| Based in | HTV Wales: Cardiff, Wales HTV West: Bristol, England |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Wales West of England |
| Launched | 20 May 1968 |
The HTV logo used from 1970 - 31 December 1992 |
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| Closed | Lost on-air identity on 27 October 2002 (known as ITV1 in the West at all times, in Wales during national programming only, and it is known in Wales as ITV1 Wales during local programming only) |
| Replaced | Television Wales and the West |
| Website | Wales itv.com/wales West of England itv.com/west |
| Owned by | ITV plc |
HTV, now legally known as ITV Wales & West, is the ITV contractor for Wales and the West of England,[1] which operated from studios in Cardiff and Bristol. The company provided commercial television for the dual-region 'Wales and West' franchise, which it won from TWW in 1968. Originally styled Harlech Television the name was changed to HTV within the first two years. The franchise is now owned and operated by ITV plc under the name ITV Broadcasting Limited.
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Initially the station used the name Harlech Television (after the head of the company, Lord Harlech), but from the introduction of colour in 1970 this was dropped in favour of HTV, which was simpler and removed concerns that the name Harlech was only associated with the Welsh part of the dual region.
The company was awarded its contract by the Independent Television Authority which apparently felt that the incumbent TWW, being corporately-based in London, was too distant from the area it served and that Harlech, jointly based in Bristol and Cardiff, would serve the area better. TWW were bitterly disappointed to lose the franchise and declined an opportunity created by the ITA to purchase shares in the winning company. Subsequently, TWW pulled out of its franchise five months early, selling the remaining air-time to Harlech which provided an unbranded emergency service prior to their formal launch.[2]
HTV served two quite different regions: Wales and the West of England. In Wales there was an additional requirement to provide a quota of programmes in the medium of Welsh. HTV West was successful in producing high quality children's TV series, often sold internationally. It established the 'HTV junior drama workshop' that auditioned and trained young actors and from which it cast roles for both its own productions, and other companies seeking young talent. Arthur Of The Britons (a historic adventure series), Children of the Stones (a supernatural thriller shot amid the famous stone circle at Avebury in Wiltshire) and Robin Of Sherwood were all very popular wherever they were shown. In addition to Network and locally produced content, HTV also broadcast acquired programmes and was the first British broadcaster to show Sesame Street, after it was rejected by the BBC in 1971.[3] HTV Wales produced far less drama output, though they were contracted to make the ten-part Return to Treasure Island for The Disney Channel in 1985.
In October 1995, United News and Media agreed to buy Scottish Television's 20% stake in the company,[4] ending Carlton's interest about a buyout. HTV and United began talks shortly after the sale aimed at sharing production services and facilities.[5] United was quoted at the time to have "no intention of bidding for the whole company" but within 6 months, on 28 June 1997, HTV was taken over fully by United News and Media plc (now United Business Media plc) for £370 million.[6]
In 2000, Granada PLC bought United's television interests, but at the time competition regulations limited the extent to which one company could control the ITV network, and were consequently forced to give up one of its ITV franchises. This resulted in a break-up of HTV, whereby its broadcast facilities and Channel 3 broadcast licence (and hence its advertising revenues) were sold to Carlton Communications plc, owners of Carlton Television, whilst the majority of production facilities were retained by Granada. Unlike Carlton's other ITV acquisitions, which were rebranded to use the Carlton name on screen, HTV's identity was retained on-air until 27 October 2002 when the 'ITV1' brand was introduced to most of the network.
Granada and Carlton were subsequently permitted to merge in 2004 to form the single company ITV plc, which now owns all of the ITV franchises in England and Wales. HTV Ltd was re-named ITV Wales & West Ltd on 29 December 2006,[7] alongside HTV Group Ltd, which was re-named ITV Wales & West Group Ltd[8] On 11 December 2008, the broadcast licence was transferred from ITV Wales & West Group Ltd to ITV Broadcasting Limited, the company now responsible for all the regional francises.
In 2009, as part of plans to reduce ITV's regional news service to save costs, the ITV West news programme was closed and the news service merged with that of Westcountry Television to form ITV West & Westcountry. The new programme, The West Country Tonight is broadcast from Bristol.[9][10][11]
The company originally operated production studios in Cardiff at Pontcanna and Bristol at Brislington. Presentation, Transmission and back-office staff were based largely in Cardiff. In the 1980s the company acquired studio facilities in north Wales at Theatre Clwyd near the town of Mold.
In 1984 HTV opened a new £14m TV Centre at Culverhouse Cross, Cardiff to replace the original one at Pontcanna. Transmission continued to originate from Pontcanna until 1989, when this transferred to the new Centre. In addition to providing playout for HTV Wales, the new TV Centre would, from 1 January 1993, also provided the transmission of South Western franchise Westcountry Television. The property eventually passed to United Business Media (then United News and Media) following the takeover of HTV by the group in 1997. However, while HTV changed hands twice more, UBM continued to own the Culverhouse Cross buildings and associated land. ITV plc acquired the site in 2006, and have since sought to redevelop the property. The largest production studio at Culverhouse Cross has been leased to third party operators since the early 1990s. In an interview with the Western Mail, the head of news and programmes, Phil Henfrey, has confirmed ITV Wales is to decide whether to stay at the site or re-locate to new, smaller premises in another part of Cardiff.[12]
In Bristol, HTV were based at Television Centre in Bath Road, which they took over from TWW. ITV plc continue to have operations based in both premises. Today, the Bristol headquarters are home to ITV South West's news programme The West Country Tonight.
The Wales and West region is a dual region franchise area. This originated from the fact that the Wenvoe transmitter originally covered both South Wales and the West of England and so for this reason one company needed to cover both regions.
HTV operates on the Llanddona, Moel-y-Parc, Long Mountain, Blaenplwyf, Preseli, Carmel, Kilvey Hill, Wenvoe and Mendip transmitters, with the former forming the HTV West region and all but the former forming the HTV Wales region.
Programmes could either be broadcast to the whole region through all the transmitters under the simple branding as HTV, or programming could be available in either one of the regions: Wales or West. Each region had its own separate news service and different regional programming.
HTV's on screen branding began in 1968 with their launch ident. The design was that of two words 'Harlech' spinning in opposite ways and which eventually met up to form one word. This design would have been clearly seen to viewers of the service then, however viewers today would have encountered lots of black lines and a barely noticeable 'Harlech'. This is due to the fact that the ident was designed for 405-line television system used at the time, and due to the use of 625-line UHF system, the ident appears differently on sets that receive the 625-line transmission.[13]
When colour came to the region, a new logo was designed. Due to criticism from viewers in the West region, concerning the bias towards Wales that Harlech presented, the new logo featured the letters HTV. The symbol created, named "The Aerial", featured the letters HTV in such a way that it looks like a television aerial. This was introduced in the early 1970s, and the logo remained with the station until 1993. The aerial would animate on through use of lines, accompanied by the same jingle as used before. The white logo on blue background was seen plain when both Wales and the West received the programme,[13] but would otherwise have the region name included. For the west, this was 'West' at the top of the logo between the 'H; and 'V',[14] whereas for Wales, the caption Cymru Wales was placed at the bottom of the logo, as a reference that Welsh programming was still shown on the channel.[15]
Following the launch of S4C in 1982, all Welsh language programming was transferred to the new service, and the Wales ident was amended so that the caption 'Wales' was displayed at the top of the logo.[15] These idents continued until 1987, when the idents were changed in favour of computer generated versions. This time, blocks flew out of a large suspended blue surface and landed to form the HTV aerial logo on a dark blue background.[13]
HTV adopted the first ITV generic look in 1989, and it was their slanted 'H; that appeared in their regional section of the ITV logo. Despite the video sequence being the same, there were three variations of the ident, all featuring a different lower caption; HTV, HTV Wales and HTV West. In addition, HTV also made their own variation where the HTV logo remained on-screen the whole time. All these idents were dropped on 1 January 1993.[13]
In their place, a new HTV logo was made, featuring an upright, but stylised HTV, with two triangles for the 'V' section. Originally this logo was seen as a translucent blue logo moving back onto a multi-coloured blue background accompanied by an ambient tune. This was later changed to a more upbeat tune, ending in a more noticeable crescendo. This ident package marked the end of specific HTV Wales and HTV West idents, as all of the idents that followed used the single HTV brand. As a result, fewer programme variations were made, and regional variations were dictated by the voiceover.[13]
The ident itself was again altered in 1995, to feature small triangles which grew and combined to form the triangular V and the remainder of the HTV logo. The tune accompanying it was stronger than its predecessor, and the colours were warmer than previous, with a gold HTV and a changing blue, green background. In 1999, HTV brought in their last in-house look, featuring the camera panning over the HTV logo in dark blue against a bright yellow background and accompanied by the same music as before.[13]
However later that same year, HTV, as part of UNM, adopted the second ITV generic look based on the theme of 'Hearts'. However, when UNM was merged into Granada, the broadcasting arm of HTV was sold to Carlton to comply with competition laws. As a result, HTV part adopted Carlton's star branding. The resultant idents featured Carlton's 'Star' opening films, before the screen flashed white, drawing back to become the 'V' in the HTV logo against the spinning hearts background as used previously.[13]
When Granada and Carlton introduced national ITV1 branding to all stations in England and Wales on 28 October 2002, the HTV channel identity ceased to be used for presentation. It was replaced by the on-screen name ITV1 Wales and ITV1 West of England. ITV1 Wales still uses a variation of the generic theme, however with the name Wales consistently present under the ITV1 logo. ITV1 West of England however has seen their regional identity less and less since 2002. Originally, prior to regional programming, an ident featuring the celebrity package was used, with an ITV1 logo placed above a small West of England caption to the left of the screen. In 2004, the regional idents changed to four coloured cubes are seen dotted around a regional scene, with an ITV1 logo and ITV1 for the West of England caption in the bottom right corner. This was replaced in October 2004 by a national ident, consisting of three small ITV cubes above a large '1' cube, with the caption West below. This was one of the last idents for ITV West, as regional idents were abandoned soon after, with the exception of Wales. The HTV brand was retained for local News programmes until Granada and Carlton merged on 2 February 2004 to create ITV plc. The Carlton name appeared on endboards from 2001 until 2004, when it was replaced by a generic ITV Wales or ITV West endboard. To this day, the company is still HTV, however used ITV1 branding on screen.[16][17]
HTV Wales and West's main programmes included
Since 1982, HTV Wales produced Welsh language programming for S4C such as Cefn Gwlad, Hacio and Y Byd ar Bedwar. Prior to S4C's introduction, HTV's evening news was split into two fifteen-minute bulletins, presented from the same studio and separated by an advertising break: Y Dydd (The Day) in Welsh, and Report Wales in English.
ITV Wales' main local programmes include: Wales Tonight, The Ferret and Wales This Week. ITV Wales also produces Welsh language programming for S4C such as Cefn Gwlad, Hacio, Cofio and Y Byd ar Bedwar. ITV West's main local programme is The West Country Tonight
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