ITV Channel Television

Channel Television was awarded the licence for the islands in 1960 by the then regulator the Independent Television Authority (ITA).[3] However, the ITA pointed out that the Television Act 1954 that established ITV did not include provision for the Channel Islands and as a result, if the ITA was to operate an ITV service there, it would have to be permitted by means of extending the Act to the islands with an Order in Council.[4] In addition, the new station faced difficulties connecting to the rest of the ITV network. The solution was the construction of a microwave relay station on the northern island of Alderney that would connect with another ITV station, initially Westward Television. At first, the station received difficulties in getting permission for the new mast, but these were overcome in September 1961.[3]

Channel Television finally went on the air on 1 September 1962,[3] the 16th ITV station to launch. It served the smallest population of any ITV station with only around 150,000 people in 54,000 households.[5]

The size of Channel's audience made the station initially vulnerable to any disputes and disturbances to the ITV network as a whole. When technicians went on strike in the summer of 1968, Channel was the only station not to be affected.[3] While Channel did survive the 1968 strike, it was badly affected by the Three-Day Week of 1973-4 which restricted the hours of television stations to save electricity.[3] However, Channel managed to escape the large ITV strike that blacked out the rest of the network in August–October 1979, on the same understanding as before.[3] Channel managed to provide a service based mainly on films, imports, extended local news coverage and regional programming, with the biggest problem coming from difficulties in transporting film to the Jersey studios.

Channel also made advances during this period to enhance its service. In 1970, Channel formalised its relationship with South West England ITV franchisee holder Westward Television allowing a greater share of programming between the two franchise holders.[3] Channel finally converted to colour television on Monday 26 July 1976,[3] the last region to do so (five years after the next to last contractor, Grampian Television, began colour transmissions) and seven years after the first. Delays were due to the cost of upgrading the studios and purchasing new equipment and the need to provide a stronger network feed as the region's northernmost areas got better signals from Southern and Thames/London Weekend. All local programmes were being made in colour by the following year with Channel donating all of its old cameras to local museums.[3] Just before the 1979 ITV strike began, Channel became only the second TV station in Europe to introduce electronic news-gathering (ENG) to its local news operation (BBC1 had used ENG for London-originated news since at least 1978), ending the use of film.[3]

The new decade began with a new franchise round for the islands in which Channel was unopposed.[3] However, there was to be a change of franchise in the South West of England with Westward being replaced by Television South West (TSW), requiring a new agreement with TSW.[3] However, in 1986 Channel changed from whom it sourced its network feed, instead changing to Television South (TVS) which served the South and South East of England from Southampton and Maidstone. A side-effect of this change was a disruption to serials airing on the station in the afternoon due to the serial having begun on TVS at a different time to TSW so that they were at a different point through the serial's run. For instance, Channel had to miss over 100 episodes of The Young Doctors, the first nine episodes of Prisoner Cell Block H which had been screened on TVS in 1985, and it had to re-show 60 episodes of Sons and Daughters as TVS was behind TSW. The new feed also meant that Channel simulcast TVS's night time schedule following the launch of this programming area in 1988. Channel's night time schedule from that point onwards always simulcast the service seen on TVS and its successor Meridian.

During this period, the station began to invest in technology. A local service for the Oracle teletext service began in 1981, delivering local news and information.[3] Local news was also enhanced with the first underwater ENG camera, created for footage of a Roman shipwreck, and a year later with the introduction of a computerised newsroom, the first of the ITV regions to convert.[3]

In 1991, the station faced a new challenge: that of a new franchise round. Following the Broadcasting Act of the previous year, the allocation of regional franchises had changed to become a blind auction in which the franchise went to the highest bidder.[6] This process was further complicated by a quality threshold, in which a higher bidder could be disqualified for having a poor business plan or if its high bid would result in a lack of funds for the programmes themselves.[6] In the franchise round, Channel bid £1,000 (the lowest bid accepted) and was out-bid by challenge consortium CI3.[3][6] CI3, formed in part of ex-Channel employees, bid £102,000, but was disqualified as it failed to pass the quality threshold.[3][7] Channel had won the right to continue broadcasting beyond 1993. As another consequence of the franchise round, Channel began local news broadcasts during breakfast time as part of GMTV's new service.[3]

In 1996, Channel began a subtitling service for its local programmes.[3]

Logo used from 1999 to 2006

In 2001, Channel was bought by the Yattendon Investment Trust, although the buy-out did not lead to a noticeable change on screen.[8] The buy-out occurred at the same time as the full scale amalgamation of ITV with many of the regional franchises becoming owned by one of four consortia: Carlton, Granada, United News and Media and Scottish Media Group. Channel subsequently remained one of two franchises to be not part of a consortium (the other being UTV). When Carlton and Granada (which by then also included the United News and Media franchises) merged to form ITV plc in 2004, Channel remained separate from this new merger.[9] Channel's independence from ITV plc also saw it retain its much loved regional non-news programmes when other regions saw this type of programming dropped.[10]

One of ITV Channel Television's vehicles as seen in 2011.

Despite being a small station, Channel took on a role in ensuring that ITV's independently produced programmes complied with the UK's guidelines and laws. On 18 May 2008, The Sunday Times newspaper reported that ITV plc was using Channel's compliance role as a loophole, enabling it to lessen a possible fine for breaching Ofcom regulations during the 2005 British Comedy Awards. During the programme Robbie Williams presented an award to Ant and Dec which should have gone to Catherine Tate who had received a greater number of phone-in votes.[11] For this breach, Ofcom fined the broadcaster, which was worked out as a maximum of 5% of the offending broadcaster's advertising revenue. However, as the programme was independently produced Channel is seen as the offending broadcaster for not ensuring compliance, despite Channel having no role in commissioning the programme. Therefore, any fines received are minimal as Channel's advertising income was by far the smallest of all the ITV companies.[12]

In early 2008, Channel began broadcasting in 16:9 widescreen, approximately a decade after the rest of the network became widescreen capable with the launch of digital terrestrial television. The Channel Islands also completed the switchover from analogue to digital television signals in November 2010.[13]

In 2011, Channel Television was bought from the Yattendon Group by ITV plc. The deal was announced on 18 October, subject to approval from the Jersey Competition Regulatory Authority,[14] and was completed on 23 November.[15] Although not announced, the deal was thought to have been worth at least £10 million.[16] Following ITV's 2013 rebrand, Channel's presentation and the title of its news programme have been brought into line with the other ITV regions, although sporadic non-news programming remains.

• ITV News Channel TV
• Puffin's Pla(i)ce
• Channel Islands Sports Awards

Although Channel made little for the ITV network it did contribute to a number of roadshow and anthology series which were collaboratively produced in a number of the smaller TV regions, such as Highway.

• The Lonely Man (1963)
• The Bitter Years (1970; about the occupation of the Channel Islands during the Second World War)
• Jambo: The Gentle Giant (one-off documentary, 1986)
• Gallery (1986–92)
• The Dodo Club (1987–89)
• Cyril Fletcher's TV Garden (1990–92)
• Bertie the Bat (1990)
• Island (1996–97)
• The Story of the Battle of Flowers (two-part documentary, 2002)
• Simply the Best (2004)