is the and managed with
London Weekend Television as a single entity,
ITV London . Major programmes include ''
London Tonight '', ''
The London Programme '' and ''London Soccer Night''.
Carlton Television's parent company
Carlton Communications also gained the
Central England and
Westcountry franchises, after successfully taking over
Central Independent Television in 1994 and
Westcountry Television in 1996. The regional identities of the two regions continued as normal until 1999, when Carlton controversially rebranded both of them under its own name. Carlton also gained the
Wales and
West Of England franchise holder,
HTV from
Granada Television , in
2001 , though most of the production facilities were retained by Granada.
Like all ITV plc-owned regions, Carlton is now known on air as
ITV1 , and
ITV1 London verbally in accordance with regional programming.
Carlton Television was originally a company set up by
Michael Green 's
Carlton Communications to bid for an
ITV franchise. Having failed to buy into
Thames Television in 1987, Carlton finally succeeded in ousting that broadcaster in the 1991/92 franchise round, for reasons that were seen as political.
A controversial edition of Thames Television's ''
This Week '' documentary series dealt with the killing of
IRA members in Gibraltar by a British Army's
Special Forces unit. Titled
Death On The Rock , the programme infuriated the UK
Conservative government, led by
Margaret Thatcher , as well as British tabloid newspapers. Death On The Rock went on to win a
British Television Academy Award .
It has been widely believed, but not fully proven, that the
1990 Broadcasting Act was used to revoke Thames' ITV franchise license because of Death On The Rock's criticism of the British Army.
Carlton Television took over from Thames at midnight on
January 1 ,
1993 , running out of hired space at the facilities of
London Weekend Television (instead of acquiring their own studio). Unlike Thames (which was both a production company and a broadcaster, and following a merger, continuing to produce programmes under the name
TalkbackTHAMES ), Carlton has always commissioned most of its programming from independent production companies. Its contract to hold the ITV franchise license disallows the company to commission all programming, therefore it was compulsory for Carlton to produce a minimal amount of programming for the network, such includes ''
Police Camera Action! ''.
The first ever Carlton programme to be broadcast nationally when Carlton joined the network, was ''Surprise Party'', effectively the same format as ''
This Is Your Life '', previously a mainstay of predecessor Thames Television. Hosted by
Michael Parkinson , the first celebrity to be the subject of the show was entrepreneur
Richard Branson . At the end of the hour-long show, Michael Parkinson told viewers to keep their eyes out for another ''Surprise Party''. However, no further programmes were ever made.
Alarm bells had been ringing before Carlton even transmitted as part of the ITV network, as one notable commission with wide publicity was ''The Good Sex Guide'', inviting scorn and derision from conservative newspapers, before it had actually been broadcast.
Carlton found itself at the centre of a major . The scandal led to an impassioned debate about the accuracy of
Documentary production.
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In recent years, changes in rules concerning media ownership enabled Carlton to buy out many of the other ITV stations, including
Central Independent Television ,
Westcountry , and part of
HTV (via
Granada ), as well as the rights to the archives of
ITC Entertainment and its former sister company
ATV , and the Rank film archive. HTV was the only region owned by Carlton not to be subject to a full rebrand as ''Carlton''. Both "HTV West" and "HTV Wales" stayed with their then-current idents; however upon Carlton's purchase, the animated introduction and music to the idents were replaced by the sequences and audio in use with Carlton's graphical package. The logo and endboard of the ident remained unchanged however, using the generic hearts look of 1999. Carlton also did not acquire most of HTV's production facilities, most of which Granada retained.
The ITC archive is particularly lucrative since it includes such popular shows as ''
Thunderbirds '', ''
The Prisoner '', ''
The Saint '' and ''
Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased) '' (original version), as well as feature films that include ''
The Return Of The Pink Panther '', ''
On Golden Pond '', and ''
Capricorn One ''. Many
Rank Organisation films are also part of the Carlton library. Carlton has released much of this material on video and
DVD via its own label in the UK, and via
A & E Home Video , Acorn Media,
MGM Home Entertainment , and
Lions Gate Home Entertaiment in the USA. A large number of these films were shown on Carlton's digital movie channel,
Carlton Cinema , however it closed in 2003.
In September 2002, Carlton and Granada, having now acquired all the franchises in
England and
Wales , made the controversial decision to remove all regional idents, continuity and branding, and replace them with the single brand,
ITV1 . English regional idents were to only precede regional programming, and regional announcements were pre-recorded from London (Wales gets on-screen recognition prior to all programming, ''see
ITV1 Wales ''). Unlike Granada-owned regions, Carlton used dual-branding on its regional idents with the Carlton logo, so the Carlton Westcountry and Carlton Central regions were simply known as ITV1 Carlton. Granada-owned franchises preferred simply to place text of the region name under the ITV1 logo. This went on until 2003, when Carlton dropped the practice, resulting in changing the brands from "Carlton Central" to "ITV1 for Central England", from "Carlton Westcountry" to "ITV1 for the Westcountry". The HTV regions were re-branded "ITV1 Wales" and "ITV1 West of England" in 2002.
On
2 February ,
2004 , Carlton Communications plc merged with
Granada Plc , creating
ITV Plc , which now owns all of the
ITV franchises in
England and
Wales under the "ITV1" brand (Wales still uses its own on-screen identity as
ITV1 Wales , but now also uses English ITV1 continuity). In addition, Carlton Video became part of Granada Ventures, and the three English Carlton ITV regions were reverted back to their previous names: "ITV1 for Central England" again became "ITV1 Central", "ITV1 West of England" became "ITV1 West" and "ITV1 for the Westcountry" became "ITV1 Westcountry", prior to regional programming in their respective areas.
See Also: ITV London
Since
28 October ,
2002 , Carlton Television (in common with all the other ITV companies, except
Scottish Television ,
Grampian Television and
Ulster Television ) has been known on air simply as ITV1 (London Weekdays). Unlike
London Weekend Television , Carlton Television did not note the last day (25/10/02) of its regional identity on-air. However, the Carlton brand continued to be seen on production captions until 2004. Since Carlton and London Weekend Television now use identical presentation and logos, the division between the London weekday and weekend franchises is now invisible, although the old LWT - now ITV1 (London Weekends) - does have ''London Weekend Weather'', which is sponsored by a different company to that of London Weekdays.
With the merger of Carlton and Granada, Carlton Television and LWT are now run as a single entity (
ITV London ), with a single management team appointed to both companies. Both continue to have a separate legal existence however, and still have separate licences, although this is now just a formality.
Upon merger, Carlton lost recognition to programmes made by their companies, which became branded as "Granada" and the relevant area, for example, all programmes made in London became branded as "Granada London". From
January 16 ,
2006 , all programmes produced by any ITV plc owned region are branded by
ITV Productions . This means that there is no distinction between which programmes are made by Carlton, LWT or any other ITV company.
- Hilary Holden 1994 - 1997
- Mark Lipscomb 1993-2002
- David Allan 1995-2002
- Graham Bannerman 1993-2002
- Adrian Finighan 1993
- Fiona Goldman 1993-2002
- Erica Longdon 2000-2002
- John Mckenzie 2000-2002
- Peter Tompkins 2000-2002
Between 1997 and 2003, Carlton owned a number of extra channels, carried initially on analogue cable, but later their flagship platform,
ONdigital , while a couple made it to
Sky Digital . However, three closed in 2000; and all five were closed by 2003. Most were closed due to funding issues and lack of loyal viewership. They all time-shared on three
EPG positions.
Carlton Food Network and
Carlton Select shared a channel, and
Carlton Kids ,
Carlton World and another channel named 'RAW!' shared the second.
Carlton Cinema received an
EPG position of its own on all platforms.
See Also: Carlton Cinema
Carlton Cinema was the Carlton channel which showed
Classic Movies , but also
Cartoons unusually; this ceased transmission in 2003.
See Also: Carlton Select
Carlton Select was the main
Entertainment channel from Carlton, and broadcast both in the
UK and Africa. It time-shared with the Carlton Food Network, and ceased transmission in 2000.
See Also: Carlton World
Carlton World was a general entertainment channel broadcast in the evenings, with sister
Carlton Kids broadcast in the daytime. This ceased transmission in 2000.
See Also: Carlton Kids
Carlton Kids was a children's channel and showed most of all of Carlton's children's imports, and programming from Carlton's regions. Time-shared with
Carlton World , it ceased transmission in 2000.
See Also: Carlton Food Network
Carlton Food Network was the Carlton channel devoted to
Cookery , and time-shared with Carlton Select. It was later re-branded 'Taste CFN', and ceased transmission in late 2001.
The Carlton name and logo have now disappeared from all branding on ITV. They can, however, still be seen in cinemas as
Carlton Screen Advertising ,
ITV Plc 's cinema advertising division, sells advertising for several cinema chains in the
UK and
Ireland .
