Carlton Television: Difference between revisions

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===Background===

'''Carlton Television''' began broadcasting on January 1, 1993 as the third holder of the ITV franchise for London weekdays, after outbidding the much-loved [[Thames (UK)|Thames Television]] - for which it had previously made two unsuccessful takeover attempts - in the auction-style 1991 franchise round. The company quickly became notorious for its low-budget and poor-quality programming - a stark contrast to its predecessor - and for having an appetite for corporate acquisitions. These included fellow ITV stations [[Central Independent Television (UK)|Central]] and [[Westcountry Television (UK)|Westcountry]] - both of which were rebranded with the Carlton name on September 6th, 1999 - and the license and broadcast facilities of [[Harlech Television/HTV (UK)|HTV]], as well as [[Technicolor]] and the film libraries of [[ITC Entertainment Group (UK)|ITC Entertainment Group]] and [[The Rank Organisation (UK)|The Rank Organisation]]. Carlton eventually ran into financial difficulties (spurred on by ONdigital, a failed digital television joint venture with [[Granada Television (UK)|Granada]] and an expensive TV rights deal with the English Football League that went bad), and on February 2, 2004, it merged with Granada to form ITV plc. Subsequently, the Carlton name was dropped from most uses, with ITV reinstating the Central and Westcountry names, while Technicolor Corporation was sold off. The Carlton archive holdings (including the ITC, [[Associated Television (UK)|ATV]]/Central, Westcountry, HTV, [[London Film Productions (UK)|London Films]] and Rank Film Distributors libraries) are now the property of ITV plc.