The Foundation of ITV

ITV was launched in 1955, which was followed by the Television act of 1954. ITV was made up of 15 broadcasting regions in different cities and a separate company ran each region. 

The merger of two main ITV companies became interested in making a next step. In February 2004 ITV was born. At the same time ITV was expanding as it launched ITV2 in 1998, ITV3 in 2004, ITV4 in 2005, CITV and ITV2 in 2006.

But long before that the two ITV companies were named Carlton and Granada.

In 1939 Carlton was incorporated. In 1987 Carlton had moved into the mainstream of British television. It did that by acquiring 19% stake in Central Independent Television.

From 1980’s to 1990’s Carlton had expanded and began making a variety of different programmes from the News, documentaries and cinema screen advertising.

In 1991 Carlton was granted the London Weekday ITV licence and by 1993 it had acquired a 20% stake in GMTV and 18% ITN.

In 2001 Carlton sold Technicolor which was their feature film processing.

The other company was called Granada. It was announced in 1934 and was aimed at acquiring cinema and theatre owned by Bernstein Theatres.

By 1935 Granada had entered the London Stock exchange and in 1954 it was awarded one of the first UK’s commercial television broadcasting license.

On December 7th 1998, Granada decided to come up with a new approach to its audience and decided to launch ITV 2.

And finally October 7th 2003 was the day when two companies, Granada and Carlton both merged in to one company, the ITV.