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Timeline of London Weekend Television
Rillington: ←Created page with 'This is a timeline of the history of London Weekend Television ==1960s== * '''1967''' ** LWT is awarded the London weekend franchise. The new franchise incl...'
This is a timeline of the history of [[London Weekend Television]]
==1960s==
* '''1967'''
** LWT is awarded the London weekend franchise. The new franchise includes Friday evenings so LWT broadcasts from 7 pm on Fridays as well as Saturday and Sunday.
* '''1968'''
** 2 August – LWT goes on air, for fifteen seconds because this day is the start of the technicians strike which 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'''
** 8 September – LWT launches its famous river ident.<ref>[http://bit.ly/2XbCAKG Ident Central" LWT 1970-1986]</ref>
* '''1971'''
** No events.
* '''1972'''
** LWT launches the UK's first Sunday politics programme - ''[[Weekend World]]''. It continues until 1988.
** LWT opens its purpose-built studios called [[The London Studios]] although they were not fully operational until 1974.
* '''1973'''
** No events.
* '''1974'''
** No events.
* '''1975'''
** No events.
* '''1976'''
** May – LWT is reorganised, to form a new company "LWT (Holdings) Limited".<ref>"LWT forms new company to acquire its equity.", ''The Times'', 20 May 1976; p.26</ref> which allowed the company to expand into a number of new ventures, including [[Hutchinson (publisher)|Hutchinson Publishing]].
* '''1977'''
** February – [[Michael Grade]] is appointed as as Director of Programmes.
* '''1978'''
** 4 January – The first edition of arts magazine [[The South Bank Show]] is broadcast, replacing [[Aquarius (UK TV series)|Aquarius]]. It continues to be broadcast until the end of 2009 before [[Sky Arts]] revives the programme in 2012.
** November – [[News International]] sells 16% of its LWT holding, reducing its shares from 39.7% to 25%.<ref>Peter Wainwright "News International to sell 16% of its shares in London Weekend Television", ''The Times'', 27 November 1978; p.15</ref>
* '''1979'''
** 10 August – The ten week [[ITV strike]] forces [[London Weekend Television]] off the air. The strike ends on 24 October and LW's acquisition of specialist travel and tour operator "Page & Moy" and its Hutchinson publishing operations helped offset the losses made during the strike.<ref>"Summer dispute will hit HTV and LWT hard", ''The Times'', 17 November 1979, p.24</ref>
== 1980s ==
* '''1980'''
** [[News International]] sells its remaining 25% stake, bringing an end to LWT's connection with the Australian tycoon.<ref>Peter Wilson-Smith "Murdoch group sells 25pc stake in LWT", ''The Times'', 13 March 1980</ref>
* '''1981'''
** No events.
* '''1982'''
** 1 January –
*** LWT (and Thames) are no longer able to broadcast to north west Kent due to the Bluebell Hill transmitter near Maidstone being transferred to the new [[Television South|TVS]], as part of the creation of the south and south east franchise.<ref></ref>
*** LWT gains 105 minutes more transmission time on Fridays when the handover from [[Thames Television|Thames]] was moved back from 7 pm to 5.15 pm.
** 8 January – Due to the earlier Friday start, LWT becomes contractually responsible for providing a Friday London news service. Rather than launch its own news service, it broadcasts LWT News Headlines, which are aired mid-afternoon and late evening on Fridays. These bulletins usually consisted solely of the duty continuity announcer in-vision reading copy sourced from the [[Independent Local Radio]] station [[LBC]], and later, local wire agencies<ref>[http://bit.ly/2X3f96x Ident Central: London News Headlines]</ref> LWT pays Thames to provide a 15-minute insert into ''[[The Six O'Clock Show]]'', LWT's Friday teatime magazine. The bulletin is called ''[[Thames News|Thames Weekend News]]''.
** January – [[John Birt]] replaces Michael Grade as Director of Programmes and makes major changes to output aimed at maximising audiences with some niche programming, such as arts and science, moving out of primetime to the schedule margins to make way form more entertainment shows at peaktime.
* '''1983'''
** January – LWT drops in-vision continuity.
** 5 February – Following the launch of ITV's breakfast television service, [[TV-am]] four days earlier, LWT's broadcast day now begins at 9:25 am.
** 9 September – LWT launches a computerised version of its ident with the tagline "Your Weekend ITV".<ref>[http://bit.ly/2XbCAKG Ident Central" LWT 1970-1986]</ref>
* '''1984'''
** No events.
* '''1985'''
** LWT comes to an agreement with [[Television South|TVS]] to help to fill its schedules with domestically-produced programming while not having to increase its budget. This helps TVS to get more of its programmes onto the ITV network.<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (1 for 2)</ref>
* '''1986'''
** 29 August – After 16 years LWT drops its river-based logo and launches a new ident.<ref>[http://bit.ly/2X8gKrB Ident Central: LWT 1986-1989]</ref>
* '''1987'''
** April – [[Greg Dyke]] returns to LWT after three years at [[Television South|TVS]] to replace [[John Birt]] as Director of Programmes.
** August – LWT begins 24-hour transmission and launches the UK's first overnight show ''[[Night Network]]''.<ref>[http://bit.ly/2Scw1nO Ident Central: Night Network]</ref> However it is short lived and ends on Friday 31 March 1989.<ref></ref>
* '''1988'''
** 8 January – Following concern from the IBA over LWT's regional news output, LWT launches its own news service called ''[[LWT News]]'', which also includes bulletins on Saturdays and Sundays. The service is outsourced and is provided by ''Screen News''.<ref>[http://bit.ly/2X7fTaK London Weekend Television item], Channel 4 News, 21 March 1988</ref>
** 15 July – LWT axes ''[[The Six O'Clock Show]]'' in favour of a smaller scale show called ''Friday Now''.<ref>[http://bit.ly/2Scw1UQ BFI entry - Friday Now]</ref> was was then replaced a year later by ''Six O'Clock Live'',<ref>[http://bit.ly/2X3f9U5 BFI entry - Six O'Clock Live]</ref>
* '''1989'''
** 1 September – LWT adopts the new corporate ITV logo.<ref>[http://bit.ly/2S94QKd Ident Central: LWT 1989-1992]</ref>
== 1990s ==
* '''1990'''
** January – Chrysalis Television takes over the contract to produce ''[[LWT News]]''.<ref>[http://bit.ly/2X3faY9 Ident Central" LWT News 1990-1993]</ref>
* '''1991'''
** 16 October – LWT retains its licence. There had bee one other applicants, London Independent Broadcasting. However it was ruled out excuse it failed t bee the quality threshold. It had bid five times more than LWT, which retains the licence with a bid of £7.59 million.
* '''1992'''
** 4 September – LWT launches a new logo, sometimes dubbed the flying blocks logo.<ref>[http://bit.ly/2Scw2rS Ident Central: LWT 1992-1996]</ref>
** 21 August – ''[[The Six O'Clock Show|Six O'Clock Live]]'' is axed to make way for the forthcoming ''[[ITV News London|London Tonight]]''.
* '''1993'''
** 3 January – [[LWT News]] is broadcast for the final time. It is replaced by a new seven days a week news service jointly run by LWT and new contractor [[Carlton Television]], in a joint venture known as ''[[London News Network]]'' and the on-air name for the programme is ''[[ITV News London|London Tonight]]''.
* '''1994'''
** 25 February – LWT is bought by [[Granada Television]] for £770 million bid for the company. This resulted in Greg Dyke and Sir Christopher Bland leaving LWT.<ref>Martin Waller "LWT succumbs to £770 million Granada takeover bid", ''The Times'' 26 February 1994, p.21</ref>
* '''1995'''
** No events.
* '''1996'''
** 30 August – LWT modifies its logo.<ref>[http://bit.ly/2X4K0Q2 Ident Central: LWT 1996-1999]</ref>
** 1 October – [[LWT]]'s owner Granada launches [[Granada Sky Broadcasting]] as a joint venture between Granada and [[Sky (United Kingdom)|BSkyB]]. One of the channels – [[Granada Sky Broadcasting]] – broadcasts entertainment programmes from the archives of Granada and its subsidiaries which includes archive programming from LWT.
* '''1997'''
** No events.
* '''1998'''
** 15 November – The public launch of digital terrestrial TV in the UK takes place.
* '''1999'''
** 8 November – LWT unveils what will be its last ever logo.<ref>[http://bit.ly/2S8gWU7 Ident Central: LWT 1999-2002]</ref>
== 2000s ==
* '''2000'''
** No events.
* '''2001'''
** No events.
* '''2002'''
** 28 October – LWT marks its final day on air with a series of tributes to LWT's past, with long-serving continuity announcers [[Glen Thompsett]] and [[Trish Bertram]] appearing in-vision in LWT's playout centre in the London Television Centre. When GMTV handed over to the weekday franchise the following morning, the national ITV1 brand was on-air.<ref>[http://bit.ly/2S8gWU7 Ident Central: LWT 1999-2002]</ref>
* '''2003'''
** No events.
* '''2004'''
** 2 February – Following the merger of Granada [[merger|merges]] with [[Carlton Communications]] to form a single England and Wales ITV company called [[ITV plc]]<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (1 for 2)</ref> [[ITV London]] is formed as a unified brand for the Carlton and LWT franchises. Consequently, the new 'region' operates as a seven day service.
** 31 March – The LWT logo is seen for the final time. It had continued to appear as an endcap.
== See also ==
* [[History of ITV]]
* [[History of ITV television idents]]
* [[Timeline of ITV]]
==References==
[[Category:History of ITV]]
[[Category:Culture-related timelines|London Weekend Television]]
[[Category:United Kingdom media timelines|London Weekend Television]]
[[Category:History of television in the United Kingdom|London Weekend Television]]
[[Category:British history timelines|London Weekend Television]]
[[Category:Years in British television|London Weekend Television]]
[[Category:United Kingdom television timelines|London Weekend Television]]
[[Category:Company timelines|London Weekend Television]]
[[Category:ITV timelines|London Weekend Television]]
==1960s==
* '''1967'''
** LWT is awarded the London weekend franchise. The new franchise includes Friday evenings so LWT broadcasts from 7 pm on Fridays as well as Saturday and Sunday.
* '''1968'''
** 2 August – LWT goes on air, for fifteen seconds because this day is the start of the technicians strike which 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'''
** 8 September – LWT launches its famous river ident.<ref>[http://bit.ly/2XbCAKG Ident Central" LWT 1970-1986]</ref>
* '''1971'''
** No events.
* '''1972'''
** LWT launches the UK's first Sunday politics programme - ''[[Weekend World]]''. It continues until 1988.
** LWT opens its purpose-built studios called [[The London Studios]] although they were not fully operational until 1974.
* '''1973'''
** No events.
* '''1974'''
** No events.
* '''1975'''
** No events.
* '''1976'''
** May – LWT is reorganised, to form a new company "LWT (Holdings) Limited".<ref>"LWT forms new company to acquire its equity.", ''The Times'', 20 May 1976; p.26</ref> which allowed the company to expand into a number of new ventures, including [[Hutchinson (publisher)|Hutchinson Publishing]].
* '''1977'''
** February – [[Michael Grade]] is appointed as as Director of Programmes.
* '''1978'''
** 4 January – The first edition of arts magazine [[The South Bank Show]] is broadcast, replacing [[Aquarius (UK TV series)|Aquarius]]. It continues to be broadcast until the end of 2009 before [[Sky Arts]] revives the programme in 2012.
** November – [[News International]] sells 16% of its LWT holding, reducing its shares from 39.7% to 25%.<ref>Peter Wainwright "News International to sell 16% of its shares in London Weekend Television", ''The Times'', 27 November 1978; p.15</ref>
* '''1979'''
** 10 August – The ten week [[ITV strike]] forces [[London Weekend Television]] off the air. The strike ends on 24 October and LW's acquisition of specialist travel and tour operator "Page & Moy" and its Hutchinson publishing operations helped offset the losses made during the strike.<ref>"Summer dispute will hit HTV and LWT hard", ''The Times'', 17 November 1979, p.24</ref>
== 1980s ==
* '''1980'''
** [[News International]] sells its remaining 25% stake, bringing an end to LWT's connection with the Australian tycoon.<ref>Peter Wilson-Smith "Murdoch group sells 25pc stake in LWT", ''The Times'', 13 March 1980</ref>
* '''1981'''
** No events.
* '''1982'''
** 1 January –
*** LWT (and Thames) are no longer able to broadcast to north west Kent due to the Bluebell Hill transmitter near Maidstone being transferred to the new [[Television South|TVS]], as part of the creation of the south and south east franchise.<ref></ref>
*** LWT gains 105 minutes more transmission time on Fridays when the handover from [[Thames Television|Thames]] was moved back from 7 pm to 5.15 pm.
** 8 January – Due to the earlier Friday start, LWT becomes contractually responsible for providing a Friday London news service. Rather than launch its own news service, it broadcasts LWT News Headlines, which are aired mid-afternoon and late evening on Fridays. These bulletins usually consisted solely of the duty continuity announcer in-vision reading copy sourced from the [[Independent Local Radio]] station [[LBC]], and later, local wire agencies<ref>[http://bit.ly/2X3f96x Ident Central: London News Headlines]</ref> LWT pays Thames to provide a 15-minute insert into ''[[The Six O'Clock Show]]'', LWT's Friday teatime magazine. The bulletin is called ''[[Thames News|Thames Weekend News]]''.
** January – [[John Birt]] replaces Michael Grade as Director of Programmes and makes major changes to output aimed at maximising audiences with some niche programming, such as arts and science, moving out of primetime to the schedule margins to make way form more entertainment shows at peaktime.
* '''1983'''
** January – LWT drops in-vision continuity.
** 5 February – Following the launch of ITV's breakfast television service, [[TV-am]] four days earlier, LWT's broadcast day now begins at 9:25 am.
** 9 September – LWT launches a computerised version of its ident with the tagline "Your Weekend ITV".<ref>[http://bit.ly/2XbCAKG Ident Central" LWT 1970-1986]</ref>
* '''1984'''
** No events.
* '''1985'''
** LWT comes to an agreement with [[Television South|TVS]] to help to fill its schedules with domestically-produced programming while not having to increase its budget. This helps TVS to get more of its programmes onto the ITV network.<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (1 for 2)</ref>
* '''1986'''
** 29 August – After 16 years LWT drops its river-based logo and launches a new ident.<ref>[http://bit.ly/2X8gKrB Ident Central: LWT 1986-1989]</ref>
* '''1987'''
** April – [[Greg Dyke]] returns to LWT after three years at [[Television South|TVS]] to replace [[John Birt]] as Director of Programmes.
** August – LWT begins 24-hour transmission and launches the UK's first overnight show ''[[Night Network]]''.<ref>[http://bit.ly/2Scw1nO Ident Central: Night Network]</ref> However it is short lived and ends on Friday 31 March 1989.<ref></ref>
* '''1988'''
** 8 January – Following concern from the IBA over LWT's regional news output, LWT launches its own news service called ''[[LWT News]]'', which also includes bulletins on Saturdays and Sundays. The service is outsourced and is provided by ''Screen News''.<ref>[http://bit.ly/2X7fTaK London Weekend Television item], Channel 4 News, 21 March 1988</ref>
** 15 July – LWT axes ''[[The Six O'Clock Show]]'' in favour of a smaller scale show called ''Friday Now''.<ref>[http://bit.ly/2Scw1UQ BFI entry - Friday Now]</ref> was was then replaced a year later by ''Six O'Clock Live'',<ref>[http://bit.ly/2X3f9U5 BFI entry - Six O'Clock Live]</ref>
* '''1989'''
** 1 September – LWT adopts the new corporate ITV logo.<ref>[http://bit.ly/2S94QKd Ident Central: LWT 1989-1992]</ref>
== 1990s ==
* '''1990'''
** January – Chrysalis Television takes over the contract to produce ''[[LWT News]]''.<ref>[http://bit.ly/2X3faY9 Ident Central" LWT News 1990-1993]</ref>
* '''1991'''
** 16 October – LWT retains its licence. There had bee one other applicants, London Independent Broadcasting. However it was ruled out excuse it failed t bee the quality threshold. It had bid five times more than LWT, which retains the licence with a bid of £7.59 million.
* '''1992'''
** 4 September – LWT launches a new logo, sometimes dubbed the flying blocks logo.<ref>[http://bit.ly/2Scw2rS Ident Central: LWT 1992-1996]</ref>
** 21 August – ''[[The Six O'Clock Show|Six O'Clock Live]]'' is axed to make way for the forthcoming ''[[ITV News London|London Tonight]]''.
* '''1993'''
** 3 January – [[LWT News]] is broadcast for the final time. It is replaced by a new seven days a week news service jointly run by LWT and new contractor [[Carlton Television]], in a joint venture known as ''[[London News Network]]'' and the on-air name for the programme is ''[[ITV News London|London Tonight]]''.
* '''1994'''
** 25 February – LWT is bought by [[Granada Television]] for £770 million bid for the company. This resulted in Greg Dyke and Sir Christopher Bland leaving LWT.<ref>Martin Waller "LWT succumbs to £770 million Granada takeover bid", ''The Times'' 26 February 1994, p.21</ref>
* '''1995'''
** No events.
* '''1996'''
** 30 August – LWT modifies its logo.<ref>[http://bit.ly/2X4K0Q2 Ident Central: LWT 1996-1999]</ref>
** 1 October – [[LWT]]'s owner Granada launches [[Granada Sky Broadcasting]] as a joint venture between Granada and [[Sky (United Kingdom)|BSkyB]]. One of the channels – [[Granada Sky Broadcasting]] – broadcasts entertainment programmes from the archives of Granada and its subsidiaries which includes archive programming from LWT.
* '''1997'''
** No events.
* '''1998'''
** 15 November – The public launch of digital terrestrial TV in the UK takes place.
* '''1999'''
** 8 November – LWT unveils what will be its last ever logo.<ref>[http://bit.ly/2S8gWU7 Ident Central: LWT 1999-2002]</ref>
== 2000s ==
* '''2000'''
** No events.
* '''2001'''
** No events.
* '''2002'''
** 28 October – LWT marks its final day on air with a series of tributes to LWT's past, with long-serving continuity announcers [[Glen Thompsett]] and [[Trish Bertram]] appearing in-vision in LWT's playout centre in the London Television Centre. When GMTV handed over to the weekday franchise the following morning, the national ITV1 brand was on-air.<ref>[http://bit.ly/2S8gWU7 Ident Central: LWT 1999-2002]</ref>
* '''2003'''
** No events.
* '''2004'''
** 2 February – Following the merger of Granada [[merger|merges]] with [[Carlton Communications]] to form a single England and Wales ITV company called [[ITV plc]]<ref>Liquid error: wrong number of arguments (1 for 2)</ref> [[ITV London]] is formed as a unified brand for the Carlton and LWT franchises. Consequently, the new 'region' operates as a seven day service.
** 31 March – The LWT logo is seen for the final time. It had continued to appear as an endcap.
== See also ==
* [[History of ITV]]
* [[History of ITV television idents]]
* [[Timeline of ITV]]
==References==
[[Category:History of ITV]]
[[Category:Culture-related timelines|London Weekend Television]]
[[Category:United Kingdom media timelines|London Weekend Television]]
[[Category:History of television in the United Kingdom|London Weekend Television]]
[[Category:British history timelines|London Weekend Television]]
[[Category:Years in British television|London Weekend Television]]
[[Category:United Kingdom television timelines|London Weekend Television]]
[[Category:Company timelines|London Weekend Television]]
[[Category:ITV timelines|London Weekend Television]]
February 18, 2019 at 01:07AM
