ITV1 History

*Information taken from Wikipedia.*

Following the creation of the Television Act 1954, the establishment of a commercial television service in the UK began.

The **Independent Television** service, or ITV, was made up of regions, with each region run by different companies. The three largest regions (London, the Midlands and the North of England) were subdivided into weekday and weekend services, with a different company running each. ITV existed in a region-heavy form from its inception to the 2000s, although the switch was gradual.

ITV1 became the generic on-screen brand name used by the twelve franchises of the ITV Network in the United Kingdom. The brand was introduced on 11th August 2001 by Carlton- and Granada-owned franchises, initially used alongside the local regional name. However, it became the sole on-air identity in 2002 when the two companies decided to create a single unified playout of the channel, with regional references only used prior to regional programming. Carlton and Granada went on to merge in 2004, creating ITV plc which now owns thirteen of the fifteen regional ITV licences.

The ITV1 name was only used in England, Wales, Southern Scotland and Isle of Man until Channel Television (which was later renamed to 'ITV1 Channel Islands' on 29th March 2011) adopted the name on 16th January 2006, bringing it to the Channel Islands. It should be noted, however, that as national continuity is often used on Channel Television, ITV1 national branding had been seen on the station for several years previously.

The licencees that used the ITV brand were Anglia Television, Border Television, Carlton Television, Central Independent Television, Channel Television, Granada Television, ITV Wales & West, London Weekend Television, Meridian Broadcasting, Tyne Tees Television, Westcountry Television and Yorkshire Television.

ITV Wales & West was the only exception, using the name *ITV1 Wales / ITV1 West* at all times for the Welsh & Western England parts of its broadcast area as it has a higher regional commitment. Latterly the *ITV1 Wales / ITV1 West* name was only used on idents, breakbumpers and regionally advertised programmes till 24th September 2011 when the service was once again renamed to HTV. Non ITV plc-owned licencees on the network generally did not refer to the ITV name (HTV, STV & UTV) until ITV plc bought the regions on 3rd March 2016 - but their names still remain today.

The network production arms of the ITV-plc owned licencees have been gradually combined since 1993 to eventually form ITV Studios.

13th January 2014 saw the comeback of the channel's 2004 idents and presentation, but using a 3D version of the March 2011 logo instead of the November 2004 one to represent the theme of "3D Elements". Later, another identity comeback happened on 3rd March 2016 when the "Hearts" idents from 1999 were reused to coincide with the new ITV corporate look. The last of these idents were seen before the lunchtime news bulletin on 30th April 2018 when they were replaced by Plasticine-animated versions of the 2002-04 "Celebrities" idents.

In June-September 2021, viewers have been uploading and sending some of their recorded videos from pre-COVID through the ITV website to be used as idents on the channel from 10th November, whereas each week the best video wins and gets to be aired on the channel. Each viewer won £1,000 by sending in the best video. These idents were slightly edited on 18th October 2022 to include a new logo for ITV1 as part of a major presentation refresh, and the majority of the channel's viewers also saw the on-screen DOG returning once again after it disappeared from their screens in August 2016. The DOG on all five main channels are now shown without the ITV logo and now only showing "One", "Two", "Three", "Four" or "Life".

## ITV1 Extra

ITV1's sister channel ITV1 Extra - a channel dedicated to airing reruns of programmes previously aired on ITV1 launched, replacing former channels - ITV5, 6, 7, 8 & 9, on 3rd March 2016 as part of the network's rebrand. It officially launched on Freeview channel 37 (55 in the Channel Islands) following the closure of the former channels instead of just having a static screensaver and preview like any other upcoming channel on Freeview, and shortly launched on all other platforms afterwards.

### Closure of ITV1 Extra

The channel closed down at 9am 29th August 2020 with all of its content moving to ITV Player, where all of ITV1 Extra's programmes can be found under the new "Nostalgia" section on the ITV1 page, all of which are listed in alphabetical order and are arranged categorically. A montage of past presentation on ITV1 Extra, as well as the channels that ITV1 Extra had replaced (ITV5, 6, 7, 8 & 9), was seen shortly before closure.

The channel was removed from the Freeview EPG more than a year later on 4th December 2021 and was replaced by extended broadcasting hours for NOW 60s - a decade-focused music channel focusing on music from the 1960s which launched on Freeview (via internet-connected TVs & Set-top boxes) in the Manchester multiplex, and nationally on Sky, Freesat & Virgin on 23rd July 2020. This music channel is also available nationally on Freeview via Channelbox (channel 271) and Arqiva+ along with NOW 70s, NOW 80s, NOW 90s, NOW 00s, NOW 10s, NOW 20s, NOW Dance (formerly Clubland TV), NOW Rock & NOW Country.

## ITV1/ITV1 Extra on TopUp TV

In April 2017, both channels became available on TopUp TV via subscriber's choice. It was removed from the service on 8th March 2023 when TopUp TV closed down.

## Channel 4's longest-running gameshow moves to ITV1

In May 2021, it was announced that the iconic gameshow *Countdown* will be moving networks from Channel 4 to ITV1 after 39 years. The gameshow was first broadcast on Channel 4's launch date (2nd November 1982 - the same day when the BBC network turned 46 years old) with Richard Whiteley as host and Carol Vorderman as co-host. As of Series 86, the gameshow is hosted by Colin Murray or Trevor McDonald along with Rachel Riley, who has been playing co-host since the first show of 2009. The show took over the original weekday afternoon timeslot previously occupied by *Judge Rinder*, who then started broadcasting on ITV2 when *Countdown* had started broadcasting on ITV1 in January 2022.

Series 46-84 are now repeated on Channel 4 on weekdays at 6.05am & 2.10pm (except special editions such as the 2007 25th Anniversary episode in Series 57), while older editions are repeated on Challenge.