Central Independent Television

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This article is about the British regional broadcaster. For the Australian commercial station formerly known as Central GTS/BKN, see Southern Cross GTS/BKN.
Central Independent Television plc
Image:Central_TV.gif
Based in Birmingham,Nottingham
Broadcast area Midlands
Launched 1 January 1982
Image:Centraltv-90logo.jpg
Central TV logo 1985-1998
Closed Became Carlton Central in 1999, but lost on-air identity 27 October 2002 (known as ITV1 Central before regional programming only)
Replaced ATV
Website itvregions.com/central
Owned by ITV plc

Central Independent Television, commonly referred to as Central, is the British Independent Television company that succeeded ATV on 1 January 1982. The main news programme for the region is Central Tonight.

Contents

[edit] History

Apart from a new name and logo, the company was essentially a continuation of ATV, having originally applied for the franchise as ATV Midlands Limited. The new name was adopted as one of a set of conditions imposed upon ATV by the Independent Broadcasting Authority, who believed that the company needed to more fully reflect the area it served. Another condition was that ATV move its headquarters to Birmingham from Elstree (near London). The new company sold its Elstree Studios (to the BBC) and opened new studios in Nottingham. Further, Lew Grade's Associated Communications Corporation was forced to divest 49% of its shareholdings in the company.

The name Central Independent Television allegedly came about after an enterprising Midlander heard of the 1980 ITV franchise round, and in an attempt to get royalties, trademarked many names relating to television in the Midlands (including Central Television). The new company got around this by simply calling themselves Central Independent Television plc.

When Central launched, its region was subdivided into two sub-regions; one for the West Midlands (with studios in Birmingham), and one for the East Midlands (with studios in Nottingham). Initially, however, the Nottingham service was not seen by viewers for several weeks, because of an industrial action by technical staff. There are few differences between the subregions, but each has its own news service and advertisements. This led to the BBC also producing two news programmes (Midlands Today for the West and East Midlands Today for the East).

In 1989, a third sub-region covering the South Midlands was created. With a news studio in Abingdon (near Oxford), Central News South was at the time of its creation the most automated news operation in the country. The service was launched on 9th January 1989, the opening night being fraught with technical problems. Presenters Wesley Smith and Anne Dawson co-presented the main programme, and were the longest-serving co-presenters of any ITV regional news programme, until Dawson's departure in 2003 to become a college lecturer. Anne was replaced as main presenter by Hannah Stewart-Jones, formerly of Channel TV.

The BBC finally responded to the creation of Central News South in 2000 by creating a sub-opt-out that is broadcast to Oxfordshire, eastern Wiltshire, and parts of Buckinghamshire.

Central News South was again a pioneer of new technology when, in the Spring of 2001, state-of-the-art Quantel digital video servers and edit suites were installed, along with a complete re-fit of camera and VTR equipment. This meant that Central South was at the forefront of digital newsgathering in regional news.

However, it was announced on 6 June 2006 that Central News South's existence as a news region was to end after 17 years when it would merge its operations with Meridian West's output, forming a new news region named ITV Thames Valley and a new news programme, Thames Valley Tonight.

At the same time, ITV West's (legally HTV West) broadcast footprint was expanded to cover Cheltenham and Gloucestershire from the West's Bristol studios, while Herefordshire re-joined Central News West from Birmingham.

Originally, the changes were supposed to make over 40 workers redundant from Central News South, however this was later reduced to 20 [1]. The last edition was be on Sunday 3rd December, although there was a pan-regional Central News broadcast the following morning during GMTV.

[edit] Carlton and ITV plc

The ITV Central headquarters in Birmingham Gas Street.
Enlarge
The ITV Central headquarters in Birmingham Gas Street.

Carlton Television had owned a stake in Central since the early eighties (before Carlton became an ITV Franchisee in its own right). In 1994, Central was completely bought by Carlton and on 6 September 1999 was rebranded as Carlton Central, though the registered company name remained Central Independent Television Limited. With the merger of Carlton and Granada on 2 February 2004, the brand became ITV1 Central. Central Independent Television is currently owned by ITV plc.

In February 2004, ITV plc announced plans to close and sell the Lenton Lane production centre, located in Nottingham. Following the closure of the Lenton Lane studios, a new newsgathering centre was established in the city, but production of Central News East moved to Central's Birmingham studio in Spring 2005. The former studio complex is now part of The University of Nottingham and is known as 'King's Meadow Campus'. It still maintains one Studio (Studio 7), and this is rented out to television and film Companies, generating income for the University.

In October 2004, ITV plc closed Central's presentation/transmission department, moving transmission to the Northern Transmission Centre in Leeds. Many viewers and workers from the British television industry believe this to have been a mistake, claiming that Central had the most professional presentation within the ITV network, and pioneered many technologies and techniques years before they would be adopted on a wider scale. However, the role of presentation and transmission at Birmingham had been significantly reduced after Network presentation was centralised to LNN in London in 2002 and so there was an inevitability that this function would be moved out. CITV (Children's ITV), which had been presented from Central's Birmingham studios since 1983, was also re-homed to Granada's studios in Manchester, with all content pre-recorded and with out-of vision presentation.

[edit] Notable Central programmes

[edit] Central TV Announcers 1982-2002

Ted May 1985-2002
Su Evens 1982-2002
Mike Prince 1982-1990
Hilary Holden ?-1994

[edit] External links

v • d • e
ITV

Companies: ITV plc | SMG plc | UTV plc | Channel Television Ltd

ITV Franchises

Northern Scotland: Grampian • Central Scotland: Scottish • Scottish/English Border and Isle of Man: Border
Northern Ireland: UTV • North East England: Tyne Tees • Yorkshire/Lincolnshire: Yorkshire
North and North West England: ABC | Granada • Wales and the West of England: TWW | WWN | ITSWW | HTV
Midlands: ATV | ABC | Central • East Anglia: Anglia • London: Rediffusion | ATV | Thames | LWT | Carlton
South and South East England: Southern | TVS | Meridian • South West England: Westward | TSW | Westcountry
Channel Islands: Channel • Breakfast: TV-am | GMTV/GMTV2 • Teletext: ORACLE | Teletext Ltd.

Non-franchise regions

Northern & Central Scotland: stv • Thames Valley: ITV Thames Valley • London: ITV London

News: ITN | ITV News • Sport: ITV Sport • Children: CITV • Online: ITV.com | ITV Local • Mobile: ITV Mobile

Channels: ITV1 | ITV2 | ITV3 | ITV4 | CITV Channel | ITV Play | ITV HD | Men & Motors

See also: British TV | British TV Channels | ITV Channels | ITV Idents and Presentation
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