Carlton Television

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Carlton Television was the United Kingdom Channel 3 (ITV) licensee for London and the surrounding areas from 9:25am every Monday to 5.15pm every Friday (and still is, for legal formalities; see below). It is now a part of ITV plc and managed with London Weekend Television as a single entity, ITV London. Major programmes include London Tonight, The London Programme and London Soccer Night.

Carlton was also the ITV licencee for Central England and Westcountry, after successfully taking over Central Independent Television in 1994 and Westcountry Television in 1996. The regional identities of the two regions, carried on as normal until 1999, when Carlton rebranded the two of them as "Carlton Central" and "Carlton Westcountry", instantly killing off the regionality of the two. Prior to that, Carlton also axed Central's "Cake" idents, which had run since 1985, and replaced them with Carlton idents almost identical to those seen on Carlton London, but still branded as Central.

Contents

1 History
2 ITV London
3 Multi-Channel Carlton
4 External links

History

Carlton Television was originally a company set up by Michael Green's Carlton Communications to bid for an ITV franchise. Having failed to oust Thames Television from its London weekday slot in 1987, Carlton finally succeeded in the 1991/92 round for reasons that were seen as political.

Rather than acquiring its own studio complex, Carlton hired space from London Weekend Television and took over from Thames at midnight on January 1, 1993. Unlike Thames (which was both a production company and a broadcaster, and following a merger, continues to produce programmes as TalkBack Thames), Carlton has always commissioned programming from independent production companies.

In recent years, changes in rules concerning media ownership enabled Carlton to buy out many of the other ITV stations, including Central Independent Television, Westcountry, and it also acquired HTV via Granada, as well as the rights to the archives of ITC Entertainment and its former sister company ATV, and the Rank film archive. HTV was the only region owned by Carlton to escape their branding. Both "HTV West" and "HTV Wales" stayed with their then-current idents, but replaced the animated sequence with those used by the Carlton regions, in 2001.

The ITC archive is particularly lucrative since it includes such popular shows as Thunderbirds, The Prisoner, The Saint and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (original version), as well as feature films that include The Return Of The Pink Panther, On Golden Pond, and Capricorn One. Many Rank Organisation films are also part of the Carlton library. Carlton has released much of this material on video and DVD via its own label in the UK, and via A & E Home Video, MGM Home Entertainment, and Lions Gate Home Entertaiment in the USA.

In September 2002, ITV made the drastic decision to axe all regional idents, continuity and branding from all franchises, except prior to regional programming (the same arrangement is still happening today), as Carlton and Granada now owned all franchises in England and Wales. However, unlike Granada Media Group regions, Carlton, ever proud of its growing logo, used dual-branding on its regional idents with the Carlton logo. Other regions just used text under the ITV1 logo, but this went on until 2003 when Carlton adopted the practice, resulting in the brands "ITV1 for Central England", "ITV1 for the West of England" and "ITV1 for the Westcountry".

On 2 February 2004 Carlton Communications plc merged with Granada plc, creating ITV plc. ITV plc owns all of the ITV franchises in England and Wales. (Wales still uses its own on-screen identity as ITV1 Wales but now also uses English ITV1 continuity.) In addition, Carlton Video became part of Granada Ventures, and two of the Carlton ITV regions were reverted back to their previous names, i.e. ITV1 Central and ITV1 Westcountry, used prior to regional programming in their respective areas.

ITV London

Since 28 October 2002, Carlton Television (in common with all the other ITV companies, except Scottish Television, Grampian Television and Ulster Television) has been known on air simply as ITV1 (London). Unlike London Weekend Television, Carlton Television did not note the last day (25/10/02) of its regional identity on-air. However, the Carlton brand continued to be seen on production captions until 2004. Since Carlton and London Weekend Television now use identical presentation and logos, the division between the London weekday and weekend franchises is now invisible, although the old LWT, now ITV1 (London Weekends), does have "London Weekend Weather" which is sponsored by a different company to the weekday weather.

With the merger of Carlton and Granada, Carlton Television and LWT are now run as a single entity (ITV London), with a single management team appointed to both companies. Both continue to have a separate legal existence however, and still have separate licences, although this is now just a formality.

However, after January 16 2006, all programmes produced by Carlton or any other ITV Plc- owned region are branded by ITV Productions. Prior to this, ITV regions were still allowed to add their own endcap to a programme (except LWT, which was branded Granada London from 2004). This means that there is no distinction between which programmes are made by Carlton, LWT or any other ITV company.

Multi-Channel Carlton

Between 1997 and 2003, Carlton owned a number of extra channels, carried initially on analogue cable but later, their flagship platform, ONdigital and some even made it to Sky Digital. The first channels to close were in 2000, and all five were closed by 2003. Most were closed due to cost and lack of viewing figures. They all timeshared on three EPG positions. Carlton Food Network and Carlton Select shared a channel, and Carlton Kids, Carlton World and another channel named RAW! shared the second. Carlton Cinema had a slot of its own on all platforms.

Carlton Cinema

Carlton Cinema was the Carlton channel which shown classic movies, but also cartoons unusually. Ceased transmission in 2003.

Carlton Food Network

Carlton Food Network was the Carlton channel devoted to cookery, and timeshared with Carlton Select. Re-branded Taste CFN, and ceased transmission in late 2001.

Carlton Select

Carlton Select was the main entertainment channel from Carlton, and broadcast both in the UK and Africa. Timeshared with Carlton Food Network. Ceased transmission in 2000.

Carlton World

Carlton World was a general entertainment channel broadcast in the evenings, with sister Carlton Kids broadcast in the daytime. Ceased transmission in 2000.

Carlton Kids

Carlton Kids was a children's channel and shown most of Carlton's children's imports, and programming from Carlton's regions. Timeshared with Carlton World, and ceased transmission in 2000.

External links

ITV
British television | Channels

Regions North Scotland: Grampian Television | Central Scotland: Scottish Television | Scottish/English Border: Border
North and North West England: ABC, Granada | North East England: Tyne Tees | Yorkshire: Yorkshire | Northern Ireland: UTV
Wales and the West of England: TWW, WWN, ITSWW, HTV | Midlands: ATV, ABC, Central | East Anglia: Anglia
London: Rediffusion, ATV, Thames, LWT, Carlton | Southern England: Southern, TVS, Meridian
South West England: Westward, TSW, Westcountry | Channel Islands: Channel Television

Breakfast: TV-am, GMTV | Teletext: ORACLE, Teletext Ltd.
News: ITN, ITV News Sport: ITV Sport

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