How ITV works

I am just wondering how ITV works in terms of broadcasting. The question came to me after my American friend keeps asking "What does the network show when local news is on". Which got me thinking, does each region control output for their ITV 1 region? Are STV, UTV given tapes or is there a feed they would broadcast?

I gather that basically; STV and UTV get a clean feed from Leeds NTC.

ITV Channel Television get a feed from satellite of Meridian.

Central, Granada, Yorkshire, Tyne Tees and Border all get transmitted/played out from Leeds and Meridian, Anglia, Wales and London all get played out from London/South Bank STC.

News is transmitted from local galleries to the transmission centres and played out to the relevant transmitters from there.

Adverts are sent to the TC via server and played out to the advertising regions in the same way that news is.

There is no sustaining feed on ITV1 and during local output, if one goes down they generally switch to the next available, if the entire transmission centre goes down, they will get the closest region to the affected areas, seen here;

Thank you Mike for that fast response. That all makes sense now.

Yes, an American network works very differently. There the networks output a full schedule of programmes which their affiliates can take to air or not (although they have to take peak time ones I think). If they don't they show either their own programmes like news, or 'syndicated' bought in programmes

The networks in the US have hundreds of affiliates so they can't really negotiate with what each station wants. Here even on the old ITV it was very different, there was no need for it to work like that as there were only a dozen. There was never a single network feed of programmes, it was a case of sending programmes up and down line as and when needed. At the local news times (which did vary) none of the regions needed a networked programme so none were scheduled or arranged.

Now it's different again, it's all centralised in England and Wales so there's no 'network' as such, it's just a channel with regional opt-outs

I've noticed when I was in the US, most of there daytime schedule is news, the news at 4, 5,6 then at 6:30 the national networked news

I think it's a clean feed from the Chiswick STC ?



Almost. It's a fibre feed of Meridian's 'dirty' Rowridge feed from Chiswick.

Although since last November's DSO I'm not sure whether CTV return their output to the mainland somewhere, for assembly of the PSB 2 mux ? For CTV's D-Sat uplink that's the case.

Is the centre the regions are played out from related to whether they belonged to Carlton or Granada pre-ITV plc? Obviously Meridian, Anglia and Central are in the "wrong" places if that's the case but maybe someone can fill us in on the history of it.

It evolved that way.

Granada used to Tx Border

YTV used to Tx TTTV.

Then the Gra/BTV Tx was relocated to YTV in Leeds, to form the NTC

Down south:

HTV Cardiff Tx'd Westcountry

Meridian Southampton Tx'd Anglia and HTV West

LWT and Carlton formed LNN, that was based on the South Bank, and Tx'd both stations.

Once Granada and Carlton merged, Southampton and Cardiff were closed, and all was transferred to LNN, forming the STC. Thomson-Technicolour took over the contract, and that function is now at Chiswick.

Central were always stand alone up until then in Birmingham, but they then had Tx transferred to Leeds.

There is an anomaly, the Oxford sub-region of Central that started to carry Meridian News, (and still does now) is played out from Chiswick I think.

Licencing wise Oxford is still the Central region, but to all intents and purposes, because the only regional programming is now just news, it's in an enlarged Meridian region.

Yes, and Oxford ad space is still sold as part of the Central region, which is why you'll get midlands ads but then south coast news all in the space of a few seconds at 1800...

As Marky says above, the clean STV and UTV feeds come from the STC and not YTV as far as I know. Timeshifted programmes are normally recorded from the clean feed and played back locally. Incidentally, how 'clean ' is this feed?

As for CTV, I assume it's not technically possible to send a clean feed to them, hence the ITV1 branding? So effectively it's still Meridian with local opts triggered locally in Jersey? Was it Channel's decision not to opt out of continuity except at key junctions? Surely they have the facilities to provide a fully local service with recorded links or otherwise, albeit soiled by ITV1 ECPs?

CTV is a clean feed, its just there are only NON itv PLC company to take full ITV1 branding.

Isn't that a contradiction in terms? If the feed was 'clean', in the true sense of the word, there would be no ITV1 branding? CTV's feed has ITV1 ECPs, astons, etc - whereas the feed sent to STV and UTV does not. The STV/UTV feed may have some ITV1 trails and idents on it, however - I believe UTV may still show these idents overnight.

But CTV's feed is far from 'clean'.