Independent Television Authority
The Independent Television Authority (ITA) was an agency created by the Television Act 1954 to supervise the creation of "Independent Television" (ITV), the first commercial television network in the United Kingdom. The ITA existed from 1954 until 1972. It was responsible for determining the location, constructing, building, and operating the transmission stations used by the ITV network, as well as determining the franchise areas and awarding the franchises for each regional commercial broadcaster. The Authority began its operations on 4 August 1954, a mere four days after the Television Act received Royal Assent, under the Chairmanship of Sir Kenneth Clark. The Authority's first Director General, Sir Robert Fraser was appointed by Clark a month later on 14 September.
Image: The Inter allied Control Commission in Germany, 1944 TR2528
ITV, legally known as Channel 3, is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network. It is branded as ITV1 in most of the UK except for central and northern Scotland, where it is branded as STV. It was launched in 1955 as Independent Television to provide competition and reduce the current monopoly to the then BBC Television. ITV is the oldest commercial network in the UK. Since the passing of the Broadcasting Act 1990, it has been legally known as Channel 3 to distinguish it from the other analogue channels at the time: BBC1, BBC2 and ChannelĀ 4.
Granada Studios, was built in 1954 to house the broadcaster Granada Television. Granada Television opened in 1956 and is the only franchisee to remain an ITV contractor since the creation of the network. The Granada studios closed in 2013.
The Leeds Studios, used by ITV Yorkshire. Each ITV region originally had its own studios, however the rise of publisher-broadcasters like Carlton Television and the takeover of regions caused several studios to be closed.