ITV1 - Independent Television - ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, CITV, Men & Motors, ITV HD

ITV1

ITV1 is the generic brand used by twelve franchises of the ITV Network in England, Wales, the Scottish Borders, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. The ITV1 brand was introduced by Carlton and Granada in 2001, alongside the regional identities of their eleven regional companies.
ITV1 replaced these regional brands completely in October 2002, before Granada and Carlton merged to form ITV plc in 2004. The brand is also used by the non-ITV plc owned Channel Television.
The ITV1 brand, however, should be distinguished from the UK-wide ITV, of which ITV1 forms a large proportion.

History of ITV

Following the creation of the Television Act in 1954, the establishment of a commercial television service in the UK began.
The "Independent Television" service was made up of regions, with each region run by different companies. The three largest regions (London, the Midlands and the North of England) were subdivided into weekday and weekend services, with a different company running each. ITV existed in a region-heavy form from its inception to the 2000s, although the switch was gradual.

ITV1 became the generic on-screen brand name used by the twelve franchises of the ITV Network in the United Kingdom. The brand was introduced in 2001 by Carlton- and Granada-owned franchises, initially used alongside the local regional name. However, it became the sole on-air identity in 2002 when the two companies decided to create a single unified playout of the channel, with regional references only used prior to regional programming. Carlton and Granada went on to merge in 2004, creating ITV plc which now owns eleven of the fifteen regional ITV licences.
The ITV1 name was only used in England, Wales, Southern Scotland and Isle of Man until Channel Television adopted the name in January 2006, bringing it to the Channel Islands.
It should be noted, however, that as national continuity is often used on Channel Television, ITV1 national branding had been seen on the station for several years previously.
The franchises that use the ITV1 brand are Anglia Television, Border Television, Carlton Television, Central Independent Television, Channel Television, Granada Television, HTV, London Weekend Television, Meridian Broadcasting, Tyne Tees Television, Westcountry Television and Yorkshire Television.

HTV is the only exception using the name ITV1 Wales at all times for the Welsh part of its broadcast area, as it has a higher regional commitment. Non ITV plc-owned franchises on the network generally do not refer to the ITV1 name.
The companies which represent ITV1 produce programming under the ITV Productions and Granada brands.

ITV plc Chairman Michael Grade announced a significant revamp for ITV1 in 2007. The first changes began in January 2008 with a new line-up as well as the revival of News At Ten with Sir Trevor McDonald.
High definition broadcasts from ITV1 launched on digital satellite in June 2008, ITV plc confirmed on 12 September 2007. ITV HD is exclusively available on Freesat, a joint free-to-view satellite TV venture between ITV and the BBC. ITV plans to spend £10m during 2008 on the launch of ITV1 HD.

ITV1 Programming

ITV1 offers a broad range of daytime programming including their flagship daytime show, This Morning, CITV and The Price Is Right.
Early evening is dominated by soap operas, with the long running Coronation Street, Emmerdale, and police drama The Bill. Late evening is often used to broadcast original British drama, typically of the murder mystery or romance genre.
ITV1 produces relatively little comedy when compared to its terrestrial rivals, however shows such as 2DTV, Harry Hill's TV Burp and Monkey Trousers are recent exceptions.
ITV1 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 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.
ITV1 has a full news service. The channel is required under the Broadcasting Act 1990 to put its news contract out to a nominated news provider. Since the channel's opening, Independent Television News Limited has held the contract. News bulletins are broadcast at 5:30am, 1:30pm, 6:30pm, and 10:30pm.
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. The regional programmes in England and Wales have however been drastically reduced in recent years. See the separate articles on each ITV regional company for details of what programmes they provide.

Organization

Unlike practically all other TV channels in the United Kingdom, ITV1 is not owned by one single company, although it has come close in recent years.
The UK Office of Communications (Ofcom) licences fifteen companies to provide regional Channel 3 services in various areas of Britain, 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.
All the companies 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.
In practical terms, ITV plc, which owns eleven of the fifteen licences (all except Scottish Television, Grampian Television both now known as stv, UTV, Channel Television and GMTV (which it still partially owns) dominates the system nowadays.

ITV1 Licences

Area	Franchise holder	Ultimate owner	On-air name
Central Scotland	Scottish Television	SMG plc	stv
North Scotland	Grampian Television	SMG plc	stv
Northern Ireland	UTV plc	UTV plc	UTV
Scotland/England border and Isle of Man	Border Television	ITV plc	ITV1 Border
North East England	Tyne Tees Television	ITV plc	ITV1 Tyne Tees
Yorkshire and Lincolnshire	Yorkshire Television	ITV plc	ITV1 Yorkshire
North West England	Granada Television	ITV plc	ITV1 Granada²
Wales and the West of England	HTV Group plc	ITV plc	ITV1 Wales¹/ ITV1 West
The Midlands	Central Independent TV	ITV plc	ITV1 Central
East Anglia	Anglia Television	ITV plc	ITV1 Anglia
London Weekday	Carlton Television	ITV plc	ITV1 London
London Weekend	London Weekend TV	ITV plc	ITV1 London
South and South East England	Meridian Broadcasting	ITV plc	ITV1 Meridian
South West England	Westcountry Television	ITV plc	ITV1 Westcountry
The Channel Islands	Channel Television	Channel Television	ITV1 Channel TV
National breakfast time	GMTV	ITV plc / The Walt Disney	GMTV

On 6 June 2006, ITV plc announced they would be merging the network's two smallest sub-regions, Central South and Meridian's Thames Valley sub-region to create a new entity, expected to be called ITV Thames Valley from 4 December 2006. The move would axe 20 jobs from Central South's studios, but would increase the number of regional programmes within the network from 16 to 17. As a result, ITV West's coverage area would be increased to serve the areas of Gloucester and Cheltenham.

Name & Branding

From its founding in 1955 the channel was known nationally as Independent Television (later ITV) and locally by the regional branding of the local ITV franchise operator. (For the history of the channel, see the main ITV article).
Up until 1989, only the local regional name would regularly be seen on-air however.

In 1989, the network introduced dual branding on-air for the first time, with a common ident featuring the ITV logo designed for all the stations, although in the event less than half of them used it. Under dual-branding, the ITV name and logo was used alongside the existing regional name and logo. In 1998, a new ITV logo was launched and in 1999, a second common ident (once again using dual-branding) was launched, under the theme, "TV From The Heart".
This was used by most stations in England and Wales, although the stations owned by Carlton used a different package with the same "heart" theme, but with the Carlton branding more prominent.
The network was renamed ITV1 on 11 August 2001, with the increased uptake of digital TV and the existence of ITV2. Initially this entailed re-edits of the existing dual-branded idents.
However from 28 October 2002, in England and the Scottish Borders (where all the franchises are owned by ITV plc), the station dropped regional branding and identification before most programming and adopted a unified national branding of ITV1. In Wales, although the HTV name has been dropped, some "local" identification remains in the form of ITV1 Wales. At this time all regional continuity announcers were replaced with a team of six ITV Network Continuity Announcers. Since the re-brand of 2006, that team has been reduced to just four.

Local programmes are often preceded in England by ITV1 (Region Name) outside of London, e.g. ITV1 Central or ITV1 Tyne Tees. However, the process of consolidation within the ITV plc company means that these names are themselves being phased out, with, for example, Tyne Tees productions increasingly seen credited to ITV Yorkshire.

Wales, Scotland (with the exception of the Borders) and Northern Ireland have different branding on the channel, reflecting the national audiences they serve. In Wales, the local licensee, HTV (also owned by ITV plc) broadcasts under the name "ITV1 Wales". In the Scottish Television (Central Scotland) and Grampian Television (Northern Scotland) regions the channel is known as stv, and UTV (Northern Ireland) uses the name UTV before all programmes. None of these licensees are owned by ITV plc.On 1 November 2005, the channel adopted a new on-air look to coincide with the launch of ITV4.
The new look was designed mainly to improve cross-channel promotion across the ITV network. Another entirely new logo was introduced in early 2006, bringing ITV1, ITV2 and ITV3 in line with ITV4's. The new look had already been spotted on various billboard ads in the UK when the new identity was first used on-screen on 16 January 2006.
On 13 November 2006, six new idents were added, the theme being "alive with colour". The initial set consisted of Basketball, Beach, Bike, Lake, Market and Pavement Art. They were created by Blink Productions for ITV, unlike the old idents which were masterminded by Red Bee (previously BBC Broadcast). The logo remained the same in essence, only the 'itv' lettering was inverted from its previous white state to black, to allow it to stand out against the yellow more.