This is a timeline of the history of the British television service HTV West (now part of ITV West Country). "HTV West" and "ITV West" were the service names for the
ITV service in the West of England from 1970 until 2009, after which the service name "ITV West Country" has been used across the West and South West of England. The "West" service was a sub-region of the franchise for Wales and the West.
4 March – Ousted licensee
TWW stops broadcasting five months before its contract was due to expire, selling the final months of airtime to Harlech. However, the new contractor is not yet ready to go on the air so the ITA authorises an interim service called
Independent Television Service for Wales and the West, in which Harlech receives all advertising revenue, but sub-contracts production to TWW.
20 May –
Harlech Television takes over the
Wales and the
West of England franchise just over two months ahead of the planned handover date. Harlech inherits two TV services, one for all of Wales and the other for South Wales and the West of England.
August – A technicians strike forces ITV off the air for several weeks although management manage to launch a temporary
ITV Emergency National Service with no regional variations.
1969
No events.
1970s
1970
6 April – HTV starts broadcasting in colour,[1] initially only from the
Wenvoe transmitter in Wales and from this day the station becomes known on the air as HTV.
30 May – A separate HTV West service is launched on UHF from the
Mendip transmitter[2] which coincided with a new full-evening news programme for the region called Report West. The HTV West service is in addition to its two other services, HTV Cymru Wales for Wales and its "general" 405-line VHF service for South Wales and the West of England.
1971
No events.
1972
16 October – Following a law change which removed all restrictions on broadcasting hours, ITV is able to launch an afternoon service.
1973
No events.
1974
The 1974 franchise round sees no changes in ITV's contractors as it is felt that the huge cost in switching to colour television would have made the companies unable to compete against rivals in a franchise battle.
1975
No events.
1976
No events.
1977
No events.
1978
No events.
1979
10 August – The ten week
ITV strike forces HTV off the air. The strike ends on 24 October.
1 February – ITV's breakfast television service
TV-am launches. Consequently, HTV's broadcast day now begins at 9:25am.
1984
No events.
1985
3 January – The last day of transmission using the
405-lines system, ending HTV's "general" service to South Wales and the West.
1986
No events.
1987
7 September – Following the transfer of
ITV Schools to
Channel 4, ITV provides a full morning programme schedule, with advertising, for the first time. The new service includes regular five-minute national and regional news bulletins.
28 September – HTV launches a new computer-generated ident.[3]
1988
22 August – HTV begins 24-hour broadcasting.[4] The service, called Night Club, is broadcast on both
HTV West and HTV Wales.
1989
1 September – ITV introduces its first official logo as part of an attempt to unify the network under one image whilst retaining regional identity. HTV adopts the ident.[5]
28 April – HTV closes down its Night Club and replaces it with a simulcast of the overnight generic service from London.
16 October – HTV retains its licence to broadcast when it bids the highest amount of a total of four applicants. Due to the size of the bid, £20.5 million, the company had to make considerable savings in order to cover the increased cost of the licence.[10] The
ITC had initially considered disqualifying HTV's bid because of its business plan, but it was ultimately allowed to bid.
1992
No events.
1993
1 January – To coincide with the start of the new franchise period, HTV launches a new set of idents.[11]
1994
18 February –
Flextech buys a 20% stake in the company, thereby clearing HTV's debts.[12]
7 April – The main evening news programme is renamed The West Tonight. The change coincides with the opening of a digital broadcast centre at HTV's Bristol studios.[16]
United News & Media puts the HTV-owned
First Independent Films up for sale, following the commercial failure of the movie G.I. Jane in the UK. The assets are eventually acquired by
Columbia TriStar Home Video who retained the First Independent Films label for 2 more years before fully absorbing it into their own label in 1999.
1998
15 November – The public launch of digital terrestrial TV in the UK takes place.
Granada plc buys 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) are sold to
Carlton Communications plc, owners of
Carlton Television, whilst the majority of production facilities are retained by Granada which establishes offices in Whiteladies Road in Bristol, close to the BBC site at Broadcasting House.
2001
11 August – ITV's main channel is rebranded ITV1.
2002
28 October – On-air regional identities are dropped apart from when introducing regional programmes and HTV West is renamed ITV1 West.[19] However, the regional news bulletins continue to be named HTV News until the ITV News relaunch of 2004.
The HTV brand is finally consigned to history when the regional news service is renamed ITV West News.[21]
2005
12 September – The regional news programme is once again named The West Tonight, six years after the name had originally been dropped.[22]
2006
4 December –
Central disbands its South Midlands sub-region and the parts of
Gloucestershire served by Central South joins the majority of the county already covered by
ITV West and begins receiving The West Tonight.
29 December – HTV Ltd is renamed ITV Wales & West Ltd.[23]
2007
No events.
2008
December – All non-news local programming ends after
Ofcom gives ITV permission to drastically cut back its regional programming.[24] From 2009, the only regional programme is the monthly political discussion show.
2009
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 remained separate.[25]
5 September – Separate weekday daytime bulletins for the two regions (at breakfast and lunchtime) are reintroduced.
2012
No events.
2013
16 September – ITV News West Country extends the East and West opt-out services to at least 20 minutes of the 6pm programme, in addition to separate weekend bulletins for the two sub-regions, effectively restoring full services for the two areas.[26]
2014
1 January – The
Wales and
West of England regions are formally split and a new region covering the merged West and South West regions,
ITV West Country, is officially launched.[27]