ITV is a
public service network of
British commercial television broadcasters, set up under the
Independent Television Authority (ITA) to provide competition to the
BBC. ITV is the oldest commercial television network in the UK, having begun broadcasting in 1955. Since 1990 and the
Broadcasting Act 1990, its legal name has been
Channel 3, the number 3 having no real meaning other than to distinguish it from
BBC One,
BBC Two and
Channel 4; prior to this, the network had no legal overall name. In part,
3 was assigned as televisions would usually be tuned so that the regional ITV station would be on the third button, the other stations being allocated to that of the number their name contained.
ITV is to be distinguished from ITV plc, the company that resulted from the merger of Granada plc and Carlton Communications in 2004 and which is the parent of ITV Broadcasting Limited to whom all of the Channel 3 broadcasting licences in England, Wales, the Scottish/English Border and the Isle of Man were transferred in November 2008. Similarly ITV1 is the brand used by ITV plc for the Channel 3 service in these areas, with STV and UTV using their own brands in their own respective areas (North and Central Scotland and Northern Ireland).
Organisation
Unlike many of the TV channels in the United Kingdom, ITV is not owned by one single company, although it has come close to becoming so in recent years.
Ofcom has issued licences to four companies to provide regional
Channel 3 services. ITV Broadcasting Limited provides the service for 10 regions in England and Wales plus the Scottish borders and the Isle of Man, with a separate weekday and weekend licence for the London region. For the rest of Scotland, STV Central Limited holds the licence for the central Scotland, and STV North Limited holds the licence for northern Scotland, including the Hebrides, Orkney, and Shetland Islands, with both services carrying on air branding as STV. Ulster Television Limited was issued the licence for Northern Ireland and is branded as UTV. In the Channel Islands, the licensee is Channel Television Limited which carries ITV1 branding. The licences were last put out to full tender in 1991, and have since been renewed and modified on a rolling basis.
Additionally, Channel 3 has since 1983 included a national breakfast franchise for the period between 06:00h and 09:25h, with the licence currently issued to ITV Breakfast Ltd., and has a national contractual teletext provider.
Digital Channel 3
Since 1998, each of the Channel 3 franchises have received gifted capacity on
digital terrestrial television (DTT). As per the original agreement, each regional ITV contractor broadcasts its Channel 3 service from 9:25am to 6:00am daily, with the breakfast operator broadcasting in the remaining hours. However, unlike analogue broadcasts, the assigned capacity across DTT is able to carry multiple television services which, like Channel 3, are broadcast by the regional franchisee between the hours of 9:25am and 6:00am, with the breakfast contractor operating between 6:00am and 9:25am.
At present, all licensees opt to broadcast ITV plc-owned channels, being ITV2, ITV3, ITV4 and CITV, as opposed to broadcasting their own. Up until 2002, UTV in Northern Ireland ran a service known as UTV2, while both Scottish and Grampian ran S2. The breakfast operator, currently ITV Breakfast, is obliged to broadcast between the hours of 6:00 and 9:25am daily. Alongside the Channel 3 breakfast service, ITV also broadcasts CITV Breakfast, which is on the same capacity as the CITV channel. ITV is available all across the UK and is also available in the Republic of Ireland on Freeview and Digital satellite. Channel 3 shares its space with Channel 4 on Multiplex 2, known as Digital 3&4.
Public service broadcasting
The right granted by Ofcom of Channel 3's nationally-available status on both analogue and digital television comes with responsibility, in the form of public service broadcasting. Alongside the
BBC,
Channel 4 and
Channel 5, the members of the ITV Network and ITV Breakfast all have a responsibility to broadcast various programming of public importance on their analogue stations. This includes quotas for news, current affairs, independent and European programming, children's and religious programming, and output containing subtitles, signing and audio description. In addition, Channel 3 stations are legally obliged to screen party election broadcasts on behalf of all the major political parties, and also other political events such as the Budget.
All the companies holding a franchise are members of ITV Network Limited (formerly the Independent Television Companies' Association Limited), a non-profit body. It is this body that commissions programmes for the network, and schedules the network programming. However, in practice ITV plc, which owns ITV Broadcasting Limited which hold eleven of the fifteen regional licences, dominates the system.
Much of the originated networked programme output (around 47%, but previously as high as 66% according to some reports) is contributed by ITV Studios, the production arm of ITV plc (consisting of the consolidated regional companies' network production departments), although a growing number of programmes are commissioned by the Network from independents (a minimum of 25% of total output, as stipulated by the 1990 Broadcasting Act). In addition, the entire network is obliged to broadcast national news sourced by a common contractor (currently ITN). All stations have the right to opt out of national programming (except for the national news) but generally do not, since most are owned by the one company and the others have limited resources for non-networked productions.
Licence details
The table below lists current Channel 3 regional and national licences and the licence holder.
Licences in England and Wales were held by individual regional ITV plc owned companies prior to November 2008.
{| class="wikitable"
|-
!Licence Service Area
!Licence Holder
!Licence held since
!Parent Company
!Service Name
!On Air Name
|-
! colspan= 6 | Regional Channel 3 Licences
|-
|Northern Scotland || STV North Limited || 1961 || STV Group plc || Grampian Television || STV
|-
|Central Scotland || STV Central Limited || 1957 || STV Group plc || Scottish Television || STV
|-
|Northern Ireland || UTV Limited || 1959 ||UTV Media plc|| UTV || UTV1
|-
|Channel Islands|| Channel Television Limited || 1962 ||Yattendon Investment Trust || ITV1 Channel Television || ITV1 (Channel Television)2
|-
|English-Scottish border || ITV Broadcasting Limited || November 2008 || ITV plc || ITV1 (Border) || ITV1
|-
|North East England || ITV Broadcasting Limited || November 2008 || ITV plc || ITV1 (Tyne Tees) || ITV1
|-
|Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and North Norfolk || ITV Broadcasting Limited || November 2008 || ITV plc ||ITV1 (Yorkshire) || ITV1
|-
|North West England 3 and Isle of Man 4 || ITV Broadcasting Limited || November 2008 || ITV plc ||ITV1 (Granada) || ITV1
|-
|Wales and West of England|| ITV Broadcasting Limited || November 2008 || ITV plc ||ITV1 (HTV Wales)
ITV1 (HTV West)|| ITV1 2
ITV1
|-
|Midlands 5||| ITV Broadcasting Limited || November 2008 ||ITV plc ||ITV1 (Central) || ITV1
|-
|East of England || ITV Broadcasting Limited || December 2006 6 ||ITV plc ||ITV1 (Anglia) || ITV1
|-
|London Weekday|| ITV Broadcasting Limited || November 2008 || ITV plc || ITV1 (Carlton) || ITV1
|-
|London Weekend|| ITV Broadcasting Limited || November 2008 || ITV plc || ITV1 (LWT) || ITV1
|-
|South and South East England || ITV Broadcasting Limited || November 2008 || ITV plc ||ITV1 (Meridian)|| ITV1
|-
|South West England|| ITV Broadcasting Limited || November 2008 || ITV plc ||ITV1 (Westcountry) || ITV1
|-
! colspan=6 | National Channel 3 Licences
|-|-
| National breakfast time || ITV Breakfast Limited || 1993 || ITV plc7 || ITV Breakfast || Daybreak;
Lorraine;
CITV (weekends)
|}
# ITV1 on air branding is used overnight
# Usually Just ITV1.
# Up to 1968, the service for a single Northern area consisting of both the current North West region and most of the current Yorkshire region was provided by Granada Television for Monday to Friday and by ABC Television for weekends.
# Coverage was transferred from ITV1 Border and Tyne Tees to ITV1 Granada following DSO in the Isle of Man in July 2009.
# Up to 1968, the service for the Midlands region was provided by Associated Television for Monday to Friday and by ABC Television for weekends.
# "Anglia Television Limited", which had provided the service since 1959, had its name changed to "ITV Broadcasting Limited" on December 29, 2006.
# ITV plc purchased the remaining stake of GMTV (now ITV Breakfast) from Walt Disney in November 2009
History
, previously used by
Yorkshire Television, before becoming
ITV Yorkshire. Each ITV region had its own studios.]]
figures.]]
Independent Television was created 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. The shape of the ITV Network and the course it has taken down the years has largely been controlled by regular reviews by the Authority which occurred in 1964, 1968, 1974, 1982, and 1993. These reviews saw regions and contract areas reshaped and licence holders changed. Additionally, since the Broadcasting Act 1990 the consolidation of ITV companies has also had an important bearing on the direction of the network. The 1990s saw the number of broadcasters drop dramatically, for instance in 1992, Yorkshire Television acquired Tyne Tees Television to create Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television, only for this entity to merge with Granada Television in 1997. A similar process happened with the Southern Regions, leaving Carlton Television and Granada Television as the two major players, until the failure of ITV Digital saw these two merge.
Programming
For over 50 years of Independent Television, the homegrown programmes have become the best loved and remembered as well as being extremely successful. Before the 1990s, nearly all of the content for the channel was produced by the fifteen franchise licensees: the regional companies.
However, in the last decade, and following legislation in the Broadcasting Act 1990 imposing a 25% quota for commissioning of independent productions, the number of programmes from independent production companies not connected to the traditional ITV Network, has increased rapidly. Notable examples include Talkback Thames (one half of which, Thames Television, was itself a former ITV franchisee), producers of The Bill and co-producers of The X Factor, and 2waytraffic (previously Celador), producers of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?.
From the late 1990s, ITV's long-standing commitment to strong current affairs and documentary programming began to diminish with the ending of productions such as World in Action (Granada), This Week (Rediffusion/Thames), First Tuesday (Yorkshire Television), Network First, Survival (Anglia Television), and Weekend World (LWT) and their replacement with populist shows such as Tonight. News at Ten was also axed in 1999, although it was reinstated in 2008. In December 2009, the final edition of ITV's long-running arts programme, The South Bank Show was broadcast. The broadcaster has announced that it intends to cease funding regional news on the ITV Network by 2012.
Increasingly ITV's primetime schedules are dominated by its soap operas, such as Coronation Street and Emmerdale. At the start of the 21st century, Independent Television faced criticism for including a large amount of "reality TV" programmes in the schedule, such as Celebrity Fit Club, Celebrity Wrestling and Love Island. In its defence, ITV does continue to show its major strengths in the fields of sports coverage and drama productions, and it continues to schedule national news in primetime.
National and international news
Since the network started,
Independent Television News Limited (ITN) has held the contract to produce news for the ITV Network. 30 minute news bulletins are broadcast at 5:30am, 1:30pm, 6:30pm, and 10:00pm.
Regional news
The regional ITV companies provide local programmes tailored for the regional audiences. All the ITV companies provide a main local bulletin at 6pm, as well as other local features and sport programming.
Sport
ITV covers many popular sports. The channel emphasises coverage of
football (it holds the UK terrestrial rights to the
UEFA Champions League). The channel shares coverage of international football events such as the
World Cup with the
BBC. It also covers
motorsport,
rugby, and other sports.
On 30 March 2007 The Football Association confirmed that it had agreed a new four-year £425m television deal for ITV and Setanta Sports to show FA Cup and England international matches (the Scottish regional broadcaster STV replaces these games with regular programming). The deal with the FA represents a 42% increase on the existing deal with the BBC and BSkyB.
As of 4 May 2009, ITV acquired the rights to broadcast live cricket of the Indian Premier League.
Children's programming
The network broadcasts children's programming under the CITV (Children's ITV) strand. Children's programming is broadcast across the network on weekend mornings. Children's programmes were removed from the ITV line-up in 2007, a move which was challenged by Ofcom in April 2007. In 2006, ITV plc launched their own Children's channel under the CITV brand.
Teletext provider
The Public Teletext Licence allows the holder to broadcast a text-based information service around the clock on Channel 3 (as well as
Channel 4 and
S4C) frequencies. Teletext on ITV was provided by
ORACLE from 1974 until 1993 and from 1993 to 2010 by
Teletext Ltd., whose news, sport and TV listings pages rivalled the BBC's offering,
Ceefax on terrestrial and
BBC Red Button on digital. Teletext Ltd. also provided digital teletext for the Channel 3 services, as well as the text output for both
Channel 4 and
S4C under the same licence and
Five. However, the licence was revoked by Ofcom on 29 January 2010 for failing to provide news and local non-news information on ITV and there is currently no teletext licence holder for ITV.
The future
ITV plc
On 12 September 2007,
ITV plc announced a major five-year restructuring plan targeting entertainment as their top priority to bring to the ITV network. A major overhaul of the regional structure of ITV was also proposed. The proposals would see a reduction of ITV plc's regional news programmes in England and Wales, with regions now broadcasting one service per region rather than multiple tailored local services (for example:
Yorkshire Television would no longer broadcast separate Northern and Southern regions). The proposed changes would also fully merge
Border Television with
Tyne Tees Television and
HTV West with
Westcountry Television, effectively ending two regions' tenure as independent players within ITV. These changes started on the regional news service on 9 February 2009 when Meridian combined its South East, South, and Thames Valley news services into one programme.
There would be a certain amount of expansion elsewhere — ITV Network Limited currently commissions around 47% of its programmes from ITV plc's in-house production units. ITV plc hope for this to be increased to the maximum 75% allowed by the regulators over the coming years.
Programming disputes with STV
In July 2009,
STV announced that they would be axing hit programmes like
The Bill,
Midsomer Murders and
Lewis. The reason for the axing, STV claim, is that the shows were too expensive and they would prefer to show programmes made in Scotland.
This move angered ITV especially since they had just revamped the schedule at that time to make The Bill the heart of their programming schedule. ITV's response to The Bill being axed was to air it on ITV3 as well as ITV1 so the majority of viewers in Scotland could still see it.
On 23 September 2009, The Press Association reported that ITV are to sue STV over the dropped shows. ITV has claimed that by dropping several hit shows to concentrate on catering for regional audiences, STV are in breach of their network agreements. The Press Association report that ITV are to sue STV for £38 million .
Future franchise rounds
It is generally unknown if there will be any further franchise rounds held by Ofcom; the last was in 1991. Carlton Television (now part of ITV plc) had its licence renewed without a contest in 2004, and
UTV's expires on 31 December 2014. This is the longest ITV has gone with the same contractors. There may be a possible round in 2012 or 2014 with scaled down regions known as micro-regions, very similar to ITV's original regional variations pre-1999.
See also
List of British television channels
List of ITV channels
List of television programmes broadcast by ITV
List of ITV journalists and newsreaders
References
External links
The ITV companies
ITV plc
STV Group plc
UTV Media
Channel Television Limited
Unofficial sites about ITV
Transdiffusion Broadcasting System — a British communications history website
Independent TeleWeb — a history of ITV
The Historical Television Website — focusing on television in Southern England
Harlech House of Graphics — a site about ITV in Wales and the West of England
Tyne Tees Logo Page — about the North East England broadcaster
The TV Room — British and Irish television presentation
Ray Fitzwalter on The Rise & Fall of ITV London Frontline Club, May 2008
Category:ITV
Category:Television in the United Kingdom
Category:Television channels and stations established in 1955
Category:Media companies of the United Kingdom
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![The Manchester Eye ITV franchisee Granada Television has its headquarters in Quay Street, in the Castle field area of the city.[149] Granada produces the world's oldest and most watched television soap opera, Coronation Street,[150] which is screened five times a week on ITV1.](http://web.archive.org./web/20110112052008im_/http://cdn.wn.com/pd/7b/54/0f324ee8db3afa532efc8d9406ce_thumb.jpg "The Manchester Eye ITV franchisee Granada Television has its headquarters in Quay Street, in the Castle field area of the city.[149] Granada produces the world's oldest and most watched television soap opera, Coronation Street,[150] which is screened five times a week on ITV1.")
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