Thames Television, commonly simplified to just Thames, was a franchise holder for a region of the British ITV television network serving London and surrounding areas from 30 July 1968 until the night of 31 December 1992.
Thames Television broadcast from 09:25 Monday morning to 17:15 Friday afternoon at which time it would hand over to London Weekend Television (LWT).
Thames "London Skyline" ident, featuring London landmarks
Thames's main studio complex at Teddington
A Thames TV camera (a Marconi Mark 3) at the National Science and Media Museum, Bradford
The start of Thames ITV generic ident
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.