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Yorkshire Television Limited is the ITV contractor for Yorkshire, England, and the surrounding areas. It was formed from a 'shotgun marriage' between two applicant groups in the 1967 franchise round, Telefusion Yorkshire Ltd and Yorkshire Independent Television. It went on air on 29 July 1968 from purpose-built colour studios in Leeds, the first studios of their kind in Europe. It also had a smaller studio in Sheffield.

Yorkshire Television is often known on air as YTV. Its logo since 1968 has been a chevron and the identification theme was based on the traditional Yorkshire song 'On Ilkla Moor Baht'at'. YTV's first startup tune was the striking Yorkshire Television March, written by Derek New and arranged by Ron Goodwin; this was changed in 1982 for the Yorkshire Theme written by Chris Gunning. The station nearly came to grief a few months after going on-air when its' transmitter at Emley Moor collapsed. However a temporary mast was erected and the station recommenced broadcasting after a few weeks.

Its broadcast area increased in size when in 1972 the governing body of commercial television, the Independent Broadcasting Authority allocated the Belmont transmitter, then served by Anglia Television, to the station. Although the area served by Belmont was largely rural it did cover the major industrial centres of Hull, Grimsby, Scunthorpe and Lincoln and it was felt the region would be better served by a station like Yorkshire. At the same time YTV lost the Bilsdale transmitter in North Yorkshire to Tyne Tees Television.

Major Yorkshire Television programmes include the soap opera Emmerdale (originally Emmerdale Farm) and drama Heartbeat, as well as the quiz shows 3-2-1 and Countdown for Channel 4. Local programmes include the news service Calendar. In 1975 Yorkshire produced one of ITV's few critically-acclaimed sitcoms: Rising Damp, starring Leonard Rossiter.

Mergers and branding

Tyne Tees

In 1970 Yorkshire Television was effectively merged with its neighbour Tyne Tees Television when the two were brought under the control of Trident Television Limited, a company formed to deal with the problem of effective ownership of the Bilsdale transmitter. The other point of the trident was intended to be another neighbour, Anglia Television, but in the event Anglia was prevented from joining by the Independent Broadcasting Authority. The two stations remained separately run and were required to demerge in 1981 as a condition of the re-award of their ITV contracts. However following rule changes in 1993, the two stations resumed their alliance under the name Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television plc.

In 1996, Yorkshire Tyne Tees Television made the controversial move of dual branding its stations as "Channel 3". Yorkshire Television had a scaled back version of this branding "Yorkshire Television, on Channel 3", but its neighbour Tyne Tees Television was forced to use the rather long winded name "Channel 3 North East - Tyne Tees Television".

Granada

In 1997 Yorkshire Tyne Tees Television plc was acquired by Granada Group plc (now ITV plc). Granada's first move was to scrap the hated-in-some-quarters Channel 3 branding, starting from 9 March 1998. However dual branding with the "ITV" name was introduced a year later.

Yorkshire Television was placed in charge in transmission control and presentation for all of Granada's stations in the North of England, with the creation of the Northern Transmission Centre. The continuity department closed down in 2002 after a unified presentation department for ITV1 in England was set up by LNN in London.

On 28 October 2002, Yorkshire Television was rebranded as ITV1 Yorkshire. The "Yorkshire" name only appears before regional programmes, the rest of the time only the name "ITV1" is shown. The famous chevron continued to appear after programmes made by Yorkshire Television, until 31 October 2004. However from 1 November 2004 the Granada logo appears at the end of Yorkshire programmes, accompanied by the words "A Granada Yorkshire Production". The chevron is therefore no longer used on screen. A large model of the chevron, for many years a prominent feature of the exterior of the Yorkshire Television studio building, mysteriously "fell off" the wall in early 2005 and was never replaced.

Notable productions

• Calendar — local news programme which used to be presented by Richard Whiteley
• Countdown — a game show produced for Channel 4
• Emmerdale
• Flambards
• Heartbeat
• Hello, Cheeky!
• Home to Roost
• Jimmy's
• Local Heroes
• The New Statesman
• The Raggy Dolls
• Rising Damp
• 3-2-1
• Conspiracy of Silence Banned in the USA

Banned in the USA

Conspiracy of Silence is a 56 minute documentary film detailing an alleged Lawrence "Larry" King child sex scandal that involved many children from Nebraska institution, Boys Town. The organized child sex parties implicated the Reagan and Bush White House during the 1980s. King was the ringleader of the sex ring which had links to other fellow political conservatives in Washington D.C. including Republican lobbyist Craig Spence, Sen. Elizabeth Dole's staff, along with members of the financial elite of Nebraska.

The documentary was produced over the course of ten months by British corporation Yorkshire Television for broadcast in the US on May 3, 1994 on the Discovery Channel. However, threats from Congress of more restrictive television legislation resulted in the documentary never being aired. Most copies of the finished product were destroyed by parties unknown, but a mostly completed work print of the documentary was sent anonymously to former State Senator Nebraska attorney John DeCamp a year after all copies were supposedly destroyed.

External links

• ITV1 Yorkshire Home Page
• Animated Yorkshire TV logo, 1968 from 625.uk.com (Requires Macromedia Flash version 4 or later).
• 1969 Yorkshire TV logo from 625.uk.com (Requires Macromedia Flash version 6 or later).
• 1969 Yorkshire TV in colour logo from 625.uk.com (Requires Macromedia Flash version 6 or later).
• 1982 revamp of the logo from 625.uk.com (Requires Macromedia Flash version 4 or later).

See also

• ITV
• ITV plc

• ITV franchisees
• Yorkshire media