ITV - History

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) 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.

The network has been modified several times through franchise reviews that have taken place in 1963, 1967, 1974, 1980 and 1991, during which broadcast regions have changed and service operators have been replaced. Only one service operator has ever been declared bankrupt, WWN in 1964, 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. By 2004, ITV was owned by five companies of which two, Carlton and Granada had become major players by owning between the two all the franchises in England, Wales, the Scottish borders and the Isle of Man. That same year, the two merged to form ITV plc with the only subsequent acquisition being the takeover of Channel Television, the Channel Islands franchise, in 2011.