Timeline of Carlton Television

This is a timeline of the history of Carlton Television (now known as ITV London).

1980s

• 1985
  • 11 October – Carlton Television is set up by Carlton Communications to bid for an ITV franchise after the Independent Broadcasting Authority stops Carlton Communications from buying Thames Television.[1]

• 1987
  • 16 March – Carlton Communications acquires a 20 per cent of Central from Ladbrokes for £30million[2] which finally gave Carlton its first stake in a terrestrial broadcasting company, after a bid to buy Thames Television was blocked by the IBA two years beforehand.[3]

1990s

• 1991
  • 16 October – Carlton Television is awarded the licence to provide London's weekday service by outbidding Thames Television.[4] Carlton had not been the highest bidder as CPV-TV had bid just over £2 million more (£45.32 million compared to Carlton's £43.2 million) but it had failed to pass the quality threshold test.

• 1992
  • Carlton and LWT create a 50/50 joint venture called London News Network to provide both franchisees with news and non-news regional programming.

• 1993
  • 1 January – At midnight, Carlton Television begins broadcasting.
  • London Tonight launches as the new news service for both Carlton and LWT.

• 1994
  • January – Carlton Communications takes full ownership of Central.[5][6]
  • 30 May – The Independent Television Commission criticises Carlton for providing a wide range of "unimpressive and very disappointing" programmes for the ITV network, which were "neither distinctive nor noticeable high quality".[7]

• 1995
  • 4 September – Carlton launches a new set of idents.[8]

• 1996
  • Carlton Television buys Westcountry Television and increased its stake in Central Independent Television to 81%.
  • 1 September – Carlton Food Network launches. It becomes Carlton's first cable channel, It operates on weekday daytimes, timesharing with SelecTV.
  • 25 November –
    • Just over a year after its last ident refresh, Carlton launches a new set of idents.[9]
    • London Today, a 30-minute lunchtime edition of London Tonight is launched.

• 1997
  • 14 February – Carlton Select, is launched. It replaces SelecTV, which it acquired when Carlton bought Pearson Television.
  • 2 April – Carlton buys Rank Film Distributors, including its library of 740 films, for £65 million.[10]
  • 25 June – Carlton forms a partnership with Granada and BSkyB to bid for some of the multiplexes for the new digital terrestrial network and is successful in its application under the condition that BSkyB withdrew from the group.[11]

• 1998
  • May – The Guardian publishes a series of articles alleging the wholesale fabrication of a 1996 Carlton documentary, The Connection, which had purported to film the route by which heroin was smuggled into the United Kingdom from Colombia. An internal inquiry at Carlton found that The Guardian's allegations were in large part correct and the ITC, fines Carlton £2-million.[12] for multiple breaches of the UK's broadcasting codes.
  • 15 November – OnDigital launches and Carlton launches three new channels for the service – Carlton Cinema, Carlton Kids and Carlton World. The service also carries Carlton Food Network and Carlton Select.

• 1999
  • 6 September – Carlton drops the Central Independent Television and Westcountry Television names from their on-air presentation, instead branding these regions as Carlton Television, and using the same presentation for all three regions.[13]

2000s

• 2000
  • 1 February – Carlton World and Carlton Kids stop broadcasting.[14][15]
  • 1 March – Carlton Select stops broadcasting.[16]

• 2001
  • May – Following the signing of a joint venture with supermarket chain Sainsbury's, Carlton Food Network is renamed Taste CFN.[17]
  • 11 July – Carlton and Granada relaunch OnDigital as ITV Digital in an attempt to better compete with Sky.[18]
  • September – London Today is broadcast for the final time.
  • 1 December – Taste CFN stops broadcasting.

• 2002
  • 27 March – ITV Digital goes into administration.[19]
  • 1 May – ITV Digital stops broadcasting.[20][21]
  • 28 October – The remaining two ITV companies in England, Carlton and Granada, decide to drop all regional identities and replace them with a single ITV1 branding. Consequently, the London ITV region now operates as a seven-day service and is branded as ITV London although no ident featuring this branding is created. Instead the region used plain generic idents seen by the rest of the country, without any regional variance identifying it as London. However the Carlton name continues to appear on endcaps.

• 2003
  • 31 March – Carlton Cinema stops broadcasting.[22]

• 2004
  • 2 February –
    • Granada plc merges with Carlton Communications to form a single England and Wales ITV company called ITV plc.[23] and Carlton officially becomes ITV London.
    • The use of the Carlton name no longer appears on endcaps. This brings to an end the use of the Carlton name on ITV after 11 years.

See also

• History of ITV
• History of ITV television idents
• Timeline of ITV
• Timeline of London Weekend Television
• Timeline of television in London

References

1. Guardian Friday, Oct 11 1985 P20, Dennis Barker " Carlton Communications proposal ruled unaccepted"- IBA blocks sale of Thames
2. Ladbroke sale fuels takeover speculation. Cliff Feltham. The Times, Monday, 16 March 1987; pg. 19
3. Carlton buys Central stake from LadbrokeStoddart, RobinThe Guardian (1959–2003); 16 March 1987;
4. ITV plc: History
5. Too much reward without risk. The Times (London, England), Friday, 4 March 1994; pg. 25;
6. TV bid will spark more takeovers. Martin Waller Deputy City Editor. The Times Tuesday, 30 November 1993; pg. 23
7. Williams, Rhys (1994-05-30). "The case for Carlton Television: Paul Jackson, managing director of Carlton Television, gives Rhys Williams his response to the stinging criticism of his company's performance by the Independent Television Commission". The Independent. Retrieved 2013-06-25.
8. "Carlton". TV Live. Retrieved 2019-12-01.
9. "Carlton". TV Live. Retrieved 2019-12-01.
10. Dawtrey, Adam (2 April 1997). "Carlton Buy of Rank a Done Deal". Variety. Retrieved 6 July 2018.
11. Itv Big Two lead digital revolution. Eric Reguly and Carol Midgley. The Times, Wednesday, June 25, 1997
12. ITC Annual Report 1998 - Programme regulation Retrieved on 09-26-2007
13. "Carlton". TV Live. Retrieved 2019-12-01.
14. "Discovery channels boost ONdigital". The Independent. 22 December 1999.
15. "Carlton makes unhappy Discovery". The Guardian. 22 December 1999.
16. "Carlton makes unhappy Discovery". The Guardian. 22 December 1999.
17. "Sainsbury's to front digital TV". MediaWeek. 28 September 2000. Retrieved 30 July 2013.
18. "Ondigital 'faces relaunch'". 23 April 2001 – via news.bbc.co.uk.
19. "ITV Digital goes broke". 27 March 2002 – via news.bbc.co.uk.
20. "ITV Digital RIP".
21. "Race to find digital broadcaster". 1 May 2002 – via news.bbc.co.uk.
22. Deans, Jason (4 December 2002). "Carlton finally drops digital channel". Theguardian.com.
23. Litterick, David (8 October 2003). "ITV cleared for a united kingdom". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 26 June 2011.