London Weekend Television (LWT) (now part of ITV London) was the name of the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties at weekends, broadcasting from Fridays at 5:15pm (prior to 1982 at 7:00pm) to Monday mornings at 6:00am.

London Weekend Television is no longer individually identified on air, and uses the generic ITV1 logo for continuity announcements (the announcement of the next programme and forthcoming ones), and as a banner during commercial advertising breaks. The company is managed with Carlton Television as a single entity (ITV London), but the two companies are still separately licensed. The franchise is currently operated by ITV plc under the licensee of ITV Broadcasting Limited. In its original guise LWT ran from July 1968 until October 2002 when it became part of ITV London.

In its original application for the contract to provide programming for London at the weekends from 1968 to 1974, the London Television Consortium (LTC, which went on to name the company London Weekend Television) promised a variety of high-brow arts and drama productions and had accordingly caught the attention of the contract judges, the Independent Television Authority (ITA). The authority had been worried by criticism of the network's output, which at the time was seen as downmarket. The LTC plans were seen by the ITA as serious contenders to the quality educational programming of the BBC; so keen were the ITA that they were quoted, at the time, as saying the LTC had to have its chance, whatever the repercussions.

London ⁱ/ˈlʌndən/ is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its founding by the Romans, who named it Londinium. London's ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its square-mile mediaeval boundaries. Since at least the 19th century, the name London has also referred to the metropolis developed around this core. The bulk of this conurbation forms the London region and the Greater London administrative area, governed by the elected Mayor of London and the London Assembly.

London is a leading global city, with strengths in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism and transport all contributing to its prominence. It is the world's leading financial centre alongside New York City and has the fifth-largest city GDP in the world (and the largest in Europe). London has been described as a world cultural capital. It was the world's most visited city during 2011 and London Heathrow is the world's busiest airport by number of international passengers. London's 43 universities form the largest concentration of higher education in Europe. In 2012 London will become the first city to host the modern Summer Olympic Games three times.

Rowan Sebastian Atkinson (born 6 January 1955) is a British actor, comedian, and screenwriter. He is most famous for his work on the satirical sketch comedy show Not The Nine O'Clock News, and the sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean and The Thin Blue Line. He has been listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest actors in British comedy, and amongst the top 50 comedians ever in a 2005 poll of fellow comedians. He has also had cinematic success with his performances in the Mr. Bean movie adaptations Bean and Mr. Bean's Holiday and in Johnny English and its sequel Johnny English Reborn. He also starred in the film Never Say Never Again (a spy film based on the James Bond novel Thunderball) in 1983.

Atkinson, the youngest of four brothers, was born in Consett, County Durham, England. His parents were Eric Atkinson, a farmer and company director, and Ella May (née Bainbridge), who married on 29 June 1945. His three older brothers were Paul, who died as an infant, Rodney, a Eurosceptic economist who narrowly lost the United Kingdom Independence Party leadership election in 2000, and Rupert. Atkinson was brought up Anglican, and was educated at Durham Choristers School, St. Bees School, and Newcastle University. In 1975, he continued for the degree of MSc in Electrical Engineering at The Queen's College, Oxford, the same college his father matriculated at in 1935, which made Atkinson an Honorary Fellow in 2006. First achieving notice at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1976, while at Oxford, he also acted and performed early sketches for the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), the Oxford Revue and the Experimental Theatre Club (ETC), meeting writer Richard Curtis and composer Howard Goodall, with whom he would continue to collaborate during his career.