is a
British television station which has served as an
Independent Television (ITV) contractor to the
Channel Islands since
1962 .
The Channel Islands, principally
Jersey ,
Guernsey ,
Alderney and
Sark , are located in the
Gulf Of St Malo , over 100 miles south of the British mainland, and very near the coast of
France . They are not considered part of the
United Kingdom , but as
Crown Dependencies .
From the point of view of television coverage, the
BBC has always treated the islands as an extension of their
South West region, relaying programmes from
Plymouth to the islands. (The BBC does now broadcast a separate version of the regional news bulletin, ''
Spotlight '' for the Channel Islands.) However, as the smaller areas of Britain acquired their commercial television channel in the late 1950s and early 1960s, local opinion was that the Channel Islands should have their own franchise.
This posed a problem to the
Independent Television Authority as, constitutionally, the
Television Act 1954 did not apply to the islands, so the ITA's ability to operate there had to be permitted by means of extending the Act to the islands by means of an
Order-in-Council . Secondly, there was a problem of connecting the islands to the rest of the
ITV Network - the solution was to build a relay station on Alderney, the northernmost island, which would then send the network feed from
Westward Television and occasionally
Southern Television to Channel Television's studio in Jersey; this was initially a problem because the existence of the relay station meant that Alderney itself could not have a broadcast service from the start of broadcasting, and the local authorities refused to lease land to the ITA for the relay station. This problem was eventually overcome, and CTV went on the air on
September 1 ,
1962 - the penultimate ITV franchisee to go on air (followed by
WWN ), and serving the smallest population, only about 150,000 people in 54,000 households. The arrangement with
Westward Television changed over to the new
TSW in 1982, when the franchise was awarded to the new contractor. They changed, however, to
TVS in
1985 and this carried on with
Meridian from 1993.
Due to a technicality that prevented the
Channel Islands from receiving colour television, Channel TV broadcasted in black and white until 1976. The small size of the station, once described as 'television in miniature', while having implications for the profitability of the company, has on the whole been to its advantage. It has an extremely close relationship with its viewership, reflecting daily life and government in the islands, and while not producing large numbers of programmes for the ITV Network at the start of the 21st century' it does produce some five-and-a- half hours a week of programmes for its own area, including the local nightly news ''Channel Report''. This has posed a challenge, as not only are the
Bailiwick s politically separate from the UK, but also from one another.
Channel Television also produces the daily children's programme ''Puffin's Pla(i)ce'', now in its 44th year.
Channel Television was the only ITV franchise not to be affected by the technician's strike in the summer of 1968, as it was understood by all that any strike action would probably put the company out of business. Similarly, Channel was not severely affected locally by the ITV strike of August-
October 1979, when the rest of the ITV Network was blacked out for ten weeks by another technicians dispute; while the rest of the network was displaying an on-screen caption, Channel continued to broadcast twelve hours a day of films and local news bulletins, as well as other programmes from the ITV archives.
Channel TV was not challenged for its franchise in the 1967 and 1981 franchise rounds; they defeated a challenger for its franchise, CI3 TV, in the 1991 franchise rounds with a bid of £1,000 (the minimum bid possible). Channel TV have since kept their franchise and, in 1999, signed contracts (along with the other ITV companies) to keep their franchises for the next ten years.
Channel, whilst being fiercely independent and regional, took the national
ITV1 network branding and continuity from London. They are the only ITV company to take the network branding without being a part of
ITV Plc .
In 2012, the
UK plans to complete its five-year process to cease
Analogue broadcasts region-by-region, with Channel TV being the last area to switch off.
