Southern Television was the ITV broadcasting licence holder for the South and South-East of England from 30 August 1958 to 31 December 1981. The company was launched as 'Southern Television Limited' and the title 'Southern Television' was consistently used on-air throughout its life. However, in 1966, during the application process for contracts running from 1968, the company renamed itself 'Southern Independent Television Limited', a title which was used until 1980 when the company reverted to its original corporate name. Southern Television ceased broadcasting on the morning of 1 January 1982 at 12:43am, after a review during the 1980 franchise round gave the contract to Television South.
Southern Television
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.