Our local region at the time was Southern Television [1958-1981). We were always wary of those northern franchises like Thames and LWT.

Looking on wikipedia i was reminded of the following;

"In its last three years on the air Southern showed many foreign-language films in its Friday Late, Late Show, including as many as eight by Rainer Werner Fassbinder and others by Werner Herzog, Andrzej Wajda, Wim Wenders, Federico Fellini and many more. These were particularly valuable in the more rural parts of its region where these films were rarely shown in cinemas and home video barely existed."

Foreign language films on mainstream tv. Different times.

They did also make Worzel Gummidge.