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“ITV’s most important contribution to television was to develop a format
for the news
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A concept which saw its popularity originate and develop in
America, commercial television began in Britain in 1955 following legislation allowing it as set in
the Television Act of 1954
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Its introduction was to be a monumental influence on British broadcast journalism
...

One of the most notable changes which the introduction of commercial television made in the UK
was to end the BBC’s reigning monopoly of the British broadcast system
...
Funded solely by
a licence fee, the power of the BBC has been referred to as “one of the great creations of social
and cultural policy in the twentieth century” (Seymour-Ure: 1996: 63)
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2 million television licences were paid for in the UK, equating to 20% of all British
households (Tunstall: 1983: 33)
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Regulated by the Independent Television Authority, ITV first began broadcasting in the London
region on Channel 3
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Two days after ITV’s launch television company ATV London began broadcasting for
the ITV franchise at weekends, and the establishment of ITN as a separate company created to
supply news is a characteristic still in place today
...
However, the competition for ratings between ITV and the BBC stepped up, with the
number of television sets in Britain rising from one million to 13 million between 1951 and 1964
(Curran, Seaton: 2010: 165)
...
The elimination of the BBC monopoly is summarised by
Tunstall, who depicts that during this period, until the launch of Channel 4 in 1982, the potential
of total television audience in Britain was divided in the following way:

ITV
BBC1
BBC2
(Tunstall: 1983: 41)

50%
40%
10%

As a result we can identify that the introduction of commercial television in Britain, beginning with
the launch of ITV, created intense competition between the BBC and ITV, thus ending the BBC’s
monopoly and instead creating a duopoly which would dominate British broadcasting for a
significant period
...
As the BBC is
funded by a licence fee, giving its audience a choice between its own channel and ITV meant that a
certain level of quality had to be maintained in order to satisfy the audience and justify payment
of its licence fee, thus funding the Corporation to broadcast
...
However, after Independent Television’s introduction it became clear that the two
channels were differing in terms of content and quality; this was particularly comparable within
the channels’ separate news programmes
...
” (Conboy:
2011: 31) Before ITN’s launch, newscasters on the BBC’s news programme had been unseen
voices reading reports over still images; therefore the presence of newsreaders on-screen
reporting news was a fresh alternative to this
...

While quality was created through this new competition for audience ratings between ITV and the
BBC, it is important to recognise that the introduction of commercial television was not solely
intended to create competition between the two media giants, but also within Independent
Television itself
...
This established ‘regionalism’ as
one of ITV’s differentiating qualities
...
American commercial television was not perceived to be of high quality, and
subsequently concerns were raised as to whether ITV would be able to produce a version of
commercial broadcasting which was of good standard in comparison to its American counterpart
stations
...
Therefore the fact that regulations like this were in place in British
commercial broadcasting in itself implies a certain level of quality
...
For example, Nick Stevenson
addresses the perspective in his book ​ Transformation of the Media​
The
, saying: “In Britain a recent
report by the ‘Campaign for Quality Television’ has argued that the increasing commercialisation
of television and the scramble for ratings among television companies has led to a serious decline
in the number of documentary programmes being shown on terrestrial television
...
Commercial television in Britain led to the
broadcast of content to a wider audience, as depicted in ITV’s regionalisation which meant that
the viewing preferences of national regions considered a ‘minority’ were met
...
Advertisements were also allocated on a regional basis, as opposed to each
local ITV channel showing the same advertisements (Craig)
...

A third, perhaps more general, consequence of the introduction of commercial television in Britain
is that it “redefined public service broadcasting and changed the nature of the debate about what
broadcasting is and should be” (Johnstone: 2006)
...
The report
recommended the extension of the BBC and all ITV licences for three years, as well as –
significantly – allocating a third channel to the BBC: BBC2
...
BBC2 only broadcast for
approximately four hours each evening, but naturally generated a high level of expense for the
BBC; BBC spending increased from £27
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2 million in the year following BBC2’s
launch (BBC: 1966: 194, quoted in Seymour-Ure: 1996: 104)
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The Pilkington Report contained relatively brutal implications for ITV, criticising its regionalisation
and programme content
...
As a consequence of these
changes – also made in preparation for the imminent arrival of colour television broadcast to ITV –
it was widely expected that a fourth channel would be given to ITV (Johnstone: 2006)
...

This “redefin(ition) of public service broadcasting” (Johnstone: 2006) continued to develop as a
result of the Pilkington Report
...
However, Channel 4 signified the end of the BBC/ITV
duopoly which had dominated British television broadcasting for almost thirty years, a duopoly
which to this day has not been reaffirmed
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In conclusion, the introduction of commercial television in the UK was an exceedingly significant
influence on British broadcasting history
...
Its influence – particularly set by
Independent Television – has had a number of lasting influences on television broadcasting,

including the aforementioned news format, as well as the (perhaps more trivial) tradition of
ending the breakfast programme’s transmission at 9
...
However it most
importantly created competition within the television broadcasting industry, improving quality as
well as establishing the requirement of public broadcasting actually meeting the desires of its
public audience
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com/brief-history-of-itv
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birth-of-tv
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do?asset=1413260435_1148663443
(Accessed 7th​
​
March 2014)
MediaGuardian article (published 7th​
​
October 2003) ​ Guardian​
The
Available at:
http://www
...
com/media/2003/oct/07/citynews
...
oxforddictionaries

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