ITV London
Encyclopedia
ITV London is the on-air brand name used by ITV Broadcasting Limited for the two Channel 3 broadcast franchises, Carlton Television
Carlton Television
Carlton Television was the ITV franchise holder for London and the surrounding counties including the cities of Solihull and Coventry of the West Midlands, south Suffolk, middle and east Hampshire, Oxfordshire, south Bedfordshire, south Northamptonshire, parts of Herefordshire & Worcestershire,...

 (weekdays) and London Weekend Television
London Weekend Television
London Weekend Television was the name of the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties including south Suffolk, middle and east Hampshire, Oxfordshire, south Bedfordshire, south Northamptonshire, parts of Herefordshire & Worcestershire, Warwickshire, east Dorset and...

 (weekends) in the London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

 region.

History

ITV London was formed on 28 October 2002 as a unified on-screen brand for both of the Carlton and LWT franchises, running on Weekdays and Weekends respectively. It replaced the unique branding used by both franchisees with a unified service, offering the same service and news all week round. Legally, both franchises remained separate, however are run by the same operating board and from the same facilities.

ITV London is also unique in that it supplies the network feed for the other franchises and is the sole alternative ITV region to Sky Digital customers. This service, available on channel 993, is so that audio description
Audio description
Audio description refers to an additional narration track for blind and visually impaired consumers of visual media...

 services, which are only carried on the London variant on satellite, are readily available to all viewers. Other regional variants are available by searching, however the region is the only one to be given an exclusive EPG slot.

Studios

ITV London is based at The London Studios
The London Studios
The London Studios is a television studio complex which is owned by London Weekend Television and has been home to the London Weekend ITV provider since 1972...

, on the south bank of the River Thames
River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...

, the former home of Weekend franchiseLondon Weekend Television
London Weekend Television
London Weekend Television was the name of the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties including south Suffolk, middle and east Hampshire, Oxfordshire, south Bedfordshire, south Northamptonshire, parts of Herefordshire & Worcestershire, Warwickshire, east Dorset and...

. The centre was chosen due to both companies presence in the centre; Carlton having leased space within the facility, alongside GMTV
GMTV
GMTV was the national Channel 3 breakfast television contractor, broadcasting in the United Kingdom from 1 January 1993 to 3 September 2010. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of ITV plc. in November 2009. Shortly after, ITV plc announced the programme would end...

, since 1993. The contracted news service London News Network
London News Network
London News Network was a television news and facilities organisation in London. It was created in 1992 as a joint operation between London's two ITV contractors, Carlton Television and London Weekend Television, with each company holding a 50% stake...

 was also based, recorded and broadcast from the centre.

Identity

The services' on-screen identity has been generic throughout its existence, and has used no on-screen branding to identify it as ITV London. Since launch, the region has seen the plain generic idents seen by the rest of the country, without any regional variance identifying it as London; the other regions at this time received a regional ident with the region name below the ITV1
ITV1
ITV1 is a generic brand that is used by twelve franchises of the British ITV Network in the English regions, Wales, southern Scotland , the Isle of Man and the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey. The ITV1 brand was introduced by Carlton and Granada in 2001, alongside the regional identities of their...

 Logo. Any reference to the service being in London is made in the voiceover alone, or through the programme titles, such as London Tonight.

Some identity remained on the regional programming end boards however, as each company still produced programmes for the region: Carlton used a red and orange version of their star idents used prior to 2002 with the caption A Carlton Production, with For London added for regional programming, while LWT used a generic purple caption with their logo added into the background. The LWT logo was also laid out in a purple box clearly at the top, with the caption An LWT Production beneath and the Granada plc logo at the bottom. These endboards lasted until 2 February 2004, when ITV plc
ITV plc
ITV plc is a British media company that operates 12 of the 15 regional television broadcasters that make up the ITV Network, the oldest and largest commercial terrestrial television network in the United Kingdom...

 was formed and both regional captions were replaced by a generic ITV London logo and An ITV Production caption against a blue squared background. This was replaced by Granada London caption for productions in 2005, before being rebranded as ITV Productions in 2006 and subsequently ITV Studios
ITV Studios
ITV Studios is a television production company owned by the British television network ITV. It not only makes programmes primarily for its parent company, but also for other networks...

 in 2009.

Today, the only distinction between the two original regions on-screen is that local weather forecasts broadcast from Friday night to Sunday is branded as London Weekend Weather, and is sponsored by a different company to the weekday forecasts.

Productions

ITV London itself doesn't make any programmes, as all productions were completed by external companies, Carlton, LWT or London News Network. The News and Sport for the region continued to be provided by LNN until 1 March 2004, when ITN took over production of London Tonight
London Tonight
London Tonight is a regional news programme broadcast on ITV London . Produced by ITN, the programme is broadcast at 6pm every weeknight, also including local sports news and local features of interest.Like all regional news programmes on ITV in England and Wales and Channel Television, it uses...

, resulting in the move of the programme from The London Studios to ITN's headquarters at Gray's Inn Road
Gray's Inn Road
Gray's Inn Road, formerly Gray's Inn Lane, is a major road in central London, in the London Borough of Camden. It is named after Gray's Inn, one of the main Inns of Court. The road starts in Holborn, near Chancery Lane tube station and the boundaries of the City of London and the London Borough...

. Other regional programmes continued to be produced for the region by the two legal franchises, Carlton and LWT, and the companies were accredited at the end of the production until 2004, when it was replaced by a ITV London caption for both companies following the ITV plc
ITV plc
ITV plc is a British media company that operates 12 of the 15 regional television broadcasters that make up the ITV Network, the oldest and largest commercial terrestrial television network in the United Kingdom...

merger.
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