ITV, legally known as Channel 3, is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network. It is branded as ITV1 in most of the UK except for central and northern Scotland, where it is branded as STV. It was launched in 1955 as Independent Television to provide competition, eliminating what had been the monopoly of BBC Television. ITV is the oldest commercial network in the UK. Since the passing of the Broadcasting Act 1990, it has been legally known as Channel 3 to distinguish it from the other analogue channels at the time: BBC1, BBC2 and Channel 4.
ITV1 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the British media company ITV plc. It provides the Channel 3 public broadcast service across all of the United Kingdom except for the central and northern areas of Scotland where STV provides the service.
ITV2 is a British free-to-air television channel owned by ITV Digital Channels, a division of ITV plc. It was launched on 7 December 1998. For a number of years, it had the largest audience share after the five analogue terrestrial stations, a claim now held by its sister service ITV3 both of which are freely available to a majority of households.
ITV plc is a British media company that holds 13 of the 15 regional television licences that make up the ITV network, the oldest and largest commercial terrestrial television network in the United Kingdom.
ITV3 is a British free-to-air television channel owned by ITV Digital Channels, a division of ITV plc. The channel was first launched on Monday 1 November 2004 at 9 pm, replacing Plus (Granada). ITV3 is the sixth-largest UK television channel by audience share and the largest after the five main terrestrial services, the position which was previously held by its sister station ITV2. The channel is known for repeats of ITV dramas, and including sequential reruns of Agatha Christie's Poirot, Classic Coronation Street, Classic Emmerdale, Heartbeat, Inspector Morse and A Touch of Frost, amongst others, as well as formerly showing repeats of Kojak, Numb3rs, Columbo, Cagney & Lacey and The Bill.
ITV Digital Channels Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of British broadcaster ITV plc. It manages all of the company's television channels with the exception of ITV1, which is part of the entire network.
ITV4 is a British free-to-air television channel which first aired on 1 November 2005. It is owned by ITV Digital Channels, a division of ITV plc, and is part of the ITV network.
ITV Nightscreen was a scheduled programme on the ITV television network that was broadcast from 1998 to 2021. It consisted of a sequence of animated pages of information about ITV's upcoming programmes, features and special events, with easy listening music in the background. The programme was used to fill the station's overnight downtime, where a closedown would have once been used at the end of programmes. The programme was generally shown seven days a week with the typical weekday show airing from 4:05 am to 5:05 am daily. However, on ITV's digital channels, the amount of Teleshopping affects how much Nightscreen is broadcast. The programme was also broadcast on all of ITV's +1 channels.
CITV is a British children's morning programming block on ITV2 and formerly a free-to-air channel owned by ITV plc. CITV, then Children's ITV, launched on 3 January 1983 as a late afternoon programming block on the ITV network for children aged 6–12. It replaced the earlier Watch It! branding and introduced networked in-vision continuity links between programmes. These links were originally pre-recorded from a small London studio up until 1987, when Central won the contract to produce live links from their Birmingham studios. In 2004, presentation of CITV was relocated to Granada Television in Manchester, which saw the demise of in-vision continuity. Nine years later, the operations moved to ITV Granada's MediaCityUK studios in Salford.
Night Network, Night Time and Night Shift were names given to the overnight schedule of the ITV network in the United Kingdom. The first ITV company began 24-hour broadcasting in 1986, with all of the companies broadcasting through the night by the end of 1988. At first, individual companies created their own services; however, before too long, many of the smaller ITV stations began simulcasting or networking services from others.
ITV Sport is a sport producer for ITV. It was formed following the merger between Granada Sport and Central Sport.
itv.com is the main website of ITV plc, the UK's largest commercial television broadcaster which operates 13 out of 15 regions on the ITV network under the ITV1 brand. The website offers the ITVX streaming service, with sections for ITV News, certain ITV1 programmes and competitions. STV, Which runs the only regions not owned by ITV plc, have their own separate website at stv.tv.
ITVX is a British over-the-top and ad-supported streaming service operated by ITV plc. The service offers original content from the broadcaster, livestreams of the ITV television channels, FAST channels, and exclusive and licensed programming.
Freeview is the name for the collection of free-to-air services on the digital terrestrial television platform in the United Kingdom. The service was launched at 5 am on 30 October 2002 and is jointly operated by its five equal shareholders – BBC, ITV, Channel 4, BSkyB and transmitter operator Arqiva. This article documents the history of the Freeview service, from its inception up to the present.
FYI Daily is a 60-second daily entertainment news round-up. Broadcast on ITV2, ITV3, ITV4 and ITVBe, it generally airs mid-way through films, as an interstitial television show. It is produced by ITN Productions.
ITVBe is a British free-to-air television channel owned by ITV Digital Channels, a division of ITV plc. The channel was first announced on 12 February 2014 and launched on 8 October 2014. ITVBe broadcasts reality and unscripted shows, including US acquisitions such as The Real Housewives franchise, Million Dollar Listing New York, and Botched; and original programming such as The Real Housewives of Cheshire, Dinner Date, and The Only Way Is Essex. The channel has also occasionally aired feature films, particularly from the romantic comedy genre, and from May to September 2023 also broadcast female-skewed comedy and drama such as Jane the Virgin and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.
This is a timeline of the history of the British television network ITV.
This is a timeline of the British company ITV Digital Channels and its predecessors Granada Sky Broadcasting and Carlton Communications, and digital channels of other ITV-related companies. The timeline does not include events related to ITV network's flagship channel.
This is a timeline of overnight television broadcasting in the United Kingdom. It focuses on programming between midnight and 6am and includes details of when channels began into the night and 24-hour broadcasting.
