Heartbeat is a British police procedural period drama series, based upon the Constable series of novels written by Nicholas Rhea, and produced by Yorkshire Television until it was merged by ITV, then by ITV Studios from 1992 until 2010. The series is set in the North Riding of Yorkshire during the 1960s, and takes place in real-life and fictional locations. Most episodes' focus on separate stories sometimes intersect with one another; some episodes focus on a single major incident.

ITV Yorkshire, previously known as Yorkshire Television and commonly referred to as just YTV, is the British television service provided by ITV Broadcasting Limited for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV network. Until 1974, this was primarily the historic county of Yorkshire and parts of neighbouring counties served by the Emley Moor transmitter. Following a reorganisation in 1974 the transmission area was extended to include Lincolnshire, northwestern Norfolk and parts of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, served by the Belmont transmitter.