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ITV
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ITV (Independent Television) is a public service 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 network in the UK. Since 1990 and the Broadcasting Act 1990, its legal name has been Channel 3, the number 3 having no real meaning other than to distinguish it from BBC One, BBC Two and Channel 4 - prior to this, the network had no legal overall name.
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ITV (Independent Television) is a public service 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 network in the UK. Since 1990 and the Broadcasting Act 1990, its legal name has been Channel 3, the number 3 having no real meaning other than to distinguish it from BBC One, BBC Two and Channel 4 - prior to this, the network had no legal overall name. In part, 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 that of the number their name contained.
ITV is to be distinguished from ITV plc, the company that resulted from the merger of Granada plc and Carlton Communications in 2004 and which owns all of the Channel 3 broadcasting licences in England, Wales, the Scottish/English Border and the Isle of Man. Similarly ITV1 is the brand used by ITV plc for the Channel 3 service in these areas, with STV and UTV using their own brands in their own respective areas (North and Central Scotland and Northern Ireland).
Organisation
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, and two franchises for London, for a weekday service and a weekend service. The licences were last put out to full tender in 1991, since then they have been renewed on a rolling basis.
In addition to ITV plc as mentioned above, central and northern Scotland are served by STV Group plc, the owner of the two franchises completely within Scotland, (branded as STV), Northern Ireland is served by UTV, under that name, whilst the Channel Islands are served by Channel Television, Ltd., also under the name ITV1. In the Republic of Ireland ITV plc formerly had a 45% share in the television station TV3, which shows many ITV shows such as The X Factor and Hells Kitchen. This was sold in 2007, but the programming supply agreement continues. UTV is also available in the vast majority of homes in the country in any case.
Additionally, Channel 3 has since 1983 included a national breakfast franchise, currently held by GMTV, and has a national contractual teletext provider.
National teletext provider
The Public Teletext Licence allows the holder to broadcast a text-based information service around the clock on Channel 3 (as well as Channel 4 and S4C) frequencies. Teletext on ITV had been provided since 1974 by ORACLE, and since 1993 is provided by Teletext Ltd., whose news, sport and TV listings pages rival that of the BBC's television offering, Ceefax on terrestrial and BBC Red Button on digital. Teletext Ltd. also provides digital teletext for the Channel 3 services, as well as the text output for both Channel 4 and S4C (which is covered under the same licence) and Five (under a separate licence).
Digital Channel 3
Since 1998, each of the Channel 3 franchises have received gifted capacity on digital terrestrial television (DTT). As per the original agreement, each regional ITV contractor broadcasts its Channel 3 service from 9:25am to 6:00am daily, with the breakfast operator broadcasting in the remaining hours. However, unlike analogue broadcasts, the assigned capacity across DTT is able to carry multiple television services which, like Channel 3, are broadcast by the regional franchisee between the hours of 9:25am and 6:00am, with the breakfast contractor operating between 6:00am and 9:25am.
At present, all franchisees opt to broadcast ITV plc-owned channels, being ITV2, ITV3, ITV4 and the CITV Channel, as opposed to broadcasting their own. Up until 2002, UTV in Northern Ireland ran a service known as UTV2, while both Scottish and Grampian ran S2. The breakfast operator, currently GMTV, is obliged to broadcast between the hours of 6:00 and 9:25am daily. Alongside the Channel 3 GMTV service, GMTV also broadcasts GMTV2, which is broadcast on the same capacity as ITV2 and the CITV Channel. The company also holds a third GMTV3 licence however it currently sells this gifted capacity to ITV plc to broadcast ITV3 24 hours a day. ITV is available all across the UK and is also available in the Rep. of Ireland on free to air and Digital satellite.
Channel 3 shares its space with Channel 4 on Multiplex 2, known as Digital 3&4.
Public service broadcasting
The right granted by Ofcom of Channel 3's nationally-available status on both analogue and digital television comes with responsibility, in the form of public service broadcasting. Alongside the BBC, Channel 4 and Five, the members of the ITV Network and GMTV all have a responsibility to broadcast various programming of public importance on their analogue stations. 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.
Much of the originated networked programme output (around 50%, but previously up to 65% according to some reports) is contributed by ITV Productions, the production arm of ITV plc (consisting of the consolidated regional companies' network production departments), although a growing number of programmes are commissioned by the Network from independents (a minimum of 25% of total output, as stipulated by the 1990 Broadcasting Act). 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 productions.
Licence details
The table below lists current Channel 3 regional and national licences and the licence holder.
Licenses in England and Wales were held by individual regional ITV plc owned companies prior to November 2008.
- ITV1 on air branding is used overnight
- Up to 1968, the service for a single Northern area consisting of both the current North West region and most of the current Yorkshire region was provided by Granada Television for Monday to Friday and by ABC Television for weekends.
- Up to 1968, the service for the Midlands region was provided by Associated Television for Monday to Friday and by ABC Television for weekends.
- "Anglia Television Limited", which had provided the service since 1959, had its name changed to "ITV Broadcasting Limited" on December 29th, 2006.
- CITV branding is also used for children's output at the weekend and on digital services.
History
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. The 1990s saw the number of broadcasters drop dramatically, for instance in 1992, Yorkshire Television acquired Tyne Tees Television, only for this entity to merge with Granada Television in 1997. A similar process happened with the Southern Regions, leaving Carlton Television and Granada Television as the two major players, until the failure of ITV Digital saw these two merge.
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 network's 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. News at Ten was brought back in January 2008, with just 3.8 million viewers compared to 4.9 million viewers who watched the BBC News at Ten.
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. However its long-standing commitment to strong current affairs programming has diminished with the ending of productions such as World in Action (Granada), This Week (Rediffusion/Thames), First Tuesday (Yorkshire Television) and Weekend World (LWT) and their replacement with populist shows such as Tonight.
The threat to "Channel 3" advertising revenues has also led franchisees to increasingly diversify 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 ITV2,3 and 4. 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.
Programmes
For over 50 years of Independent Television, 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?.
Increasingly ITV's primetime schedules are dominated by its soap operas, such as Coronation Street, Emmerdale, and popular cop drama The Bill (produced by TalkbackThames). 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 The Sex Education Show.
Since then, ITV has struggled to regain viewers' trust, as inexpensive programming has not paid dividends. ITV plc have been working to restore this, as the major provider of programming.
News
National and International
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 10:00pm.
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 and STV regions by a more features-based programme at 5:30pm), as well as other local features and sport programming.
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 motorsport, rugby, and other sports. The channel won the rights to broadcast The Boat Race in 2004.
On 30 March 2007 The Football Association confirmed that it had agreed a new four-year £425m television deal for ITV and Setanta Sports to show FA Cup and England international matches (the Scottish regional broadcaster,STV, replaces these games with regular programming). The deal with the FA represents a 42% increase on the existing deal with the BBC and BSkyB.
Children's
The network broadcasts children's programming under the CITV (Children's ITV) strand. Children's programming is broadcast across the network on weekend mornings. Children's programmes were removed from the ITV line-up in 2007, a move which was challenged by Ofcom in April 2007. In 2006, ITV plc launched their own Children's channel under the CITV brand.
The future
ITV plc
On 12 September 2007, ITV plc announced a major five-year restructuring plan targeting entertainment as their top priority to bring to the ITV networks. A major overhaul of the regional structure of ITV was also proposed. The proposals would see a reduction of ITV plc's regional news programmes in England and Wales, with regions now broadcasting one service per region rather than multiple tailored local services (for example: Yorkshire Television would no longer broadcast separate Northern and Southern regions). The proposed changes would also fully merge Border Television with Tyne Tees Television and HTV West with Westcountry Television, effectively ending two regions' tenure as independent players within ITV. Any changes would be subject to full approval by Ofcom. Major changes started on the regional news service on 9 February 2009 the Meridian regional news service combined into one programme combining the Meridian Tonight South East edition with the South and also incorporating Thames Valley Tonight into one programme for the three regions.
There would be a certain amount of expansion elsewhere—ITV Network Limited currently commissions around 54% of its programmes from ITV plc's in-house production units. ITV plc hope for this to be increased to the maximum 75% allowed by the regulators over the coming years.
Future franchise rounds
It is generally unknown if there will be any further franchise rounds held by Ofcom; the last was in 1993. Carlton Television (now part of ITV plc) had its licence renewed without a contest in 2004, and UTV's expires on 31 December 2014. If there is no franchise round by 2009, it will be the longest ITV has gone with the same contractors.
See also
External links
The ITV companies
Unofficial sites about ITV
- — a British communications history website
- — a history of ITV
- — focusing on television in Southern England
- — a site about ITV in Wales and the West of England
- — about the North East England broadcaster
- — British and Irish television presentation
- London Frontline Club, May 2008.
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