is the collective brand name and identity used by
ITV Plc for the
ITV1 television channel in the
London region.
The franchise for ITV1 for London and its environs is awarded to two broadcasters with one operating Monday to Friday afternoon and the other from Friday evening throughout the rest of the weekend. The weekday and weekend licences are currently held by
Carlton Television (weekdays) and
London Weekend Television (weekends) respectively, however as
ITV Plc owns both these companies they operate under the brand rather than their legal names. The only noticeable differences between the two franchises is that local weather forecasts broadcast Friday to Sunday are branded as "London Weekend Weather", and is
Sponsor ed by a different company to weekday forecasts. ITV London is the only ITV plc region that does not receive visual local identification for regional programming, whereas all other regions do. From time to time however it is verbally called "ITV1 London".
In March 2004,
ITN took over production of ITV London's regional news programme
London Tonight from
London News Network , which relocated from their previous South Bank studios to ITN's
Gray's Inn Road headquarters.
ITV1 London is carried as the sole alternative ITV region to
Sky Digital customers, currently carried on EPG position 993. It appears at that channel for all other ITV regions except London. The reason for this is so that
Audio Description services, which are only carried on the London variant on satellite are readily available to all viewers. It is possible however for Sky viewers to receive all ITV regions under the "Other Channels" menu. Information can be found in order to do this on the Internet.
The Friday 5:15pm to Monday 5:59am franchise has been held by LWT since
1993 .
ITV London is based at ITV plc's main headquarters,
The London Studios , on the south bank of the
River Thames , formerly home to
London Weekend Television . Weekday London broadcaster Carlton Television also previously leased space in the facility, alongside
GMTV .
