Timeline of Westcountry Television

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This is a timeline of the history of Westcountry Television (now known as ITV West Country).

1990s[]

  • 1991
    • 16 October – The ITC announces that TSW has lost its licence to broadcast to south west England. It loses out to Westcountry Television. Westcountry had tabled a lower bid but the ITC awarded the licence to Westcountry because it felt that TSW’s bid of £16.1 million was too high.[1] Westcountry was the second highest of the other two applicants and was awarded the licence with a bid of £7.82 million per year.
  • 1992
    • 6 February – TSW’s appeal to have the ITC’s decision to relieve TSW of its licence fails when the House of Lords rejects the appeal.[2]
  • 1993
    • 1 January – After the chimes of Big Ben, Westcountry Television goes on air.
    • 20 July – Westcountry joins up with HTV, Meridian, Channel Television and S4C to form a joint advertising company operated by Meridian Broadcasting and HTV.[3]
  • 1994
    • No events.
  • 1995
    • No events.
  • 1997
    • No events.
  • 1998
    • 15 November – The public launch of digital terrestrial TV in the UK takes place.
  • 1999
    • 6 September – Carlton Television drops the Westcountry name from their on-air presentation, instead branding the region as Carlton Westcountry.[5]
    • 8 November – A new, hearts-based on-air look is introduced.

2000s[]

  • 2000
    • No events.
  • 2001
    • No events.
  • 2002
    • 28 October – On-air regional identities are dropped apart from when introducing regional programmes and Westcountry is renamed ITV1 for the Westcountry.
  • 2003
    • No events.
  • 2004
    • January – The final two remaining English ITV companies, Carlton and Granada, merge to create a single England and Wales ITV company called ITV plc and the region is known on air when introducing regional programming as ITV1 Westcountry.
  • 2005
    • No events.
  • 2006
    • No events.
  • 2007
    • 12 September – ITV issues a statement to the City of London, saying that it wished to merge ITV West with ITV Westcountry to form a non-franchise region, ITV West and Westcountry, from February 2009.[6][7][8]
  • 2008
    • December – All non-news local programming ends after Ofcom gives ITV permission to drastically cut back its regional programming.[9] From 2009 the only regional programme is the monthly political discussion show
  • 2009
    • 15 February – Westcountry Live is broadcast for the final time.
    • 16 February – As part of major cutbacks across ITV to its regional broadcasts in England the operations of ITV Westcountry and ITV West are merged into a new non-franchise region ITV West & Westcountry. The new ‘region’ results in a merged regional news service based in Bristol called The West Country Tonight. However the first half of the main programme and the entirety of the late evening bulletin remain separate.[10]
    • 9 September – The Westcountry region completes digital switchover.

2010s[]

  • 2010
    • No events.
  • 2011
    • 5 September – Separate weekday daytime bulletins for the two main regions - west and south west - are reintroduced.
  • 2012
    • No events.
  • 2013
    • 16 September – The south west opt-out from the Bristol-based regional news magazine is restored as fully separate regional programmes on weekdays with shorter daytime and weekend bulletins reintroduced.[11]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ TVS's £54m bid 'threatens profits'.Melinda Wittstock, Media Correspondent. The Times, Tuesday, 6 August 1991.
  2. ^ Wittstock, Melinda (6 February 1992). "TSW franchise appeal dismissed". London, United Kingdom. p. 2. Retrieved 10 September 2012.
  3. ^ "TV companies link up". Times. London. 20 July 1993. p. 22. Retrieved 10 September 2012.
  4. ^ Horsman, Mathew (25 November 1996). "Westcountry chief pockets pounds 4m from bid". The Independent. Retrieved 25 June 2013.
  5. ^ TV Live: Westcountry
  6. ^ "The Future of PSB on ITV – Redrawing the regional news map" (PDF). Ofcom. Retrieved 17 September 2012.
  7. ^ "ITV to merge regional newsrooms". BBC News. 12 September 2007. Retrieved 17 September 2012.
  8. ^ "Strike threat over ITV news cuts". BBC News. 14 September 2007. Retrieved 17 September 2012.
  9. ^ "ITV 'can cut' regional programming". BBC News. 25 September 2008. Retrieved 7 September 2011.
  10. ^ Seventeen regions into nine: How the updated ITV local news services will run Caitlin Fitzsimmons, The Guardian, 17 February 2009
  11. ^ OFCOM sets out licence terms for ITV, STV, UTV and Channel 5 Archived 2013-07-26 at the Wayback Machine, OFCOM, 23 July 2013
  12. ^ Ofcom agrees ITV news shake-up Jake Kanter, Broadcast Now, 23 July 2013
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