ITV plc is a British media company based in London, England. It holds 13 of the 15 regional television licences that make up the ITV network, the oldest and largest commercial terrestrial television network in the United Kingdom. The network, which is branded ITV by ITV plc, has vied with the British Broadcasting Corporation's BBC One for the status of the UK's most watched channel since the 1950s (a crown it lost in 2005). ITV began broadcasting in 1955. Its first contractors were Associated-Rediffusion, broadcasting to London on weekdays and Associated Television (ATV London) as the London weekend contractor. In February 1956 Associated Television (ATV Midlands) launches ITV in the Midlands and the following day the Midlands’ weekend contractor Associated British Corporation (ABC Midlands) broadcasts for the first time. In May 1956 Granada Television launches ITV in the north of England and two days later the north of England’s weekend contractor Associated British Corporation (ABC), broadcasts for the first time. In August 1957 ITV starts broadcasting in central Scotland with Scottish Television as the franchise holder. In January 1958 Television Wales and the West (TWW) starts broadcasting to South Wales and the West of England. In August of the same year Southern Television launches. In January 1959 Tyne Tees Television launches. In October 1959 Anglia Television launches and ITV launches in Northern Ireland when Ulster Television starts broadcasting. In April 1961 Westward Television launches. In September 1961 Border Television and Grampian Television both launch. In September 1962 Channel Television launches and the final part of the UK gets an ITV service when Wales (West and North) Television launches in West and North Wales as Teledu Cymru. In January 1964 Wales (West and North) Television stops broadcasting after going bankrupt. It is replaced by TWW. However the Teledu Cymru on-air identity is retained. In March 1968 TWW stops broadcasting five months before its contract was due to expire. The ITA provided an interim service called interim service until 20 May when the new contractor, Harlech Television, took over. In July 1968 Yorkshire Television launches following the decision to split the north region into two resulting in a new franchise for the Yorkshire area. Also in July, Thames Television replaces Associated-Rediffusion as the holder of the London weekday franchise although Redivision retains a 49% stake in the new company. London Weekend Television (LWT) replaces ATV as London’s weekend franchisee. In 1968 ATV starts broadcasting to the Midlands seven days a week and Granada starts broadcasting across the north west seven days a week. In both cases ABC loses the right to broadcast. Also in 1968 the TV Times is launched as a national magazine to provide listings for ITV. In the same year a technician's strike forces ITV off the air for several weeks although management manage to launch a temporary ITV Emergency National Service with no regional variations. In November 1969, ITV starts broadcasting in colour although it wasn't until 1976 that colour was available across the entire ITV network. In 1972, ITV is able to launch an afternoon service. As part of this new service the first edition of Emmerdale Farm is broadcast and ITV's first lunchtime news programme, First Report is shown. The 1974 franchise round sees no changes in contractors. However the Belmont transmitter in Lincolnshire switched from Anglia Television to Yorkshire Television and the Bilsdale UHF transmitter, based on the border between Yorkshire Television and Tyne Tees Television and much disputed over, was assigned to Tyne Tees Television. In 1978 ITV's teletext service ORACLE launches. In December 1980 The Independent Television Authority announces the new contractors to commence on 1 January 1982. The Midlands region will be split into two and dual regions will be created for Wales and the West and the South and South East. ATV is re-awarded its contract for the Midlands although there are several conditions including more regional content and increased production facilities in the Midlands. It is also told to rename itself and chooses the name Central Independent Television. Southern Television lost its licence for the South of England, in favour of Television South (TVS) and Westward Television also lost its licence for South West England and was replaced by Television South West (TSW). The Independent Broadcasting Authority also announces that TV-am has been awarded the contract to provide a national breakfast television service. In January 1982 Central, TVS and TSW start broadcasting. Also the Bluebell Hill transmitter in Kent was transferred from Thames/LWT to TVS, to increase the size of TVS's new South East sub-region. In 1987 many of the larger ITV companies start broadcasting into the night and in August Anglia and Thames/LWT become the first stations to begin 24-hour broadcasting. In October 1991 The ITC announces the results of the franchise round. Following the Broadcasting Act 1990, the ITC had to conduct a franchise auction whereby contracts would be given to the highest bidder, subject to fulfilling a programming ‘quality threshold.’ TSW lost the South West of England franchise to Westcountry Television, Thames Television lost the London weekday franchise to Carlton Television, TVS lost the South of England franchise to Meridian Broadcasting, TV-am lost the national breakfast television franchise to Sunrise Television, which changed its name to GMTV before launch because of a dispute with British Sky Broadcasting over the name 'Sunrise', and ORACLE lost the National Teletext franchise to Teletext Ltd. In June 1992 Yorkshire and Tyne Tees television merge, beginning a process that would see the consolidation of ITV over the next decade. In January 1993 GMTV, Carlton, Meridian and Westcountry start broadcasting. Also in 1993 Teletext launches as ITV’s new teletext service. In 1994 Granada Television buys LWT, and Carlton Television takes over Central Independent Television. In 1996 Carlton Television buys Westcountry Television and increases its stake in Central Independent Television to 81%. More consolidation takes place in 1997. Granada Television acquires Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television, Scottish Media Group (SMG), which owned Scottish Television, acquires Grampian Television and United News and Media, the owner of Meridian Broadcasting and Anglia Television, purchased HTV. In 2000 United News and Media sells its three stations - Meridian, HTV and Anglia - to Granada Television. In January 2004 Carlton and Granada merge to create a single England and Wales ITV company called ITV plc.

Thames Television was a franchise holder for a region of the British ITV television network serving London and surrounding area on weekdays from 30 July 1968 until the night of 31 December 1992. Formed as a joint company, it merged the television interests of British Electric Traction (trading as Associated-Rediffusion) owning 49%, and Associated British Picture Corporation—soon taken over by EMI—owning 51%. It was both a broadcaster and a producer of television programmes, making shows both for the local region it covered and for networking nationally across the ITV regions. Thames covered a broad spectrum of commercial public-service television, with a strong mix of drama, current affairs and comedy. The former ABC studios at Teddington became Thames main production base. Thames' corporate base moved to their newly constructed studios and base at Thames Television House on Euston Road in 1970, when they relinquished Television House, Rediffusion's former London headquarters. The Teddington studios were highly desirable, as they had participated in colour experiments and were already partially converted by the time of the franchise change. When Thames was formed the new company acquired numerous other properties of the former franchise holders. Rediffusion's main studio complex at Wembley was leased to London Weekend Television by order of the ITA before being sold to Lee International in 1977. ABC's Midlands base in Aston, Birmingham (see Alpha Television), co-owned with ATV, was sold in 1971 when ATV moved to new colour television facilities. Their northern base in Didsbury, Manchester was used by Yorkshire Television prior to their Kirkstall Road studios in Leeds being completed, and eventually sold to Manchester Polytechnic in 1970, with a lease on sales offices in central Manchester being surrendered. In 1982, The Independent Broadcasting Authority decided to change the franchise area, which resulted in the Bluebell Hill transmitter in north Kent, its associated relays and the main relay at Tunbridge Wells being transferred from London to the new South and South-East of England, Television South franchise, in order to serve the new region better. In 1985, Carlton Communications had executed a failed take-over bid for Thames after Thorn EMI and British Electric Traction decided to sell its share of Thames. Thames finally floated on the stock market in July 1986, after being denied by the IBA in late 1982; the shares on offer were being sold by BET and Thorn EMI, who planned to reduce their share holding from 100% down to 28.8%. During 1989 reports appeared that talks were taking place with Carlton Communications about an agreed merger, which resulted in no action taking place. The flotation was not a great success, EMI and BET only managing to reduce their shares to 56.6%, with management acquiring much of the new stock. In March 1990, EMI and BET tried once again to sell off their shares in Thames, with Cartlon and CLT (Luxembourg based media company) both in the running. However, by October talks had stalled, with EMI and BET still controlling Thames before heading into the 1991 franchise round. On 16 October 1991, Thames Television lost its ITV franchise to broadcast to London during weekdays from the beginning of January 1993 as a result of losing the silent auction used to renegotiate the new franchises. Thames bid £32.5 million while Carlton Television placed a bid of £43.2 million, and since both Thames and Carlton were deemed to have passed the quality threshold, the franchise was awarded to Carlton for having submitted the higher cash bid. In June 1992 Carlton and the ITV network centre had backed down over their demands for Thames to relinquish its right to broadcast repeats of its own programmings on rival channels for ten years. Thames believed Carlton's demands were unreasonable and would have forced it to drop most networked programmes on ITV during the autumn of 1992. Thames Chairman Richard Dunn publicly stated that Michael Green (Carlton Chairman), had done everything in his power to obtain the London weekday franchise since being blocked by the IBA in 1985. Carlton was forced to advertise on LWT to promote its new programme line up, until Christmas 1992, following an acrimonious High Court dispute between Thames and Carlton over the selling of rights of hundreds of films in Thames' library. Carlton settled out of court for £13.1M. Thames Television was involved in an attempt to win the Channel 5 licence when it was first advertised in the Spring of 1992. Thames was the main shareholder in a consortium (alongside Warner Bros. Television and others) called "Channel Five Holdings"; the consortium became the only bidder for the licence in December 1992 after two other groups dropped out. However, the ITC rejected the bid as a result of concerns about their business plan and investor backing. The deadline was therefore extended twice before finally handing the licence to Channel 5 Broadcasting Limited. Following the loss of Thames' franchise, the Euston Road base of Thames was sold off and demolished.The studios at Teddington were sold to a management buy-out team and were part of the Pinewood Group, owners of both Pinewood and Shepperton Studios. Thames Television was acquired by Pearson Television in 1994. Pearson Television was itself sold by Pearson PLC to the RTL Group in 2000, and rebranded as FremantleMedia in 2001. In 2003, Thames Television was merged with another FremantleMedia subsidiary, Talkback to form Talkback Thames. That subsidiary was split into four new production companies at the start of 2012, with the new Thames producing light entertainment programming.

In March 1928 British Electric Traction, a company that had started life supplying cabling systems for electric trams in the 19th century, formed Broadcast Relay Service Ltd. Using their pre-existing cabling systems, the company used its distribution network to carry radio broadcasts by wire into homes, avoiding the need for complex and hard-to-operate early radio sets. BRSL soon became known as 'Rediffusion' - a name meaning simply 'broadcasting again'. With the advent of the BBC Television Service in 1936, Rediffusion was well placed to rent TV receivers and to provide a basic form of cable TV service to subscribers. After the war, BET and Rediffusion diversified into providing wired distribution and ultimately wireless broadcasting, including commercial radio, in the former and remaining British Colonies. With the announcement of commercial television in the UK, Rediffusion was quickly on the scene with a bid. BET brought in a partner in the form of Associated Newspapers, owners of the Daily Mail with a 50% stake. The first contracts were awarded on October 26, 1954, just three months after the Independent Television Association had been formed, and the new company, Associated Rediffusion, was given the franchise for Monday to Friday in the London area. With only 11 months to get on the air, Associated Rediffusion installed itself in the former RAF headquarters on Kingsway. In charge of operations at Kingsway was A-R's General Manager, Captain Tom Brownrigg. The Kingsway building housed four small continuity and news studios, but the main production facility was a five-studio complex at Wembley, originally the British home of 20th Century Fox. Following a series of test transmissions, commercial television in the UK began on Thursday, 22 September 1955, with an evening jointly programmed by A-R and 'ABC', Lew Grade's consortium that held the London weekend contract and was soon to become known as ATV after a disagreement with ABPC. The opening night included a live feed from the opening ceremony in the Guildhall, a variety performance and the first commercial on British television, an ad for Gibb's SR toothpaste at ten past eight, for which Elida Gibbs paid 50% over ratecard (the scale of standard charges for buying broadcast advertising time). Drama, a boxing match, Chris Chataway reading the news from ITN and live coverage of the opening night party took the evening up to a closedown prayer at 11:05pm. There was only one problem: the evening had made a dramatic financial loss. With just two companies responsible for all the programming for several months after the opening, income continued to lag behind costs, and, by the first anniversary, Associated Rediffusion had lost £3 Million. Associated Newspapers wanted to back out, and Rediffusion bought 80% of its shares. But with the major players in the network by now in place, 1959 saw A-R's annual profits reach £2.7 million. By the end of ITV's first decade they were twice that of the entire Rediffusion operation in 1955. The 1964 franchise round saw no changes in the fortunes of existing ITV companies. However, Associated Newspapers finally withdrew completely from A-R as a requirement to maintain a one-third stake in Southern Television. The 'Associated' was thus dropped from the name, and the station relaunched itself as 'Rediffusion, London's Television'. The station remained profitable for another four years. When it came to the 1968 renewal process, however, things were different. Charles Hill, who had been present at the opening of ITV a dozen years earlier as head of the ITA, had been considering obliging applicants to merge - an idea not without precedent - as a way of allowing new blood into the network. He proposed that ABC Television, weekend contractors in the Midlands and the North, and Rediffusion should set up a joint company in which ABC, upon whom the regulator looked favourably, would own 51%, and thus have control. Rediffusion was able to negotiate an equal split of profits, but not equal power. As a result, the new company formed by the parent company of each, to be called Thames Television, was to owe a great deal more to the style of ABC than it did to Rediffusion, and as a television company, Rediffusion disappeared from London's screens on 29 July 1968.