ITV Central
ITV Central, previously known as Central Independent Television, Central ITV, Carlton Central, ITV1 for Central England and commonly referred to as simply Central, is the Independent Television franchisee in the English Midlands. It was created following the restructuring of ATV and officially began broadcasting on 1 January 1982. The service is owned and operated by ITV plc under the licensee of ITV Broadcasting Limited. Historically Central made a major contribution to the ITV network schedule – especially in entertainment and drama – but today its main responsibility is the regional news service.
History
Background
During the 1970s ATV, the previous Midlands licence holder, was often criticised for its lack of regional output and character. Although ATV had purpose-built a modern colour production complex in the centre of Birmingham, most of its major productions were recorded at its main studios at Elstree in Hertfordshire, a legacy of the period when the company also held the London Weekend franchise until 1968, when it was awarded to LWT. Its corporate headquarters were in Central London.ATV attempted to address its problem in 1980 as part of its franchise reapplication; with plans for a second major facility in the area and as part of the Independent Broadcasting Authority's plan for the contract to provide separate news coverage for both the East Midlands and the West Midlands. The company name would also be changed from ATV Network Limited to ATV Midlands Limited, thus reinforcing the greater regional focus. The IBA accepted ATV's assertion that ATV Midlands Ltd planned to take a more local identity and awarded the contract to ATV Midlands Ltd on the basis that further changes were to be implemented, including that the parent company, Associated Communications Corporation, would divest 49 percent of its shareholding in ATV Midlands Ltd in an attempt to introduce local shareholders and that ATV Midlands Ltd's registered office should be within the region. To demonstrate this change of share structure the IBA insisted that ATV change its company name, to show that it was a substantially new company due to the requirement for a dual region.
Launch
The station began transmitting at 9:25 am on Friday 1 January 1982 with an authority announcement by duty announcer Su Evans, followed by an extended five-minute promo entitled Welcome to Central, voiced by Peter Wheeler, previewing the company's network and regional programming, and the schedule for the first day of transmission.Central initially ran a sole pan-regional service from Birmingham, as a result of an industrial dispute which prevented its East Midlands service from Nottingham commencing before September 1983. The split allowed Central to serve the West Midlands with its own service from Birmingham. There were few differences between the East and West sub-regions, but each had its own news service, advertisements, and during the early years of operation, continuity. This would lead to the BBC launching its own sub-regional service for the East Midlands during the 1980s, which became a region in its own right in January 1991, with the launch of BBC East Midlands Today.
Operations
By March 1984, the reorganisation of the company was complete, allowing pre-tax profits to double from £3.5 million to £6.5 million in its first two financial years. Shortly afterward, Zenith Productions was established as a subsidiary of Central Television, which produced programming for the UK and the USA – most famously including the company's television adaptations of the Inspector Morse novels. The formation of Zenith Productions on 3 April 1984 allowed the company to exploit markets outside of the US and UK, similarly to how Thames operated its Euston Films subsidiary. Central's interests in onscreen fiction saw the company buy the Korda Film Library in 1986.In January 1987, Central acquired the European division of the American production company FilmFair for £1.5million, which went on to produce several of the station's networked children's series before being sold onto the Storm Group in 1991. On the same day, Central bought a stake in Starstream, who co-founded and operated The Children's Channel – the 22% stake was sold in November 1991 to United Artists Cable International. A few months later, Central became the first ITV station to broadcast its own overnight service, including short news bulletins, imported output and the long-running Jobfinder service – launched in 1986 in partnership with the Manpower Services Commission – which went on to run for 17 years and won a Royal Television Society award. Central was also awarded the Queen's Award to Industry for Export twice, for selling its range of programming to over 80 countries around the world, in April 1987 and April 1989.
Under its growing business portfolio, Central created CTE in December 1987 and opened international bureaux in Hamburg, New York City and Sydney for sales, sponsorship and newsgathering operations. CTE, the company's key international distributor of programming, would later represent output sales for Carlton Communications, who took over Central in 1994.
In 1989, the company founded Zodiac Entertainment – an American entertainment firm specialising in the production and distribution of animated cartoons. Central invested $35 million in the company before deciding to discontinue its production business in 1994, leaving Zodiac to become a distributor. Also in 1989, Central established Television Sales and Marketing Services Ltd, a joint venture with Anglia Television providing airtime sales and program sponsorships, in part to recover production costs. In March 1994, Anglia acquired Central's stake in the company to take full control with Central moving over to Carlton's sales department.
In March 1990, Central formed a partnership with The Observer newspaper to create Central Observer, making environmental themed films for British Satellite Broadcasting and terrestrial channels, with funding from the charity Television Trust for the Environment.
Central was unopposed in retaining its franchise in 1993, which allowed the company to bid only a token £2,000 a year – though the company stressed the need to cut more jobs to become more cost-efficient, as the company had agreed to pay 11% of their annual advertising revenue on top of their winning bid. The station's workforce was reduced to 1500 by 1990 and then to 900 by the start of 1992 – less than half of the payroll Central had employed in 1987.
Central also profited from the auction after Meridian, a consortium in which Central held a 20% stake, won the franchise to serve the South and South East of England. Post-1993, the company's ITV network presence was further strengthened when it took over commissioning, presentation and compliance responsibility for a number of continuing Thames Television productions, such as Count Duckula, The Tomorrow People, This Is Your Life, Des O'Connor Tonight, Mr. Bean, Minder, Strike It Lucky and Wish You Were Here.
By April 1993, with the added increase of 8.8% in advertising revenues to £250 million and its income from programme sales rising to £83.4 million, Central became the most successful ITV company after the start of the new franchises.
Ownership and takeover
Although the IBA required 49% of the new station to be owned locally by companies and individuals, the take-up was nowhere near as expected, leaving companies outside the region to buy shares including DC Thomson, Ladbrokes, Pergamon and British Rail.Shortly after the station began broadcasting, Australian entrepreneur Robert Holmes à Court – via his Bell Group – started the process of acquiring ACC, but was halted by the IBA, since the law prohibited foreign companies from controlling British television companies. By March, a rival bid from Gerald Ronson's Heron Corporation also entered the race to takeover ACC. In April 1982, ACC was taken-over by Holmes à Court, with the IBA approving the deal in June on condition that ACC's 51 percent stake in Central be put in trust, thus divesting ACC of all voting power until it had reduced its shares in the broadcaster.
By January 1983, 167 staff had bought shares in the station for a £1 each as part of an innovative shareholding scheme to help offload shares to local people in the Central region. In May 1983, ACC finally sold off its stake in Central; Sears Holdings purchased 20%, while Ladbrokes and DC Thomson also increased their stakes to 20% each, and Pergamon took its ownership to 12.5%, with 27.5% being held by single stakeholders.
In March 1987, Carlton Communications acquired 20 percent of Central from Ladbrokes for £30million which finally gave Carlton its first stake in a terrestrial broadcasting company, after a bid to buy Thames Television was blocked by the IBA two years beforehand. In January 1994 Central was bought in its entirety by Carlton for £750 million The new owners later restructured the company further by combining Central's operations into one and moving its Birmingham studios to a smaller complex elsewhere in the city centre. Network programmes were now classed as Carlton UK Productions and around 140 jobs were lost from the downgraded Birmingham operation.
On 6 September 1999, the station was rebranded on-air as Carlton Central, though the registered company name remained Central Independent Television Limited. The new identity, produced by Lambie-Nairn, was also used on Central's sister stations in the London and Carlton Westcountry regions. Only the "Carlton" name was used on air; however, Central's regional news programmes retained the "Central" brand. With the merger of Carlton and Granada on 2 February 2004, the brand became ITV1 Central. It is currently owned by ITV plc and on 29 December 2006, the registered company name was changed from Central Independent Television Ltd to ITV Central Ltd. This company is, along with most other regional companies owned by ITV plc, listed on www.companieshouse.gov.uk as a "Dormant company".