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ITV (Independent Television) is the name popularly given to the original network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up under the Independent Television Authority (ITA) to provide competition to the BBC.
In England, Wales and southern Scotland, the network has been rebranded to ITV1 by ITV plc, the owners of the broadcasting licences for those areas. Channel Television also uses the ITV1 name, although it is not owned by ITV plc. In central and northern Scotland, SMG plc, the owner of the two franchises completely within Scotland, has branded the channel as stv. UTV in Northern Ireland uses its own name. The legal name for the whole network is Channel 3, though in practice this name is never actually used outside of legal contexts.
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History
Main article: History of ITV
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The start
Independent Television was launched following the Television Act 1954. The Independent Television Authority was set up to control and review the network. In the three main areas – London, the Midlands and the North of England – ITV was launched in September 1955, February 1956 and May 1956 respectively. These areas were divided into one franchise for weekends and one for weekdays:
Outside of these areas, the licensee would broadcast during the whole week. The rest of the franchises went to:
Border Television (English-Scottish Border and Isle of Man, launched on September 1st 1961)
WWN failed financially in late 1963; in 1964 its area and on-air name, Teledu Cymru, were taken over by TWW.
ITV contracts were not permanent and the first franchise round was made in 1963 with new licenses commencing in 1964. There were, however, virtually no changes in contracts in the first round.
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1968 franchise round
Unlike the 1963 review, that of 1967 brought several changes. The new contracts would start in 1968 and the major changes were:
No area, except London, would be split into different franchises for weekends and weekdays.
The "North of England" region was split into two: North-West and Yorkshire. The weekday broadcaster in this region, Granada, was awarded the full week franchise for the North-West, while a new company called Yorkshire Television was awarded the eastern areas, mostly in Yorkshire.
ATV lost the London weekend franchise, but got a full week franchise for the Midlands.
The London Television Consortium, put together by David Frost won the London weekend contract, which now included Friday evenings from 7pm. They went on air initially using the name London Weekend Television but then adopted the name London Weekend before reverting to London Weekend Television (often abbreviated to LWT) in 1978.
ABC (whose weekend contracts in the Midlands and North had disappeared), and Rediffusion London, the weekday London contractor, were forced into a shotgun marriage. The resulting company, Thames Television, was 51% controlled by ABC and took the London weekdays contract.
TWW lost its franchise for Wales and the West to Harlech Television (which would become HTV).
The changes brought both strikes and lock-outs, leading to an ITV Emergency National Service in an attempt to keep the network on air. (A further technicians' strike blacked out ITV completely - except for the region serving the Channel Islands - from August 10 until October 24 1979).
The third franchise round in 1974 brought no company changes but did take the Lincolnshire transmitter from Anglia Television and reassign it to Yorkshire Television. The ITA changed its name to Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) following the Sound Broadcasting Act 1972. During the 1970s, the teletext service ORACLE was launched.
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1982 franchise round
The franchise review of 1982 would bring several changes:
Southern lost their licence to Television South (TVS), and the South of England was converted to a dual region, South and South East England.
A national breakfast service would launch in 1983, and the franchise was awarded to TV-am.
In November 1982, Channel 4 (in England, Northern Ireland and Scotland) and S4C (in Wales) were launched.
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1993 franchise round
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The Broadcasting Act 1990 brought several changes to the ITV network, which was officially renamed Channel 3. The franchises would be awarded on a 'highest-bidder' basis rather than the previous 'beauty contest'. The IBA was abolished, and replaced by the Independent Television Commission (ITC).
The auction brought several changes which would come into place on New Years Day in 1993:
Sunrise Television (soon renamed GMTV) won the Breakfast franchise, replacing TV-am.
Teletext Ltd. won the National Teletext franchise, replacing ORACLE.
The 1993 franchise round was followed by consolidation where most of the companies merged.
In 2000, Granada bought Meridian, Anglia and HTV from UNM, but had to sell HTV to Carlton. In 2001, Granada bought Border. Granada and Carlton then owned all the franchises for England and Wales. In February 2004, Granada Media and Carlton Communications were eventually allowed to merge, to form one single company: ITV plc.
In addition to their "Channel 3" licences, three of the ITV companies have invested in other forms of media:
ITV plc owns six additional television channels (five using the ITV brand), broadcasting on cable, satellite and digital terrestrial: ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, ITV Play, CITV Channel and Men & Motors. The company also has interests in cinema advertising businesses, the Irish television channel TV3 and ITN; in 2005, they bought the website Friends Reunited.
The Channel 3 licensees have also been involved in some failed businesses:
In 1998, Carlton and Granada launched the digital terrestrial pay-television service ONdigital (rebranded as ITV Digital in 2001); the service was placed into administration in 2002.
In 1999, both SMG and UTV launched their own versions of ITV2, S2 and UTV2 respectively; these were later closed, and replaced by ITV2.
In 2000, ITV news provider ITN and NTL launched the ITN News Channel in 2000, but later sold it to Carlton and Granada, who rebranded it as the ITV News Channel; it was closed down in December 2005, making room for ITV4 and the new CITV Channel on DTT.
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Programmes
There are some programmes produced by ITV companies (past and present) that are well-known, usually in the UK, but often world-wide.
In the last decade, the number of productions by 'independent' production companies (that is, companies that are independent of the ITV network) has increased. Notable examples include Thames Television (itself a former ITV contractor) and Celador, producers of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.
ITV has shown interest in withdrawing its children's programmes due to only receiving 8% of the available audience, the rest being dominated by CBBC (Children's branch of the British Broadcasting Corporation) and children's cable/satellite channels.
A new ITV region — ITV Thames Valley — is due to be created on 4 December 2006. This will be formed by the merger of the present Central South area with the Meridian West area (Transmitters at Oxford and Hannington). The studio base, however will be at the present Meridian studios near Fareham.
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Former ITV contractors
TSW (Television South West): SW England franchise (1982–1992)
TVS (Television South): South and South East England franchise (1982–1992)
TWW (Television Wales and the West): Wales and West of England franchise (1958–1968). See also ITSWW (March–May 1968)
WWN (Wales West and North Television): North and West Wales franchise (1962–1964)
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Current ITV franchise holders
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ITV Border (Border Television): English-Scottish border and Isle of Man franchise (1961–)
ITV Granada (Granada Television): North of England weekday franchise (1956–1968); North West England franchise (1968–)
ITV Meridian (Meridian Broadcasting): South & South-East England franchise (1993–)
Independently owned franchises:
UTV (Ulster Television): Northern Ireland franchise (1959–)
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See also
Ofcom — the Office of Communications
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The ITV companies
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Unofficial sites about ITV
The TV Room — British and Irish television presentation
TV Ark ITV — the history of ITV channel and programme logos
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