ITV Why Ch3?

does the government still own all those lines? UVF etc?

The government, through Ofcom (and before that The RadioComms agency) regulate and license all radio frequencies

The BBC launched TV in the UK on VHF Band I in 1936. There was only one "channel" broadcasting on different frequencies across the UK. When you bought a TV you usually bought it with a fixed single tuner with a bit of fine tuning. If the area you lived in received BBC TV on a specific frequency, it was pre-tuned to that. No need to change the tuning unless you moved to a new area - there was no channel changing, there was only one channel.

When ITV launched, they were on VHF Band III. This meant you either needed a new TV that could tune a Band I and a Band III channel, or a modifier that converted your TV to do this. You also may have needed a new aerial as Band I and Band III are a long way apart in frequency terms, so an aerial optimised for Band I might not be that good in Band III.

Both BBC and ITV were 405 lines.

When BBC Two launched in the 60s, they were UHF and 625 only, but there was already a plan to provide 4 UHF 625 line channels, BBC One, BBC Two, ITV and a 4th channel (which was expected to be run by the IBA and often referred to as ITV2). However initially only BBC Two was UHF 625, BBC One was VHF 405 Band I, and ITV was VHF 405 Band III - but you needed a dual standard set to get all three services, with a VHF Band I and III and a UHF Band (technically band IV and V) tuner, and the ability to display both 405 and 625 line signals.

Once you got to three channels across 4 bands, either rotary tuning (which survived on portables well into the 80s) or preset tuning became more practical than fixed tuning. By this time BBC One and BBC Two had numbers, ITV didn't - so it was obvious to have BBC One on Preset 1, BBC Two on Preset 2, ITV on Preset 3, and many sets had either a * or ITV2 on the 4th preset. (And TVs based on overseas models had more than this, as other countries had more than 3 channels by the 70s)

VHF I think you mean. Band III is used for DAB, but I think Band I is used for PMR (Private Mobile Radio)?

Yes, a mis-type now corrected

The original numbers had had nothing to do with the order stations started up, it was all to do with frequency.

The BBC did, however have the band one channels, 1 to 5, while ITV initially had the band three channels, 6 to 13. Though the BBC did end up utilising a few band three channels, usually only 6, 7 and 13, for additional services. For example, channel 13 was used for BBC Wales from Wenvoe.

Round here we tuned to channel 5 for the BBC and 10 for ITV.

Round London it was channel 1 for the BBC and 9 for ITV.

Band one is now used for link transmissions. A lot of community radio stations use band one frequencies for either OB to studio links or studio to public transmitter site links.

This is a concept that is still in use in the US - analogue TV tuners there tune to the broadcast channel rather than a preset. Nothing broadcasts on 'channel 1' and the rest of the channels depends on what frequency the station is transmitting on.

The TV stations still refer to themselves as something like WXXX, channel 7 - channel 7 being the VHF channel number. Not something that the national services such as we have here could do - each one transmits from over a thousand transmitters on channel 21 to 68

WNYW... FOX 5! AND NOW THE AWARD WINNING FOX 5 5:30 NEWS TEAM WITH DIANE SOMETHING, RANDY TRAVIS, COREY SOMETHING ON SPORTS AND BUSTY BLONDE WITH WEATHER!

Sorry, got lost in a moment of cheesy American early 90's news for a moment there...

Or W.A.N.K. Cincinatti, the American Sports Network: http://ohluckyyou.namwollem.co.uk/audio/asn/asn310103.mp3

AIUI, this is why the networks in Australia are still known as 'nine' and 'seven' and so-on.

Very old ITV franchise idents have the VHF channel number on them. I'm sure I've seen a Westward ident somewhere which clearly animates Channel 9 and Channel 12 vertically down the left and right hand side of the screen.

Anyway, somone earlier in the thread mentioned the Radio Times listing just BBC and ITV back in the 50s. Well sadly, no! Until the early 90s (I think, I'm sure someone will give an accurate date), television listing magazines were tightly regulated. Radio Times listed only BBC stations, TV Times listed ITV (and ILR?) stations. That was it. Newspapers were allowed daily listings as I recall, but not weekly schedules.

It may seem hard to imagine how we ever found TV programmes to watch at all. If you only took the Radio Times (as we did when I was a nipper), you had little idea what was on 'the other side'. In fact, we only turned to ITV when we had decided that the BBC had nothing to offer (usually this was during Triangle or some other dirge). In this day and age of EPG, Digital Text, tens of TV listings magazines, full schedules in the papers etc, it seems odd that 'navigation' is such a high priority for the maketing droids that are in charge of tv channels.

Yep, I remember us having both Radio Times and TV Times on top of the telly. It might seem a bit arcane to have to buy two magazines just to see listings for only 4 channels, but listings were so much more detailed and better written then.