Timeline of HTV West

This is a timeline of the history of HTV West (now known as ITV West Country).

1960s
  • 1968
    • 4 March – Ousted licensee TWW stops broadcasting five months before its contract was due to expire, selling the final months of airtime to Harlech. However the new contractor is not yet ready to go on air so the ITA provides an interim service called Independent Television Service for Wales and the West.
    • 20 May – Harlech Television takes over the Wales and the West of England franchise just over two months ahead of the planned hand-over date.
    • 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
    • No events.

1970s
  • 1970
    • 6 April – HTV starts broadcasting in colour and from this day, the station becomes known on air as HTV.[1]
    • 30 May – HTV begins broadcasting in colour, initially from the Mendip transmitter.
    • June – A separate HTV West service is launched, as is a full evening news programme for the region called Report West.
  • 1971
    • No events.
  • 1972
    • 16 October – Following a law change which removed all restrictions on broadcasting hours, ITV is able to launch an afternoon service.
  • 1973 to 1978
    • No events.
  • 1979
    • 10 August – The ten week ITV strike forces HTV off the air. The strike ends on 24 October.

1980s
  • 1980
    • No events.
  • 1981
    • No events.
  • 1983
    • 1 February – ITV’s breakfast television service TV-am launches. Consequently, HTV’s broadcast day now begins at 9:25 am.
  • 1984
    • No events.
  • 1985
    • 3 January – The last day of transmission using the 405-lines system.
  • 1986
    • No events.
  • 1987
    • 7 September – Following the transfer of ITV Schools to Channel 4, ITV provides a full morning programme schedule, with advertising, for the first time. The new service includes regular five-minute national and regional news bulletins.
    • 28 September – HTV launches a new computer-generated ident.[2]
  • 1989
    • 1 September – ITV introduces its first official logo as part of an attempt to unify the network under one image whilst retaining regional identity. HTV adopts the ident.[4]

1990s
  • 1991
    • 28 April – HTV closes down its Night Club and instead simulcasts the overnight generic service from London.
    • 16 October – HTV retains its licence to broadcast when it bids the highest amount of a total of four applicants. Due to the size of the bid - £20.5 million - the company had to make considerable savings in order to cover the increased cost of the licence.[8] The ITC had initially considered disqualifying HTV's bid because of its business plan, but it was ultimately allowed to bid.
  • 1992
    • No events.
  • 1993
    • 1 January – To co-inside with the start of this new franchise period, HTV launches a new set of idents.[9]
  • 1994
    • 18 February – Flextech buys a 20% stake in the company, thereby clearing HTV’s debts.[10]
  • 1996
    • October – United News & Media buys Scottish Television’s 20% stake in HTV.[13]
  • 1997
    • March – The main evening news programme is renamed The West Tonight. The change co-insides with the opening of a digital broadcast centre at HTV's Bristol studios.[14]
    • 28 June – HTV is fully taken over by United News & Media.[15]
    • United News & Media puts the HTV-owned First Independent Films up for sale, following the commercial failure of the movie G.I. Jane in the UK. The assets are eventually acquired by Columbia TriStar Home Video who retained the First Independent Films label for 2 more years before fully absorbing it into their own label in 1999.
  • 1998
    • 15 November – The public launch of digital terrestrial TV in the UK takes place.

2000s
  • 2000
    • Granada plc buys United's television interests, but at the time competition regulations limited the extent to which one company could control the ITV network, and were consequently forced to give up one of its ITV franchises. This resulted in a break-up of HTV, whereby its broadcast facilities and Channel 3 broadcast licence (and hence its advertising revenues) are sold to Carlton Communications plc, owners of Carlton Television, whilst the majority of production facilities are retained by Granada which establishes offices in Whiteladies Road in Bristol, close to the BBC site at Broadcasting House.
  • 2001
    • No events.
  • 2002
    • 28 October – On-air regional identities are dropped apart from when introducing regional programmes and HTV West is renamed ITV1 West.[17] However the regional news bulletins continue to be named HTV News until the ITV News relaunch of 2004.
  • 2003
    • No events.
  • 2004
  • 2005
    • 12 September – The regional news programme is once again named The West Tonight, six years after the name had originally been dropped.[20]
  • 2006
    • 29 December – HTV Ltd is renamed ITV Wales & West Ltd.[21]
  • 2007
    • No events.
  • 2008
    • No events.
  • 2009
    • 16 February – As part of major cutbacks across ITV to its regional broadcasts in England the operations of ITV Westcountry and ITV West are merged into a new non-franchise region ITV West & Westcountry. The new ‘region’ results in a merged regional news service based in Bristol called The West Country Tonight. However the first half of the main programme and the entirety of the late evening bulletin remained separate.[22]
    • All non-news local programming ends apart from a monthly political discussion show.

2010s
  • 2010
    • No events.
  • 2011
    • 31 March – Digital switchover is completed in the region when the analogue transmissions at Ridge Hill (West) are switched off.
    • 5 September – Separate weekday daytime bulletins for the two regions (at breakfast and lunchtime) are reintroduced.
  • 2012
    • No events.
  • 2013
    • 16 September – ITV News West Country extends the East and West opt-out services to at least 20 minutes of the 6pm programme, in addition to separate weekend bulletins for the two sub-regions, effectively restoring full services for the two areas.[23]

See also

References
  1. TV Live: HTV
  2. TV Live: HTV
  3. Ident Central: HTV Nightclub
  4. TV Live: HTV
  5. Dawtrey, Adam (26 February 1998). "First Independent on Block". Variety. Retrieved 28 June 2018.
  6. Bonner, Paul; Aston, Lesley (1998). "Independent Television in Britain: ITV and IBA 1981-92: The Old Relationship Changes - Volume 5". Palgrave Macmillan. Retrieved 20 August 2018.
  7. Groves, Don (20 January 1991). "Ambitious Plans On Tap At New HTV Subsid". Variety. Retrieved 9 September 2018.
  8. Nisse, Jason (1992-12-31). "Franchise winners could lose money: Advertising sales may fall short of the new companies' hopes. Jason Nisse reports". The Independent. Retrieved 2013-06-25.
  9. TV Live: HTV
  10. Counsell, Gail (1994-02-18). "Debt cleared as HTV links with Flextech". The Independent. Retrieved 2013-06-25.
  11. TV Live: HTV
  12. "Mirror Group Rebuilds STV Stake". MediaTel. 1995-10-24. Retrieved 2013-06-25.
  13. Hollick secures a stake in HTV as fight for franchises hots up, The Independent, 25 October 1995
  14. TV Live: HTV
  15. Newman, Cathy (28 June 1997). "HTV succumbs to United News in £370m takeover bid". The Independent. Retrieved 13 November 2011.
  16. TV Live: HTV
  17. TV Live: HTV
  18. Litterick, David (8 October 2003). "ITV cleared for a united kingdom". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 26 June 2011.
  19. West News 2004-2005
  20. TV Live: ITV News West Country
  21. "ITV Wales and West Ltd". WebCheck. Retrieved 13 November 2011.
  22. Seventeen regions into nine: How the updated ITV local news services will run Caitlin Fitzsimmons, The Guardian, 17 February 2009
  23. OFCOM sets out licence terms for ITV, STV, UTV and Channel 5 Archived 26 July 2013 at the Wayback Machine, OFCOM, 23 July 2013
  24. Ofcom agrees ITV news shake-up Jake Kanter, Broadcast Now, 23 July 2013
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