ITV Plc

ITV Plc

ITV is the largest commercial television in the UK, known as Independent Television but always referred to as ITV. The ITV network is made up of 15 regional licenses that provide commercial television to the UK. As such, ITV is not owned by one single company, but the licences are given to 15 companies in various parts of the UK. These companies include:

• STV Central Ltd and STV North Ltd for Scotland,
• Channel Television Ltd for the Channel Islands
• UTV plc for Northern Ireland
• Yorkshire Television Ltd for Yorkshire and Lincolnshire
• Granada Television Ltd for north west England
• Anglia Television for the east of England
• Carlton Television Ltd and London Weekend Television Ltd for London
• ITV Meridian Ltd for the south and south east of England
• ITV Wales and West Ltd for Wales and the west of England
• ITV Central Ltd for the Midlands

The regional ITV companies provide local programmes that suited for regional audiences including local news bulletins. ITV plc currently sells advertising on behalf of 15 licences.

Before the 1990s, all of the content for the channel was produced by the 15 franchise licensees, but now ITV plc has more control. ITV currently invests approximately £1 billion each year in programming, and the vast majority is spent on original UK programming to be broadcast on ITV1.

History of ITV Plc

ITV was launched in September 1955 and is now the oldest commercial television network in the UK. It was set up to provide competition to the BBC and was unique in that the funding was to come from TV commercials. The Television Act of 1954 paved the way for the launch of a commercial television channel and a year later ITV was formed.

The Broadcasting Act of 1990 allowed regional companies to merge and so the first merger for ITV took place in 1994 between Granada and LWT. Today, 11 of the franchises in England and Wales are owned by Granada or Carlton Communications, and in August 2001 the common name ITV1 was launched.

ITV1 is the most popular commercial television channel in Britain and is watched by an average 45 million viewers.

ITV has slowly expanded its operations and in December 1998 it launched ITV2. It is available on Freeview, Sky Digital and cable.

The digital channel portfolio has also expanded gradually so that now it includes ITV3, ITV4, ITV2+1, CiTV and ITV Play. ITV has also started to provide a range of media and interactive services via the internet, mobile phones and broadband

ITV employs almost 6,000 people worldwide with offices in America, Australia and Germany. The majority work in production centres in the UK, with large centres in London, Manchester and Leeds.

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