ITV

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ITV (Independent Television)
Launched	September 22, 1955
Owned by	ITV Network Limited (consisting of ITV plc, SMG plc, UTV plc, Channel Television, Ltd.)
Audience share	19.7% (February '07, [1])
Slogan	"Get Ready" (1989)
Country	United Kingdom
Website	www.itv.com
Availability
Terrestrial
UK analogue	Normally tuned to 3
Freeview	Channel 3
Satellite
Sky Digital	Channel 103
SES Astra	Channel 13
Cable
Virgin Media	Channel 103
NTL Ireland	Channel 107
Chorus Digital (Republic of Ireland)	Channel 7

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. ITV is the oldest commercial television offering in the UK.

In England, Wales, Scottish/English Border and Isle of Man, 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.

Contents 1 Organisation 2 History 3 Future 4 Programmes 4.1 News 4.1.1 National and International 4.1.2 Regional 4.2 Sport 4.3 Children's 5 References 6 See also 7 External links 7.1 The ITV companies 7.2 Unofficial sites about ITV

[edit] Organisation

The correct legal name for the whole network is Channel 3, however, in practice this name is never actually used outside of legal contexts. The term Channel 3 was first introduced for the Channel 3 Licences granted under the Broadcasting Act 1990. Prior to this, the channel had no legal overall name, but was usually collectively referred to, both by the contractors themselves, as well as their regulator, the Independent Broadcasting Authority, as Independent Television (hence the name ITV).

Unlike practically all other TV channels in the United Kingdom, ITV is not owned by one single company, although it has come close in recent years. Ofcom licences fifteen companies to provide regional Channel 3 services in various areas of the UK, with a separate franchise for the national breakfast service between 6:00am and 9:25am. The licences were last put out to full tender in 1991, since then they have been renewed on a rolling basis.

An ITV franchise is guaranteed universal availability in its coverage area, and half of Multiplex 2 on the UK's digital terrestrial television system (commonly known as Freeview). In return for this Ofcom obliges franchisees, as part of their licence to fulfil various public service commitments. 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 not-for-profit body. It is this body that commissions programmes for the network, and schedules the network programming. However, in practice ITV plc, which owns eleven of the fifteen licences, dominates the system.

Networked programmes are mostly contributed by the regional companies although some are commissioned by the Network from independents. 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 independent programme-making.

The table below lists current franchises and the franchise holder.

Franchise Area	Franchise holder	Franchise held since	Ultimate owner	On-air name
Regional Franchises
Central Scotland	Scottish Television Ltd	1957	SMG plc	STV
Northern Scotland	Grampian Television Ltd	1961	SMG plc	STV
Northern Ireland	UTV plc	1959	UTV plc	UTV1
The Channel Islands	Channel Television Ltd	1962	Yattendon Investment Trust	ITV1 Channel Television2
English-Scottish border and Isle of Man	Border Television Ltd	1961	ITV plc	ITV1 Border2
North East England	Tyne Tees Television Ltd	1958	ITV plc	ITV1 Tyne Tees2
Yorkshire and Lincolnshire	Yorkshire Television Ltd	1968	ITV plc	ITV1 Yorkshire2
North West England	Granada Television Ltd	1968	ITV plc	ITV1 Granada2
Wales and the West of England	HTV Group plc (Harlech Television)	1968	ITV plc	ITV1 Wales1/ ITV1 West2
The Midlands	Central Independent Television Ltd	1982	ITV plc	ITV1 Central2/ ITV1 Thames Valley2
East of England	Anglia Television Ltd	1959	ITV plc	ITV1 Anglia2
London Weekday	Carlton Television Ltd	1993	ITV plc	ITV1 London (Weekdays)2
London Weekend	London Weekend Television Ltd	1968	ITV plc	ITV1 London (Weekends)2
South and South East England	Meridian Broadcasting	1993	ITV plc	ITV1 Meridian2/ ITV1 Thames Valley2
South West England	Westcountry Television	1993	ITV plc	ITV1 Westcountry2
National Franchises
National breakfast time	GMTV Ltd	1993	ITV plc (75%)/ The Walt Disney Company (25%)	GMTV/ CITV
National teletext service	Teletext Ltd.	1993	DMGT	Teletext

1. ITV1 Branding is used overnight
2. Branding is usually just "ITV1"

[edit] History

Main article: History of ITV

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 refranchising rounds which occurred in 1964, 1968, 1974, 1982, and 1993. These rounds saw regions and franchise areas reshaped and franchise 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.

[edit] Future

With more channels to choose from, digital television is increasingly putting pressure on the ITV network's ratings and advertising revenues. This has led a number of requests by franchisees to reduce the networks public service commitments. For example, most recently, ITV has shown interest in reducing its children's output. Critics of the broadcaster have also pointed to the reduction in commitment to regional programming and presentation.

Perhaps the most controversial change was the scrapping of the flagship late evening news programme, News at Ten in 1999, replacing it with a later, irregular scheduled and shorter news bulletin. ITV argued that the move would enable it to make the evening schedule more diverse and flexible, allowing them to show feature length films without a news break.

Such actions on the part of ITV together with a move to more populist programming has led to many commentators to accuse ITV of 'dumbing down'. In its defence, ITV does continue to show its major strengths in the fields of sports coverage and drama productions, and the production of 'high-brow' programming such as The South Bank Show has continued.

The threat to "Channel 3" advertising revenues has also led franchisees to increasingly diversifiy their businesses. Most notably, ITV plc owns five additional digital-only television channels, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, CITV Channel and Men & Motors, and also time-shift channels of ITV2 and 3. This diversification has also led to numerous notable failures such as ITV Digital in 2002, which was owned by ITV plc's predecessors Carlton and Granada.

In January 2007 ITV announced a revamp of its website to include VoD services along with a variety of user content and the integration of it Friends Reunited service.

In March 2007, the ITV Play Channel was axed, as it was not profitable as a standalone service, also with the ongoing present situation with premium telephone competitions which are affecting all the national broadcasters (BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five). The ITV Play branding continues on some of the shows broadcast on ITV1 and ITV2. The company are planning on replacing the channel with a movie channel.

[edit] 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 franchisee) and Celador, producers of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?. Increasingly ITV's primetime schedules are dominated by its soap operas, such as Coronation Street, Emmerdale, and The Bill.

[edit] News

[edit] National and International

Main article: ITV News

Since the network started Independent Television News Limited has held the contract to produce news for the ITV Network. News bulletins are broadcast at 5:30am, 1:30pm, 6:30pm, and 10:30pm.

[edit] Regional

The regional ITV companies provide local programmes tailored for the regional audiences. All the ITV companies provide a main local bulletin at 6pm (preceded in the UTV region by a more features-based programme at 5:30pm), as well as other local features and sport programming. Both news and regional programming for the ITV Plc regions will be made available online during 2007 through the ITV Local VOD broadband initiative.

[edit] Sport

Main article: ITV 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 Formula 1 racing and other motorsport, rugby, and other sports. The channel won the rights to broadcast The Boat Race in 2004.The

Football Association is expected to confirm that it has agreed a new four-year £400m-plus television deal for ITV and Setanta Sports to show FA Cup and England international matches.

The contract, which will begin in August 2008, is said to be worth £100m more than the existing deal with the BBC and BSkyB.

[edit] Children's

Main article: CITV

The network broadcasts childrens' programming under the CITV (Children's ITV) strand. Children's programming is broadcast across the network on Monday to Friday afternoons and on Saturday morning. In March 2006 ITV launched the CITV Channel, which is accessible by Sky, Virgin Media and Freeview, it shows all of the childrens programmes from 6am to 6pm everyday.

[edit] References

mediahag.blogspot.com

[edit] See also

• List of ITV channels
• List of British television channels

[edit] External links

[edit] The ITV companies

• ITV homepage at itv.com
• ITV plc at itv.com
• itvlocal.com
• channeltv.co.uk, channelonline.tv
• smg.plc.uk, stv.tv
• utvplc.com, u.tv
• GM.TV

[edit] 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
• The Ultimate LWT Website — The history of London Weekend Television and downloadable video clips