Very informative post as ever Sparky
I was in Northern Ireland a couple of weeks ago and found it interesting to note that their ITV channel is still branded UTV (Ulster TV).
Northern Ireland must be one of the few regions in the UK to still have a separate ITV identity .
The Saint
Yes, Ulster Television or "UTV", Scottish Television or "STV" seem to be the only two with their original brands.
Not sure why this is - it's possible they both stuck their fingers up to the big Carlton/Charles Allen takeover and vision of a single identity ITV.
At first, I thought it was a nations thing - though if that was the case, shouldn't have Wales kept the "HTV" or "HTV Wales" brand?
For a long time after the regional identities went, Channel Television kept it's identity too.
Local news on ITV kept their regional names for years after - that (aparently) was to get round franchise contractual issues.
When the contracts were initially issued, they were issued to a named regional company.
So for instance, in the Midlands the "Central News" name was kept - even though the main branding had gone -it quickly went through a phase of "ITV1 Central", "ITV1 Central England" to get to "ITV1".
Years before all this - during the mid 1970s, Yorkshire, Anglia and Tyne-Tees wanted to pool resources & costs and form one holding company; called "Trident Television" - you'll see the branding at the end of "Rising Damp" / "Only when I laugh" and most YTV produced shows around 1975-1981, under the Yorkshire Television logo.
You'd also see the name on the odd "Tyne Tees" programme too. But - curiously, not on any "Anglia" produced programmes.
Obviously, staff at all 3 stations thought this was a mass takeover (At Anglia - they thought YTV was trying to take them over, at YTV they thought both Anglia and Tyne Tees were trying to hold a coup and take them over!) and would result in job losses.
Tyne-Tees saw it as the beginning of the end for ITV - as if this happened, it would then pave the way for the bigger fish (Granada, LWT, Thames and ATV) to merge up with all the smaller companies.
In step the IBA - putting a stop to the merger - as they claimed it wasn't fair just one company having such a large share of advertising revenue (3 regions worth).
Only in 1974, Yorkshire and Anglia were forced to do a Transmitter swap to balance the advertising books.
Until then Anglia also covered most of Lincolnshire via the transmitter at Belmont as well as the area to the east of england from the transmitter at Mendlesham.
Yorkshire - then - took over this extra slice of Lincolnshire. (I have a copy of a flyer posted to every house in the region notifying viewers - will fire up the scanner at some point)
Funny thing is - those at Tyne-Tees were spot on, though some 20 years earlier.
In 1988 - the Broadcasting White Paper was published by the Tories; de-regulating ITV and doing away with the IBA; and introducing this Franchise Auction fiasco.
We know what happened thereafter in the auctions!
But the paper included leeway for Larger companies to merge (or "Co-operate") with smaller companies - it was sold to us as "provide better viewing".
So - media giants, such as Carlton (now with firm feet in the ITV system - controversially taking over the Thames franchise) dug out the Chequebook.
It's first investment was about 30% of shares in "Central TV". By the end of the 1990s, it had 100% of the shares.
Granada then dug out their chequebook - merged with LWT and Anglia.
Yorkshire (ironically) merged with Tyne-Tees. They became "Channel 3 Yorkshire" and "Channel 3 Northeast" for about a months - before being told to restore their proper brands following masses of complaints.
Meanwhile Channel, UTV and STV sat at the side and watched as it all unfolded.
By the end of the 1990s, most of the ITV network was either owned by Granada or Carlton; and then Charles Allen (then head of Granada) and I think it was Micheal Green (Carlton) went cap in hand to the Government asking if the two companies could merge together to form a national "ITV1".
And we know what happened next!
There may be a few details and facts missing, though that's pretty much how we got from a decent ITV to what we have now.
Incidentally - the only decent contribution Carlton made to ITV (in my opinion) is this...
While all this merging was going on; a Chinese broadcaster / media giant offered a HUGE amount of money to buy up most of the ITC archive and the Gerry Anderson Series. This may have included rights, merchandise rights etc. So not just the archive.
Had it happened, it would have been the last we saw of any of it.
Carlton stepped in brought the lot, claiming it was made in this country, it should stay in this country.
Can't disagree with that at least.
This was the time that the regional brands started to vanish, programmes were getting axed and studios closed.