History of ITV - 1964-1968

1964-1968

In 1963 the ITA chairman Lord Hill of Luton initiated a review of all the ITV companies following the release of the Pilkington Report, which saw the launch of BBC2 and heavily criticised ITV. This review would review a company's performance, and either grant them an extension to their service licence or replace the company with another in that region. This process was repeated frequently throughout the early life of ITV and lasted approximately ten years. Reviews like this also ensured that the companies maintained their high performance by maintaining the possibility of the loss of their licence. The new licences also included clauses which took into account the promised ITV2 UHF channel, promised to be launched if the Conservative Party won the 1964 general election.

Despite the review, no company lost its position as the local ITV contractor for their region and all licences were extended for another three years (starting July 1964), although several of the major companies were instructed to strengthen the regional emphasis of their on-screen identities. The only change to the network was the formation of a single Wales and West franchise, operated by TWW, following the collapse of WWN and subsequent takeover by TWW. WWN ran into trouble when the company had problems with the construction of their transmitter network, as well as strict provisions in their contract to produce a large amount of Welsh-language programming. This meant that WWN lost a lot of money and although they did receive some help from other ITV contractors, it was not enough; the company declared itself bankrupt in 1964—the only ITV company to have ever done so.

Overall, the regional companies made a profit within the first few years of their existence; the largest regions especially so. Roy Thomson, the Canadian founding chairman of Scottish Television, famously described the ownership of an ITV franchise as "a licence to print money".

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