80s 'dum didley-dum-dum dum' theme http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fIm-yo-UEw (video blank after 2 mins for some reason)
The return of ITV after the 1979 strike http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZvrWCIbpMU (Note that Quatermass, depicting a Britain terrorised by evil trade unionists [subtext] was the 9 p.m. drama)
The sad history of Centre Radio, the commercial radio station in Leicester, which went bust - the IBA allowed the Nottingham Station to take over. This was really the beginning of the end for the IBA's old system of the local great and good owning a station with its own locally originated programmes - http://www.transdiffusion.org/rmc/commercial/centre.php