1. 1960s

2. 1970s

3. 1980s

4. 1990s

5. 2000s

6. See also

7. References

This is a timeline of the history of London Weekend Television

1960s

• 1967
  • LWT is awarded the London weekend franchise. The new franchise includes Friday evenings so LWT broadcasts from 7 pm on Fridays as well as Saturday and Sunday.

• 1968
  • 2 August – LWT goes on air, for fifteen seconds because this day is the start of the technicians strike which forces ITV off the air for several weeks although management manage to launch a temporary ITV Emergency National Service with no regional variations.

• 1969
  • 15 November – LWT begins broadcasting in colour.

1970s

• 1970
  • 18 September – LWT launches its famous river ident.^[1]

• 1971
  • No events.

• 1972
  • 1 October – LWT launches the UK’s first Sunday politics programme – Weekend World. It continues until 1988.
  • LWT opens its purpose-built studios called The London Studios although they were not fully operational until 1974.

• 1973
  • No events.

• 1974
  • No events.

• 1975
  • No events.

• 1976
  • May – LWT is reorganised, to form a new company "LWT (Holdings) Limited”.^[2] which allowed the company to expand into a number of new ventures, including Hutchinson Publishing.

• 1977
  • February – Michael Grade is appointed as Director of Programmes.

• 1978
  • 4 January – The first edition of arts magazine The South Bank Show is broadcast, replacing Aquarius. It continues to be broadcast until the end of 2009 before Sky Arts revives the programme in 2012.
  • November – News International sells 16% of its LWT holding, reducing its shares from 39.7% to 25%.^[3]

• 1979
  • 10 August – The ten week ITV strike forces London Weekend Television off the air. The strike ends on 24 October and LW’s acquisition of specialist travel and tour operator "Page & Moy" and its Hutchinson publishing operations helped offset the losses made during the strike.^[4]

1980s

• 1980
  • 11 February – London Weekend Television's Minorities Unit launches the UK's first television series specifically aimed at a gay audience. The programme, called Gay Life, airs late on Sundays and runs for two series.^[5]
  • News International sells its remaining 25% stake, bringing an end to LWT's connection with the Australian tycoon.^[6]

• 1981
  • No events.

• 1982
  • 1 January –
  • LWT (and Thames) are no longer able to broadcast to north west Kent due to the Bluebell Hill transmitter near Maidstone being transferred to the new TVS, as part of the creation of the south and south east franchise.^[7]
  • LWT gains 105 minutes more transmission time on Fridays when the handover from Thames was moved back from 7 pm to 5.15 pm.
  • 8 January – Due to the earlier Friday start, LWT becomes contractually responsible for providing a Friday London news service. Rather than launch its own news service, it broadcasts LWT News Headlines, which are aired mid-afternoon and late evening on Fridays. These bulletins usually consisted solely of the duty continuity announcer in-vision reading copy sourced from the Independent Local Radio station LBC, and later, local wire agencies^[8] LWT pays Thames to provide a 15-minute insert into The Six O'Clock Show, LWT’s Friday teatime magazine. The bulletin is called Thames Weekend News.
  • January – John Birt replaces Michael Grade as Director of Programmes and makes major changes to output aimed at maximising audiences with some niche programming, such as arts and science, moving out of primetime to the schedule margins to make way form more entertainment shows at peaktime.

• 1983
  • January – LWT drops in-vision continuity.
  • 5 February – Following the launch of ITV’s breakfast television service, TV-am four days earlier, LWT’s broadcast day now begins at 9:25 am.
  • 9 September – LWT launches a computerised version of its ident with the tagline “Your Weekend ITV”.^[9]
  • LWT launches an into-the-night Nightlife strand, resulting in LWT staying on air until around 2am on Friday and Saturday nights.

• 1984
  • No events.

• 1985
  • LWT comes to an agreement with TVS to help to fill its schedules with domestically-produced programming while not having to increase its budget. This helps TVS to get more of its programmes onto the ITV network.^[10]

• 1986
  • 29 August – After 16 years LWT drops its river-based logo and launches a new ident.^[11]

• 1987
  • April – Greg Dyke returns to LWT after three years at TVS to replace John Birt as Director of Programmes.
  • August – LWT begins 24-hour transmission and launches the UK’s first overnight show Night Network.^[12] However it is short lived and ends on Friday 31 March 1989.^[13]

• 1988
  • 8 January – Following concern from the IBA over LWT’s regional news output, LWT launches its own news service called LWT News, which also includes bulletins on Saturdays and Sundays. The service is outsourced and is provided by Screen News.^[14]
  • 15 July – LWT axes The Six O'Clock Show in favour of a smaller scale show called Friday Now ^[15] which was replaced a year later by Six O'Clock Live,^[16]

• 1989
  • 1 September – LWT adopts the new corporate ITV logo.^[17]

1990s

• 1990
  • January – Chrysalis Television takes over the contract to produce LWT News.^[18]

• 1991
  • April – LWT, in conjunction with Thames, launches a new overnight strand ITV Night Time.^[19]
  • 16 October – LWT retains its licence. There had been one other applicants, London Independent Broadcasting. However it was ruled out because it failed to make the quality threshold. It had bid five times more than LWT, which retains the licence with a bid of £7.59 million.

• 1992
  • 21 August – Six O’Clock Live is axed to make way for the forthcoming London Tonight.
  • 4 September – LWT launches a new logo, sometimes dubbed the flying blocks logo.^[20]

• 1993
  • 3 January – LWT News is broadcast for the final time. It is replaced by a new seven days a week news service jointly run by LWT and new contractor Carlton Television, in a joint venture known as London News Network and the on-air name for the programme is London Tonight.

• 1994
  • 25 February – LWT is bought by Granada Television for £770 million bid for the company. This resulted in Greg Dyke and Sir Christopher Bland leaving LWT.^[21]

• 1995
  • No events.

• 1996
  • 30 August – LWT modifies its logo.^[22]
  • 1 October – LWT’s owner Granada launches Granada Sky Broadcasting as a joint venture between Granada and BSkyB. One of the channels – Granada Sky Broadcasting – broadcasts entertainment programmes from the archives of Granada and its subsidiaries which includes archive programming from LWT.

• 1997
  • No events.

• 1998
  • 15 November – The public launch of digital terrestrial TV in the UK takes place.

• 1999
  • 8 November – LWT unveils what will be its last ever logo.^[23]

2000s

• 2000
  • No events.

• 2001
  • No events.

• 2002
  • 28 October – LWT marks its final day on air with a series of tributes to LWT's past, with long-serving continuity announcers Glen Thompsett and Trish Bertram appearing in-vision in LWT's playout centre in the London Television Centre. When GMTV handed over to the weekday franchise the following morning, the national ITV1 brand was on-air.^[24]

• 2003
  • No events.

• 2004
  • 2 February – Following the merger of Granada merges with Carlton Communications to form a single England and Wales ITV company called ITV plc^[25] ITV London is formed as a unified brand for the Carlton and LWT franchises. Consequently, the new ‘region’ operates as a seven day service.
  • 31 March – The LWT logo is seen for the final time. It had continued to appear as an endcap.

See also

• History of ITV
• History of ITV television idents
• Timeline of ITV
• Timeline of Thames Television
• Timeline of Carlton Television

References

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