ITV1

ITV1 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by ITV plc. It provides the Channel 3 public broadcast service across all of the United Kingdom except for central and northern Scotland where STV provides the service.
ITV1 as a consistent national channel evolved out of the old ITV network – a federation of separately owned regional companies which had significantly different local schedules and branding. During the 1990s, the differences between the schedules in each region gradually reduced – partly through the consolidation of ownership and partly through the standardisation in the volume and scheduling of regional programmes.
In 2002, a major change of appearance occurred when all ITV regions in England and Wales adopted national continuity. Regional logos vanished and regional names were mentioned only before regional programmes. Effectively this left ITV1 in England and Wales looking like a national channel with slots for regional opt-outs – similar to channels like BBC One and France's France 3 – rather than a group of independent regional broadcasters sharing programmes.
The unification was consolidated in 2004 when Granada plc acquired Carlton Communications to form ITV plc. By then, the two companies had acquired all the regional Channel 3 companies in England and Wales. ITV plc later acquired Channel Television in the Channel Islands and UTV in Northern Ireland.
ITV1 is today the biggest and most popular commercial television channel in the United Kingdom. ITV1, and its predecessor regional channels, have contended with BBC One for the status of the UK's most watched television channel since the 1950s. However, in line with the other former analogue channels, ITV1's audience share has fallen as a result of availability of multi-channel television, and more recently streaming services, in the UK.

History

Following the creation of the Television Act 1954, the establishment of a commercial television service in the UK began.
The Independent Television service, later abbreviated to "ITV", was made up of distinct regions, with each region run by different franchisee companies. The three largest regions, London, the Midlands, and the North of England, were initially sub-divided into weekday and weekend services, with a different company running each. The first use of the name "ITV1" for the network was as a tuning button label on some TV sets sold in the UK in the 1970s in contemplation of the eventual launch of a fourth national channel to be named ITV2 - this service eventually materialised as Channel 4.
The service was very heavily regulated until the early 1990s. The regulator, the ITA operated the transmitters, awarded franchises and had a great influence over schedules, content and technical standards. Legally the regulator was the broadcaster – the companies were contracted to provide an "independent television service" to compete with the BBC.
The ITV network existed in a region-heavy form from its inception through to the 2000s, although the switch to a single unified service was gradual.
ITV1 became the generic on-screen brand name used by the twelve franchises of the ITV network in the United Kingdom. The ITV1 brand was introduced on 11 August 2001 by the franchisees owned by Carlton and Granada, initially used alongside the local regional name, such as "ITV1 Anglia" and "ITV1 Meridian". However, it became the sole on-air identity in October 2002 when the two companies decided to create a single unified playout of the channel, with regional references used only prior to regional programming, such as local news and weather. Carlton and Granada went on to merge in 2004, creating ITV plc, which now owns thirteen of the fifteen regional ITV licences.
The ITV1 name was only used in England, Wales, Southern Scotland, and Isle of Man, until Channel Television adopted the name in January 2006, bringing it to the Channel Islands. As national continuity is often used on Channel Television, ITV1 national branding had been seen on the station for several years previously.
The licencees that use the ITV1 brand are: ITV Anglia, ITV Border, ITV Central, ITV Channel Television, ITV Cymru Wales, ITV Granada, ITV London, ITV London, ITV Meridian, ITV Tyne Tees, ITV West Country, ITV Yorkshire, and UTV.
ITV Wales & West was the only exception, using the name ITV1 Wales at all times for the Welsh part of its broadcast area, as it has a higher regional commitment. Latterly, the ITV1 Wales name was only used on break-bumpers and regionally advertised programmes until 2013. Non ITV plc-owned licencees on the ITV network, nowadays only STV Group, generally did not refer to the ITV name.
The network production arms of nowadays ITV plc-owned licencees have been gradually combined since 1993, to eventually form ITV Studios.

Corporate unification

The ITV1 channel was formed by the unification of eleven of the ITV licences. The United Kingdom Broadcasting Act 1990 changed many of the rules regulating the ITV network, which most notably relaxed separate franchise ownership, and hours of production. However, as far back as 1974, Yorkshire Television and its North East neighbour, Tyne Tees Television, formally created Trident Television, a merged entity of the two companies. By 1981, due to regulation, the company was forced to de-merge; however, they resumed their alliance in 1993 as Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television, which therefore owned the two franchises, and integrated the two companies' assets more than its predecessor.
The intense race to own a larger share of the ITV network began in 1994, when Carlton Communications, the owner of London weekday broadcaster Carlton Television, took control of Central Independent Television in the Midlands. Days afterwards, Granada plc, owner of Granada Television of the North West, purchased London Weekend Television. Meridian's owner, Mills and Allen International, then went on to purchase Anglia Television in the same year, before merging to become United News and Media in 1995. UNM then went on to purchase Wales and West broadcaster, HTV in 1996, while Carlton purchased Westcountry Television later that year. Granada then agreed a deal to take over Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television in 1997, giving the broadcaster access to both Yorkshire and North East franchises.
There was no further movement in the take-over of franchises until 2000, when Border Television and all of its radio assets were sold to Capital Radio Group, who consequently sold the television broadcasting arm to Granada Media Group. Granada then went on to purchase all of UNM's television interests, which brought Meridian and Anglia into its power, but due to regulation, Granada was forced to sell HTV's franchise to Carlton while acquiring HTV's production facilities. By this time, all of the franchises in England and Wales were owned by either Carlton or Granada.
On 2 February 2004, Granada plc officially merged with Carlton Communications, creating ITV plc, although it was in effect, a takeover by Granada. In 2011, ITV plc acquired Channel Television from its private owners Yattendon Group plc. On 19 October 2015, ITV announced they were to buy UTV for £100 million subject to regulatory approval. The deal also included UTV Ireland, UTV's Irish channel. Initially, the UTV name was retained, but on 2 April 2020 the station began using ITV's national continuity-at first as an emergency measure due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, then announced as a permanent transition on 26 November 2020.

Regional variations

The ITV1 channel consists of thirteen regional franchises in England, Wales and Northern Ireland which each broadcast regional news and other local programming to its area. Many franchise areas in England have sub-regions providing separate regional news bulletins. For example, the Anglia region is divided into West and East. This arrangement was suspended in February 2009, when ITV implemented plans to save the company £40m a year on the amount it spent making local news, but was reinstated on 16 September 2013.
Since 27 October 2002, on all ITV plc-owned franchises, regional programming has been preceded or plugged by an oral regional announcement, in the format ITV1 regional brand; e.g. ITV1 Granada. In English regions, up until 13 November 2006, regional names were also superimposed on these idents below the ITV1 logo, but this practice has since ceased. ITV Wales remains unaffected, and still continues to use dual-branding across all of its on-screen presentation. Despite the lack of regional names on screen, the regional name was usually spoken by the continuity announcer, prior to local programmes. After ITV1's unification in 2002, the two London franchises, Carlton Television and London Weekend Television were merged into a single entity, ITV London, while the Wales and West franchise lost its official identity, and instead was substituted with ITV1 Wales and ITV1 West on-air, with no reference linking the two together.
Channel Television adopted the ITV1 brand on-air prior to the 2011 ITV plc takeover of the channel. UTV was purchased by ITV plc in 2016, but did not adopt national continuity until April 2020.
Areas with full ITV1 channel branding and continuity:

Broadcast area	Pre-ITV1 branding	Post-2014 franchise	Post-ITV1 branding	ITV-branded franchises map
English-Scottish border	Border Television	ITV Border	ITV
Isle of Man	Border Television	ITV Granada	ITV
North West England	Granada Television	ITV Granada	ITV
North East England	Tyne Tees Television	ITV Tyne Tees	ITV
Yorkshire and Lincolnshire	Yorkshire Television	ITV Yorkshire	ITV
The Midlands	Central Independent Television	ITV Central	ITV
East of England	Anglia Television	ITV Anglia	ITV
London	Carlton Television	ITV London	ITV
London	LWT	ITV London	ITV
South and South East England	Meridian Broadcasting	ITV Meridian	ITV
Channel Islands^*	Channel Television	ITV Channel Television	ITV
South West England	Westcountry Television	ITV West Country	ITV
West of England	HTV West	ITV West Country	ITV
Northern Ireland	UTV	UTV	ITV/UTV
Wales	HTV Wales	ITV Cymru Wales	ITV Cymru Wales

* ITV1 +1 is not available in the main channels, and may be in the regional variation channels instead.
In the English regions, the channel was known from 2006 until 2013 as ITV1, from 2013 until 2022 as ITV, and from 15 November 2022, ITV1 at all times. Regional references no longer appear before any programming at all in these areas.

The "ITV Cymru Wales" brand is name-checked only by local ITV promos and ITV announcers;
The "UTV" branding in Northern Ireland is only used for local programming.
The "STV" branding in the Central and North of Scotland regions is used throughout the day from 9:25 am to 6 am daily;

ITV network areas without full ITV1 channel branding and continuity:

Broadcast area	Present branding	Former branding
Northern Scotland	STV	Grampian Television
Central Scotland	STV	Scottish Television