Timeline of ITV

This is a timeline of the history of ITV.

1950s

1960s

  • 1966
    • No events.
  • 1967
    • 3 July – News at Ten is launched as a 13-week trial of a nightly 30 minute bulletin. The programme is soon made a permanent feature of the schedules.
  • 1968
    • 4 March – TWW stops broadcasting five months before its contract was due to expire. The ITA provides an interim service called Independent Television Service for Wales and the West until 20 May when the new contractor, Harlech Television, takes over.
    • 29 July – Yorkshire Television launches following the decision to split the north region into two resulting in a new franchise being created for the Yorkshire area.
    • 30 July – Thames Television replaces Associated-Rediffusion as the holder of the London weekday franchise although Redivision retains a 49% stake in the new company. London Weekend Television (LWT) replaces ATV as London’s weekend franchisee.
    • ATV starts broadcasting to the Midlands seven days a week and Granada starts broadcasting across the north west seven days a week. In both cases ABC loses the right to broadcast.
    • The TV Times is launched as a national magazine to provide listings for ITV.
    • August – A technicians strike forces ITV off the air for several weeks although management manage to launch a temporary ITV Emergency National Service with no regional variations.
  • 1969
    • 15 November – ITV starts broadcasting in colour although it wasn't until 1976 that colour was available across the entire ITV network.

1970s

  • 1971
    • No events.
  • 1973
    • No events.
  • 1975
    • No events.
  • 1977
  • 1979
    • 10 August – A ten-week strike forces ITV off the air. The only programme shown is the weekly edition of Engineering Announcements. The strike ends on 24 October.
    • 25 September – This Week ends its first run. It is replaced for the next seven years by TV Eye.

1980s

  • 1980
    • 28 December – The ITA announces the new contractors to commence on 1 January 1982. The Midlands region will be split into two and dual regions will be created for Wales and the West and the South and South East. ATV is re-awarded its contract for the Midlands although there are several conditions including more regional content and increased production facilities in the Midlands. It is also told to rename itself and chooses the name Central Independent Television. Southern Television lost its licence for the South of England, in favour of Television South (TVS) and Westward Television also lost its licence for South West England and was replaced by Television South West (TSW). The IBA also announces that TV-am has been awarded the contract to provide a national breakfast television service.
    • 29 December – ITV launches its first branded children's slot when it launches Watch It!. The programmes are broadcast on weekdays between 4.15 pm to 5.15 pm and are presented live by the duty continuity announcer in each ITV region.
  • 1981
    • 11 August – TSW takes over Westward Television but continues to use the Westward name until 1 January 1982.
    • 31 December – ATV, Southern and Westward stop broadcasting at the end of their day’s programming – i.e. shortly after midnight.
  • 1983
    • 3 January – Children's ITV is launched, replacing Watch It!. Programmes begin 15 minutes earlier, at 4 pm – the extra fifteen minutes being filled by a repeat of one of the pre-school programmes shown at lunchtime the same day. The slot is presented on a national basis and programmes are linked by an in-vision presenter.
    • 1 February – ITV’s breakfast television service TV-am launches, broadcasting between 6 AM and 9:15 am. It is beaten to air by the BBC which launched Breakfast Time two weeks previously.
    • 17 May – Engineering Announcements is broadcast on ITV for the final time.[1] The programme transfers to Channel 4 and continues until July 1990.
    • 23 May – TV-am changes its broadcasting hours. It now begins during the week at 6:25 am, with a later start at the weekend. However TV-am is now able to stay on air until 9:25 am due to the switching process from national to regional programming becoming an automated rather than a manual process.
    • 2 October – ITV shows a live top flight football match for the first time since 1960. This marks the start of English football being shown on a national basis rather than on a regional basis, resulting in The Big Match becoming a fully national programme.
  • 1984
    • 16 October – The Bill launches as a regular programme, just over a year after a one-off episode – Woodentop – was shown.
  • 1985
    • 3 January –
      • The last day of transmission using the 405-lines system.
      • TV-am expands its broadcasting hours. Weekday programmes begin ten minutes earlier during the week, at 6:15 am[2] and weekend programmes begin at 6:55 am.
    • 28 September – The final edition of World of Sport is broadcast.
  • 1986
    • 2 April – The first in-vision teletext service is seen on ITV when Central launches its Jobfinder service which broadcasts for one hour after the end of the day's programming. Many other regions launch their own Jobfinder service later in the 1980s.
    • 9 August – Yorkshire launches an experimental overnight service, simulcasting Music Box. [3]
    • 11 September – After a seven year hiatus, This Week returns.
  • 1987
    • 3 January – Closedowns reappear on Yorkshire Television when its experiment with 24-hour television is put on hiatus. The channel does continue with into-the-night broadcasts by becoming the second ITV region to launch a Jobfinder service, broadacsting for an hour after closedown.[4]
    • 30 January – Super Channel launches. The channel is majority owned by all but one of the ITV companies.[5] Within a year the ITV companies sold their stake to the Italian Marcucci family, owners of Italian music channel Videomusic.
    • Many of the larger ITV companies start broadcasting into the night.
    • 25 April – Central becomes the first station to keep its transmitters on air all night when it launches More Central. Programmes are shown into the early hours with the rest of the night filled by its Jobfinder service, which airs from closedown until the start of TV-am.[6]
    • 1 June – Thames launches Thames Into the Night. Consequently the channel now stays on air until 4 am.
    • 29 June – Schools programmes are broadcast on ITV for the last time. They are transferred to Channel 4 from the following autumn.
    • 20 July – The lunchtime news programme moves to 12.30pm and is renamed accordingly.
    • 17 August – Thames begins 24-hour broadcasting.
    • 28 August – LWT and Anglia begin 24-hour transmissions.
    • 7 September – The transfer of ITV Schools to Channel 4 means that ITV is able to launch a full morning programme schedule, with advertising, for the first time. The new service includes regular five-minute national and regional news bulletins.
    • September – TV-am recommences broadcasting each day from 6 am.
    • November – Tyne Tees begins 24-hour broadcasting. It does so by launching a Jobfinder service which broadcasts each night from its usual close-down time until the start of TV-am at 6 am. Tyne Tees launches a full 24-hour service on 2 September 1988.
  • 1988
    • 15 February – An early morning 60-minute news programme – ITN Early Morning News – is launched but is only available in areas which have 24-hour broadcasting. The first 30 minutes of the programme includes a full broadcast of ITN's international news bulletin ITN World News. In addition, brief news summaries are broadcast at various points through the night. The launch coincides with three of the major ITV companies – Scottish, Central and Granada – beginning 24-hour transmission.[7]
    • 7 March – The lunchtime news returns to the 1 pm slot.
    • 29–30 May – The first ITV Telethon takes place over the spring bank holiday weekend. The Telethon also marks the start of Yorkshire re-commencing 24-hour broadcasting.
    • 20 June – TVS and Channel begin 24-hour broadcasting.
    • 22 August – HTV begins 24-hour broadcasting.
    • 2 September – TSW, Grampian and Border begin 24-hour broadcasting.
    • 3 October –
      • Ulster becomes the final region to start broadcasting 24 hours a day.[8]
      • The first edition of This Morning is broadcast.
    • 30 October – Following the signing of a new four-year deal to show exclusive live coverage of top flight English football, ITV begins showing a live game every Sunday afternoon.
  • 1989
    • 13 February – For the first time ITV starts broadcasting a national weather forecast. Previously each company had aired its own regional weather forecast which they had broadcast at the end of their local news programmes and at closedown.
    • 1 September – ITV introduces its first official logo as part of an attempt to unify the network under one image whilst retaining regional identity.

1990s

  • 1990
    • 27–28 May – ITV broadcasts its second Telethon.
  • 1992
    • 2 March – The News at 5.40 is renamed ITN Early Evening News.
    • 18 May – Sky outbids ITV for the live rights to the newly formed football Premier League. Sky bids £304 million, as opposed to ITV's £262 million. ITV subsequently purchases live rights to the newly formed UEFA Champions League and the second tier of English football, showing the latter on a regional basis until those rights passed to Sky in 1996.
    • June – Yorkshire and Tyne Tees television merge, beginning a process that would see the consolidation of ITV over the next decade.
    • 18–19 July – ITV broadcasts its third and final Telethon.
    • 1 November – The satellite TV channel UK Gold, run by the BBC with Thames Television, starts broadcasting. Thames gets involved with this service ahead of it losing its ITV franchise.
    • 17 December – Ahead of the loss of its franchise, the final edition of the Thames Television-produced current affairs series This Week is broadcast.
    • 31 December – TV-am, Thames, TVS and TSW broadcast for the final time.
  • 1993
    • 1 January – At the stroke of midnight, Carlton, Meridian and Westcountry start broadcasting and at 6am GMTV goes on air for the first time. Also Teletext launches as ITV’s new teletext service.
    • 28 June – The final ITV Schools broadcasts take place.
  • 1995
    • No events.
  • 1997
    • More consolidation takes place. Granada Television acquires Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television, Scottish Media Group (SMG), which owned Scottish Television, acquires Grampian Television and United News and Media, the owner of Meridian Broadcasting and Anglia Television, purchased HTV.
    • February – Carlton Select is launched. It replaces SelecTV, which it acquired when Carlton bought Pearson Television.
    • March – ITV takes over as the broadcaster of Formula One motor racing. It shows full coverage of qualifying as well as the race itself, something that the previous rights holder, the BBC, generally did not do. ITV also obtains the FA Cup and England International football highlights rights from the BBC at around the same time, resulting in the return of the FA Cup to ITV screens for the first time since 1988.
    • 25 June – The ITC awards the sole DTT broadcast licence to British Digital Broadcasting – a consortium consisting of Carlton Television, Granada Television and BSkyB.
    • 31 August – Granada Talk TV stops broadcasting.
  • 1999
    • 4 January – GMTV2 launches during the breakfast downtime of ITV2.[9]
    • 5 March – ITV News at Ten is broadcast for the final time.
    • 8 March – Major changes to ITV's news programmes take place today, including different times for the channel's news programmes and the programmes were referred to as ITV News rather than ITN News. The main bulletin of the day is now considered to be the Early Evening News and is moved from 5.40pm to 6.30pm and the evening news is controversially pushed back to 11pm although the following year the ITC forces ITV to move the late evening news back to 10pm on three nights each week. Also ITV's lunchtime news bulletin is relaunched as ITV Lunchtime News.
    • 8 April – The first edition of ITV's new current affairs series Tonight is broadcast.
    • 30 April – Scottish Television launches S2.
    • 28 June – Ulster Television launches TV You (later UTV2)
    • 6 September – Carlton Television drops the Central Independent Television and Westcountry Television names from their on-air presentation, instead branding these regions as Carlton Television, and using the same presentation for all three regions.
    • 8 November – A new, hearts-based on-air look is introduced

2000s

  • 2004
    • January – Carlton and Granada merge to create a single England and Wales ITV company called ITV plc.
    • 2 February – After several years of inconsistent scheduling of the late evening news, the bulletin moves to a five nights a week 10.30pm start time.
    • April – The newly created ITV plc purchases NTL’s 35% stake in the ITV News Channel.
    • 1 November – ITV3 launches, replacing Plus which closes a few hours prior to ITV3's launch. Earlier that day ITV bought out BSkyB's stake in Granada Sky Broadcasting.
  • 2005
    • 11 February – The ITV Lunchtime News is extended to last 60 minutes.
    • 1 November – ITV4 launches, but only as a part-time channel.
    • 23 December – ITV News Channel stops broadcasting at 6pm.
  • 2006
    • 11 March – CITV Channel launches on Freeview, Home Choice and Telewest. It starts broadcasting on Sky on 8 May and on NTL on 6 June.
    • 19 April – ITV Play launches.
    • 30 May – STV launches across Scotland replacing the previously separate services of Scottish and Grampian.
    • 4 September – The ITV Lunchtime News reverts to being a 30-minute programme and its start time is moved back to 1.30pm.
    • 30 October – ITV2, and ITV3 launch +1 channels.
    • At the end of 2006, Children's ITV ends on ITV1 after 24 years on air. Earlier in 2006 ITV had closed down its in-house children's production unit.
  • 2007
    • 5 March – ITV announces that all premium rate phone competitions and quizzes will be suspended while an audit takes place[10] after a number of problems with premium rate services affecting ITV, BBC One and Channel 4 come to light.[11] Consequently, participation channel ITV Play is suspended.
    • 13 March – ITV announces that ITV Play will permanently close down following the recent concerns over participation television.[12]. On 16 March, its slot on Freeview is taken by the recently launched ITV2+1.
    • September – Major cost-cutting plans were announced which would see massive cutbacks to regional programming, including the reduction of regional news programmes from seventeen to nine. The changes took effect in February 2009.
  • 2008
    • 14 January – ITV News at Ten returns to the schedules on four nights each week – the Friday edition remains at 11pm.
    • 5 February – ITV4 becomes a 24-hour channel.
    • 17 July – ITV HD launches as a full-time service. A trial broadcast had taken place during summer 2006.
    • 1 December – ITV4 +1 launches.
  • 2009
    • November – ITV takes full control of GMTV.

2010s

  • 2010
    • 1 April – Men & Motors stops broadcasting.
    • 21 June – ITV’s teletext service stops broadcasting.
    • 31 August – The final episode of The Bill is shown.
    • 3 September – The final edition of GMTV is broadcast.
    • 6 September – The first edition of Daybreak is broadcast.
    • 7 October – ITV2 HD launches.
    • 15 November – ITV3 HD and ITV4 HD launch.
  • 2012
    • 21 December – The final edition of ITV's early morning news programme ITV News at 5:30 is broadcast. Consequently, there is no longer any overnight news coverage on ITV.
  • 2013
    • 14 January – After more than 11 years, the ITV1 brand is dropped and the main channel is known once again as ITV.
  • 2015
  • 2016
    • 29 March – ITV buys UTV.
    • 17 October – UTV is rebranded to match ITV's current look.
  • 2017
    • 1 January –
      • ITV takes over from Channel 4 as the exclusive terrestrial broadcaster of horse racing. This is the first time since 1988 that the sport had been shown on ITV.[14]
      • UTV Ireland closes and is replaced by be3.
    • 4 February – Following ITV's return to covering live boxing, the channel launches ITV Box Office for its pay-per-view events. The channel's first event is Chris Eubank Jr. verses Renold Quinlan.[15]
    • 24 April – STV merges its local channels and relaunches them as a single channel called STV2.[16]
  • 2018
    • 1 May – ITV Encore closes as a linear channel after four years on air. It continues as an on-demand service.[17]
    • 30 June – STV2 stops broadcasting following That's TV's acquisition of the assets of STV's STV2 channel.[18][19].

See also

References

  1. ↑ Final Engineering Announcements on ITV
  2. ↑ Thames Television closedown 2 January 1985
  3. ↑ TV Live: Yorkshire Television – Night Time
  4. ↑ Television and radio. The Times (London, England), Friday, 30 January 1987; pg. 43
  5. ↑ "Broadband TV News – UK – Archive December 9, 2005". 26 October 2007.
  6. ↑ TV Live – More Central
  7. ↑ ITV Nighttime page on TV Live
  8. ↑ ITV Nighttime page on TV Live
  9. ↑ GMTV2 starts 4 Jan 1999
  10. ↑ "ITV statement". itv.com. Archived from the original on 2007-08-19.
  11. ↑ "The phone-in shows under scrutiny". BBC News. 2007-04-23. Retrieved 2007-03-14.
  12. ↑ Deans, Jason (13 March 2007). "ITV Play digital channel axed". Media Guardian. Retrieved 2007-03-13.
  13. ↑ Kanter, Jake (24 November 2011). "ITV completes Channel Television takeover". broadcastnow.co.uk. Broadcast. Retrieved 25 November 2011.
  14. ↑ "ITV announce Horse Racing Deal". ITV Press Centre. ITV. Retrieved 5 December 2016.
  15. ↑ "ITV to show Eubank Jnr World Title fight". ITV. 13 December 2016. Retrieved 13 December 2016.
  16. ↑ New channel STV2 to launch in April, stv.tv, 10 April 2017
  17. ↑ Gill, James (18 November 2017). "ITV Encore to close as a channel and move on demand only". Radio Times. Retrieved 30 April 2018.
  18. ↑ "Struggling STV 2 to be taken off air in online shift". The Drum. Retrieved 2018-05-16.
  19. ↑ "STV2 axed". a516digital. Retrieved 2018-05-16.
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