ITV Central

The station began transmitting at 9:25 am on Friday 1 January 1982 with an authority announcement by duty announcer Su Evans, followed by an extended five-minute promo entitled Welcome to Central, voiced by Peter Wheeler, previewing the company's network and regional programming, and the schedule for the first day of transmission.[4]

Central initially ran a sole pan-regional service from Birmingham, as a result of an industrial dispute which prevented its East Midlands service from Nottingham commencing before September 1983. The split allowed Central to serve the West Midlands with its own service from Birmingham.[5] There were few differences between the East and West sub-regions, but each had its own news service, advertisements, and during the early years of operation, continuity. This would lead to the BBC launching its own sub-regional service for the East Midlands during the 1980s, which became a region in its own right in January 1991, with the launch of East Midlands Today.

By March 1984, the reorganisation of the company was complete, allowing pre-tax profits to double from £3.5 million to £6.5 million in its first two financial years.[6] Shortly afterwards, Zenith Productions was established as a subsidiary of Central Television, which produced programming for the UK and the USA – most famously including the company's television adaptations of the Inspector Morse novels.[7] Central's interests in on-screen fiction saw the company buy the Korda Film Library in 1986.[8][9]

In January 1987, Central acquired the European division of the American production company FilmFair for £1.5million,[10] which went on to produce several of the station's networked children's series before being sold onto the Storm Group (Caspian) in 1991.[11][12] On the same day, Central bought a stake in Starstream, who co-founded and operated The Children's Channel – the 22% stake was sold in November 1991 to United Artists Cable International (formerly a subsidiary of United Artists Theatres, the parent company now a division of Regal Entertainment Group, and the former cable company merged into TCI, the predecessor of Liberty Media). A few months later, Central became the first ITV station to broadcast its own overnight service, including short news bulletins, imported output and the long running Jobfinder service – launched in 1986 in partnership with the Manpower Services Commission – which went on to run for 17 years and won a Royal Television Society award. Central was also awarded the Queen's Award to Industry for Export twice, for selling its range of programming to over 80 countries around the world, in April 1987[13] and April 1989[14][15]

Under its growing business portfolio, Central created CTE (Central Television Enterprises) in December 1987 and opened international bureaux in Hamburg, New York City and Sydney for sales, sponsorship and newsgathering operations. CTE, the company's key international distributor of programming, would later represent output sales for HTV, Meridian and Carlton,[16] who took over Central in 1994.

In 1989, the company founded Zodiac Entertainment – an American entertainment firm specialising in the production and distribution of animated cartoons. Central invested $35 million in the company before deciding to discontinue its production business in 1994, leaving Zodiac to become a distributor. Also in 1989,[17][18] Central established Television Sales and Marketing Services Ltd (TSMS), a joint venture with Anglia Television providing airtime sales and program sponsorships, in part to recover production costs.[19] In March 1994, Anglia acquired Central's stake in the company to take full control with Central moving over to Carlton's sales department.[20]

In March 1990, Central formed a partnership with The Observer newspaper to create Central Observer, making environmental themed films for British Satellite Broadcasting and terrestrial channels, with funding from the charity Television Trust for the Environment.[21]

Central was unopposed in retaining its franchise in 1993, which allowed the company to bid only a token £2,000 a year (just over £5 a day)[22][23] – though the company stressed the need to cut more jobs to become more cost efficient,[24] as the company had agreed to pay 11% of their annual advertising revenue on top of their winning bid. The station's workforce was reduced to 1500 by 1990 and then to 900 by the start of 1992 – less than half of the payroll Central had employed in 1987.

Central also profited from the auction after Meridian, a consortium in which Central held a 20% stake, won the franchise to serve the South and South East of England.[25][26] Post-1993, the company's ITV network presence was further strengthened when it took over commissioning, presentation and compliance responsibility for a number of continuing Thames Television productions, such as Count Duckula, The Tomorrow People, This Is Your Life, Des O'Connor Tonight, Mr. Bean, Minder, Strike It Lucky and Wish You Were Here.

By April 1993, with the added increase of 8.8% in advertising revenues to £250 million and its income from programme sales rising to £83.4 million, Central became the most successful ITV company after the start of the new franchises.[27]

Although the IBA required 49% of the new station to be owned locally by companies and individuals,[28] the take-up was nowhere near as expected, leaving companies outside the region to buy shares including DC Thomson (15%), Ladbrokes (10%), Pergamon (9%) and British Rail (2%).

Shortly after the station began broadcasting, Australian entrepreneur Robert Holmes à Court – via his Bell Group – started the process of acquiring ACC, but was halted by the IBA, since the law prohibited foreign companies from controlling British television companies.[29] By March, a rival bid from Gerald Ronson's Heron Corporation also entered the race to takeover ACC.[30][31] In April 1982, ACC was taken-over by Robert Holmes à Court,[32] with the IBA approving the deal in June on condition that ACC's 51 percent stake in Central be put in trust, thus divesting ACC of all voting power until it had reduced its shares in the broadcaster.[33]

By January 1983, 167 staff had bought shares in the station for a £1 each as part of an innovative shareholding scheme to help offload shares to local people in the Central region.[34] In May 1983, ACC finally sold off its stake in Central – Sears Holdings purchased 20%[35] while Ladbrokes and DC Thomson also increased their stakes to 20% each, and Pergamon took its ownership to 12.5%, with 27.5% being held by single stakeholders.[36]

In March 1987, Carlton Communications acquired 20 per cent of Central from Ladbrokes for £30million[37] which finally gave Carlton its first stake in a terrestrial broadcasting company, after a bid to buy Thames Television was blocked by the IBA two years beforehand.[38] In January 1994[39] Central was bought in its entirety by Carlton for £750 million[40][41] The new owners later restructured the company further by combining Central's operations into one and moving its Birmingham studios to a smaller complex elsewhere in the city centre. Network programmes were now classed as Carlton UK Productions and around 140 jobs were lost from the downgraded Birmingham operation.[42][43]

On 6 September 1999, the station was rebranded on-air as Carlton Central, though the registered company name remained Central Independent Television Limited. The new identity, produced by Lambie-Nairn was also used on Central's sister stations in the London and Carlton Westcountry regions. Only the "Carlton" name was used on air, however Central's regional news programmes retained the "Central" brand. With the merger of Carlton and Granada on 2 February 2004, the brand became ITV1 Central. It is currently owned by ITV plc and on 29 December 2006, the registered company name was changed from Central Independent Television Ltd to ITV Central Ltd. This company is, along with most other regional companies owned by ITV plc, listed on www.companieshouse.gov.uk as a "Dormant company".

On 5 April 2005, it was revealed ITV Central could be fined by regulator Ofcom for broadcasting a pre-recorded late Central News bulletin for the East Midlands. The regulator later permitted ITV to pre-record some regional news bulletins shortly before transmission.[44]

On 15 July 2008, the station was fined £25,000 for contempt of court.[45][46]

Upon launch, Central's on screen presentation featured a sphere (which resembled a moon or a total eclipse) which would burst open with light, before reforming, accompanied by a light jingle, but was dropped and revised during 1983, so the moon ident would just appear of darkness with the colour spectrum appearing to its left hand side.[61][62] This ident was dropped locally in 1985, but remained on the front and end of networked programmes until August 1988.

Although the symbol is well known as the "globe", Russ J Graham of Transdiffusion said the ident passes through several stages that make the viewer wonder "what is it?", before "revealing nothing", noting he thought of it as an egg, but noted it was apparently based on a UFO hovering over the midlands.[63]

The Central cake logo.

On 2 September 1985, a new presentation package was launched, which saw the moon redesigned into a three-dimensional shape. It was initially used solely for regional continuity purposes, but by 1986, it became an ident in its own right. It did not appear as a pre-programme front ident on network programming from Central, however, it having only been adopted for branding network programmes in April 1988, a few months after pre-programme ITV idents were dropped. The new logo was a circle in shape, but with a curved line running down the left hand side and five horizontal lines dividing the sphere up into twelve segments. The left six segments were coloured red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple and the whole symbol was computer animated. The symbol, nicknamed "The Aspirin", or more popularly The Cake, would have a variety of form ups, mainly involved with bringing the segments together or applying the colour to the symbol. The soundtrack was the same composition, but played in a variety of different ways.[64] On 25 April 1987, a new promotional package was introduced with a new slogan Let's Get Together.[65]

Central also adopted the ITV 1989 generic look as another ident to use alongside the Cake. The generic ident was used in its raw form, with altered music, and as part of another ident giving greater emphasis to the cake but was dropped a year later.[64] Between 1985 and 1997, well over 10,000 different sequences were made by Central's Presentation team in Birmingham, including break bumpers, idents, "next" animations and trail designs, which give the channel a wider range of presentation than any other British television station. The last batch of Cake idents to be created was introduced on 1 January 1997, in which the cake became more abstract with both more advanced computer graphics used and more live action models & sequences (including a physical neon sign version).[64]

The cake lasted 13 years before being replaced on 20 April 1998, by adapting a version of the idents used by Carlton who had been using since 25 November 1996. This featured the name Central in the font Gill Sans in centre screen against a bright and colourful background. The idents featured a 2D animation of either the letters interacting in some way, a letter being replaced with another object, or the word being part of a larger scene, such as a cross word of place names in the region. The look was discontinued on 5 September 1999.[64][66]

Central adopted the Carlton 'Star' branding on 6 September 1999, shortly before much of the network adopted the second generic look under the theme of 'Hearts'. The Carlton idents featured an opening film featuring a heart at the end, before a star shaped light came from the heart, engulfing the screen, and showing the endboard, which featured a background of spinning stars in different colours with the brand name centre screen above an ITV logo. The ident itself technically was praised, however the presentational package received complaints and criticisms due to the fact that the Central brand was replaced by the Carlton brand. These idents only featured the Carlton name on screen but the announcements that featured with idents used the name "Carlton for the Central Region" and separate continuity was retained.[66][67]

ITV Central logo used from 2006 to 2013.

On 11 August 2001, the ITV1 brand was formed in which replaced the 'ITV' on the Carlton idents. As the ITV1 idents began to be used on their own more and more, and Carlton and Granada owned all the franchises in England and Wales, Carlton and Granada decided to axe regional branding, and replace it with a full-time ITV1 identity. Before regional programmes, the logo 'ITV1 Carlton' was used, until late 2003, when they were known as 'ITV1 for Central England'. The regional idents were gradually phased out, and by 2006, on most days, the only regional branding was for the regional news. In November 2006, the Central name was retired, when regional idents were axed. It would then be known as just ITV1 at all times.

The Carlton brand continued to be seen on production captions until February 2004, when the caption A Carlton Production or A Carlton Production for Central England being used. This was replaced, following the merger of Granada plc and Carlton Communications to form ITV plc, with an ITV regional logo featuring the word Central below the ITV logo. Today, the majority of productions have been moved away from the Midlands region, and any productions are accredited to ITV Studios.[67] On 14 January 2013, the station's on-air identity reverted to ITV, along with all other ITV plc-owned franchises.