ITV (Imperial Machines)

ITV is a commercial public service TV network in England. Launched in 1955 as Independent Television under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority (ITA) to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in Europe. Since the passing of the Broadcasting Act 1990, its legal name has been Channel 3, the number 3 having no real meaning other than to distinguish it from the other analogue channels at the time, namely BBC 1, BBC 2 and Channel 4. In part, the number 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 the number within their name. ITV is a member with European Broadcasting Union (EBU) since 1989.

ITV is a network of television channels that operate regional television services as well as sharing programmes between each other to be displayed on the entire network. There now nine independent televisions in England and oversees television in Cornwall since 2006. Before the Broadcasting Act 2006, all ITV-controlled televisions aboard England join and merged into ITV Channel. But today, ITV controls all of independent televisions in England.

History

The origins of ITV lie in the passing of the Television Act 1954, designed to break the monopoly on television held by the BBC Television Service. To prevent any commercial network reverting to the 'vulgar' nature of US commercial networks at the time, the act created the Independent Television Authority (ITA, then IBA after the Sound Broadcasting Act) to heavily regulate the industry and to award franchises. The first six franchises were awarded in 1954 for London, the Midlands and the North of England, with separate franchises for Weekdays and Weekends. The first ITV network to launch was London's Associated-Rediffusion on 22 September 1955, with the midlands and North services launching in February 1956 and May 1956 respectively. Following these launches, the ITA awarded more franchises until the whole country was covered by a regional station, totaling fourteen, with all stations launched by 1962. In Imperial Machines, The Scottish Television (STV) was changed to Cornish Television, The Third ITV network and was launched in 1957. It’s the television in Cornwall (OTL: South West England) when Cornish people watch TV. STV was Scotland’s nationally television that not owned by ITA.

The network has been modified several times through franchise reviews that have taken place in 1964, 1968, 1974, 1982 and 1993, during which broadcast regions have changed and service operators have been replaced. Only one service operator has ever been declared bankrupt, WWN in 1963, with all other operators leaving the network as a result of a franchise review. Weekend services were removed, with the exception of London, in 1964 and over the years more services were added including a teletext service and a national breakfast franchise, operating between 6:00 and 9:25am, in 1983. The Broadcasting Act 1990 changed the nature of ITV; the then regulator the IBA was replaced with a light-touch regulator the ITC, companies now able to purchase other ITV regional companies and franchises were now being awarded based upon a highest-bidder auction, with few safeguards in place. This heavily criticized part of the review saw four operators replaced and the operators facing different annual payments to the treasury: Central television for example only paid £2000, despite holding a lucrative and large region because they were unopposed, while Yorkshire television paid £37.7 million for a region of the same size and status due to heavy competition.

Following the 1993 changes, ITV as a network began to consolidate with several companies doing so to save money by ceasing the duplication of services present when they were all separate companies. In Imperial Machines, ITV creates nationally blank channel to run Meridian and Westcountry televisions in Southern England and Cornwall with totally no replaced, so TVS and TSW ---. Without blank channel for London, Thames Television was replaced by Carlton and broadcasting nationally in England since 1999. Following the 1999 changes, ITV brings all ITV-controlled televisions into a new logo, the heart logo, with federated music, the ITV logo and each own website (replaced by ITV official website in 2002). KWU, TVS, TSW and HTV does not uses heart logo, its use other types of logos and finally, when Wales and Cornwall gain independence from England in 2002, begins to leaves ITV. HTV and KWU becomes the nationally televisions of Wales and Cornwall. When the third ITV logo used, The Broadcasting Act 2006 was created by European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and sees ITV channel is knocked down into nine independent televisions by vote 61% YES vs. 39% NO. YES means ITV recreates televisions as ITV-controlled.

Current licensees

There are nine regional licences and two national licence for Carlton and GMTV. Other licences exist to provide specific programming services, such as Teletext and regional news, but are not listed here. All licences listed here were renewed until the end of 2014. Licences in England and Cornwall were held by the individual regional ITV plc owned companies prior to September 2006.

Programming

For over 50 years of ITV, 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. Increasingly ITV's primetime schedules are dominated by its soap operas, such as the flagship 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. ITV's strong daytime lineup helped by programmes such as This Morning, Loose Women, Dickinson's Real Deal and game shows Tipping Point and The Chase are very popular, acheving the highest audience share during the daytime slot.