ITV1
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ITV1 is a terrestrial, free-to-air television channel broadcast in the United Kingdom by the ITV network. The channel is the oldest and most popular commercial television channel in the country.
Together with GMTV and the channel's Teletext service, Analogue ITV1 forms part of what is officially referred to as Channel 3.
This article deals with the ITV1 channel as it is broadcast at present. For information on the long history of the channel, see the separate article, ITV.
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.ITV1 covers many popular sports. The channel emphasises coverage of football (it holds the UK terrestrial rights to the UEFA Champions League). It also covers Formula 1 racing, rugby, and other sports.
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, 12:30pm, 6:30pm, and 10:30pm. For more details on ITV News, see the separate article on ITN.
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. These regional programmes have however been drastically reduced in recent years. See the separate articles on each ITV regional company for details of what programmes they provide.
As of early next year, ITV1 will show the US drama Six Degrees. This will be the first US import to air on the network during prime-time in nine years.
Organisation
Until the end of 2006 unlike practically all other TV channels in the United Kingdom, ITV1 was 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 known as stv, UTV, Channel Television and GMTV (which it still partially owns) dominates the system nowadays. Starting on 1 January 2007 ITV plc will operate the ITV Network.#redirect [[Template:Fact]]
Current franchise holders
The following companies hold the licences that make up the ITV network:
| Area | Franchise holder | Ultimate owner | On-air name |
|---|---|---|---|
| Central Scotland | Scottish Television Ltd | SMG plc | stv |
| North Scotland | Grampian Television Ltd | SMG plc | stv |
| Northern Ireland | UTV plc | UTV plc | UTV1 |
| Scotland/England border and Isle of Man | Border Television Ltd | ITV plc | ITV1 Border2 |
| North East England | Tyne Tees Television Ltd | ITV plc | ITV1 Tyne Tees2 |
| Yorkshire and Lincolnshire | Yorkshire Television Ltd | ITV plc | ITV1 Yorkshire2 |
| North West England | Granada Television Ltd | ITV plc | ITV1 Granada2 |
| Wales and the West of England | HTV Group plc | ITV plc | ITV1 Wales1/ ITV1 West2 |
| The Midlands | Central Independent Television Ltd | ITV plc | ITV1 Central2 |
| East Anglia | Anglia Television Ltd | ITV plc | ITV1 Anglia2 |
| London Weekday | Carlton Television Ltd | ITV plc | ITV1 London (Weekdays)2 |
| London Weekend | London Weekend Television Ltd | ITV plc | ITV1 London (Weekends)2 |
| South and South East England | Meridian Broadcasting | ITV plc | ITV1 Meridian2 |
| South West England | Westcountry Television | ITV plc | ITV1 Westcountry2 |
| The Channel Islands | Channel Television Ltd | Channel Television Limited | ITV1 Channel Television2 |
| National breakfast time | GMTV Ltd | ITV plc / The Walt Disney Company | GMTV |
1. ITV1 Branding is used overnight
2. Branding is usually just "ITV1"
Name and 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 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, 2004, the channel adopted a new on-air look to coincide with the launch of ITV3. 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.
Problems Ahead
Decreasing viewing figures and advertising revenue for this year have led to a crisis for ITV Plc., in particular their flagship channel ITV1.[[Citing sources citation needed]] This has caused the following : -
June 20th 2006 : ITV will close it's in House childrens production department with the loss of 50 jobs. Earlier in the week OFCOM gave the green light to cut back the hours of Childrens shows broadcast on ITV1, to just 8 hours per week.[[Citing sources citation needed]]
June 28th 2006 : ITV announces slashed budgets for TV show production. Programme costs will be down from £750,000 to £500,000. However, ITV1's drama budget will be kept the same at £300ml. Sports budget will be reduced by £30ml. All of the cuts are due to didastrous advertising revenues leading chief executive Charles Allen, to enforce the cuts and to give £200ml back to the shareholders.[[Citing sources citation needed]]
July 14th 2006 : ITV1 world cup advertising revenue is predicted to be £40ml down on the 2002 world cup. According to the financial times, ITV1's September revenues could be down by 12% year on year. Overall viewing figures for the majority of Matches were high, apart from the world cup final with only 3.5m people tuning in compared to 17ml watching the coverage on BBC1. This caused the average all day share for ITV1 to fall below 10% for the first time in it's history.[[Citing sources citation needed]]
This continuing disaster for ITV and ITV1 is set to continue, so watch this space.[[Citing sources citation needed]]
External links
| ITV British television | Channels |
|
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 |
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Breakfast: TV-am, GMTV | Teletext: ORACLE, Teletext Ltd. News: ITN, ITV News Sport: ITV Sport |
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ITA | IBA | ITC | ''Ofcom ITV1 | ITV2 | ITV3 | ITV4 | CITV | CITV Channel | ITV Play | ITV HD | Men & Motors ITV News Channel | ITV Digital ITV plc | SMG plc | UTV plc |
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