Yorkshire Television (1776: The United Commonwealth of America)

Yorkshire Television, sometimes abbreviated to YTV or Yorkshire, is the British television service that provides programmes for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV network. As of 2015, the license for Yorkshire Television is owned by ITV plc, under the license name of Yorkshire Television Limited. Until 1974, this was primarily the historic county of Yorkshire and parts of neighbouring counties served by the Emley Moor and Bilsdale transmitting station transmitters. Following a re-organisation in 1974 the transmission area was extended to include Humberside, Lincolnshire, northwestern Norfolk and parts of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, served by the Belmont transmitter, but lost the far north of Yorkshire served by the Bilsdale transmitter which covered Tyne Tees Television.

Two consortia applied for the franchise, Telefusion Yorkshire Ltd and Yorkshire Independent Television, the former having large financial backing (supported by the Blackpool-based Telefusion television rental chain) and the latter having the better plans but fewer resources.