Carlton Television

Carlton Television (now part of the non-franchised ITV London region) was the ITV franchise holder for London and the surrounding counties from 9.25am every Monday to 5.15pm every Friday. The company is now managed with London Weekend Television as a single entity (ITV London), but the two companies are still separately licensed. The station is owned and operated by ITV plc under the licensee of "ITV Broadcasting Limited". Carlton has been branded on air as "ITV1" since 28 October 2002 ("ITV" between 14 January 2013 and 14 November 2022). Carlton Television Ltd, the original holder of the licence (renamed Carlton Broadcasting Limited on 1 February 1997), has since been dissolved. Carlton UK Television Limited however is now known as ITV Consumer Limited and legally operates ITV plc's websites. As Carlton's name has no relation to its region, its on-screen identity has been completely removed (along with those of HTV, LWT and GMTV). Other regions have kept their original company name as a region name and in their local news name. Formation Carlton Television was originally set up by Michael Green's Carlton Communications to bid for an ITV franchise after Green failed to buy into Thames Television, the London franchise, in 1985. On 16 October 1991, Carlton won the "Channel 3" franchise to broadcast to London during weekdays from January 1993, as a result of winning the silent auction used to renegotiate the new ITV franchises. Thames bid £32.5M, while Carlton Television placed a bid of £43.2M and CPV-TV placed a bid of £45.3M. CPV-TV was the highest bidder, but was eliminated for failing the quality threshold; 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 of the remaining two companies. Some commentators consequently speculated that Thames had fallen victim to a "government vendetta", whilst others felt that the auction had been won fairly. Carlton did not buy Thames' studios, instead having its headquarters in St Martin's Lane in the West End and opting to rent transmission space at LWT's London studios. Also, unlike Thames which was both a production company and a broadcaster, Carlton chose to commission all of its programming from independent production companies.