London Weekend Television
London Weekend Television (LWT) (now part of the non-franchised ITV London region) was the ITV network franchise holder for Greater London and the Home Counties at weekends, broadcasting from Fridays at 5.15 pm (7:00 pm from 1968 until 1982) to Monday mornings at 6:00.[1] From 1968 until 1992, when LWT's weekday counterpart was Thames Television, there was an on-screen handover to LWT on Friday nights (there was no handover back to Thames on Mondays, as from 1968 to 1982 there was no programming in the very early morning, and from 1983, when a national breakfast franchise was created, LWT would hand over to TV-am at 6:00am, which would then hand over to Thames at 9:25am). From 1993 to 2002, when LWT's weekday counterpart was Carlton Television, the transfer usually occurred invisibly during a commercial break, for Carlton and LWT shared studio and transmission facilities (although occasionally a Thames-to-LWT-style handover would appear).
"LWT" redirects here. For other uses, see LWT (disambiguation).Type
Region of television network
- LWT (1978–2002)
- London Weekend (1969–1978)
- London Weekend Television (1968–1969)
2 August 1968
Across the capital, across the weekend, this is LWT
Crystal Palace
(formerly Bluebell Hill, Croydon)
London and parts of South East England
Lost on-air identity on 27 October 2002 (now known as ITV1 at all times)
English
ATV London on Saturdays and Sundays
Rediffusion, London on Friday evenings
Like most ITV regional franchises, including Carlton's, the London weekend franchise is now operated by ITV plc. The "London Weekend" franchise was renewed by Ofcom in 2015 for ten years and is still separately licensed, but is no longer distinguished on air. LWT is now managed with Carlton Television as a single entity (ITV London), although the name for the London Weekend licence on the Ofcom site is still "LWT". London Weekend Television Ltd is now (along with most other former regional companies owned by ITV plc) listed at Companies House as a "dormant company".[2]
Continuity announcers[edit]
Ruth Anders, Sue Peacock, Trish Bertram, Keith Harrison, Robin Houston, Pam Royle, Alec Taylor, Glen Thompsett, Annie St John and Peter Lewis served as continuity announcers for LWT.
LWT's initial on-screen look featured the name London Weekend Television in white zooming in on a black background accompanied by an electronic jingle; some shows, such as On the Buses, used only a still caption "From London Weekend Television", either in silence, or over the start of the show's theme music. This was replaced the following year by an ident featuring a rotating disc (a stylised laurel wreath) on screen against a grey (later orange) background with the caption in the centre accompanied by a simple acoustic ident theme. The '"Television" part of the name was dropped on-screen, with LWT merely called "London Weekend".
LWT's most recognisable identity – the 'River' – was introduced on Friday 18 September 1970, featuring a stripe made up of blue, white and red moving across the black background in the shape of an 'L' and 'W'; the 'Television' part of the name remained absent. Designed by graphics designer Terry Griffiths, his modified version introduced in early 1978 revived the full name; at the end, the river sections snapped down into the striped LWT logo. The ident jingle, composed by Harry Rabinowitz, was also remixed.
LWT dropped in-vision announcers in January 1983, and on Friday 9 September that year, introduced a new local CGI ident, bearing the company slogan 'Your Weekend ITV', with an additional ident appearing in 1984.
On Friday 29 August 1986, a new set of CGI idents by The Computer Film Company aired for the first time:
A separate cel-animated ident for children's programmes was also used, accompanied by a different version of the station's ident theme.
On 1 September 1989,[45] LWT adopted the first ITV generic look and retained it until 30 August 1992, with their three coloured stripes featuring in their segment of the corporate ITV logo. The 1986 'Solari' ident returned during 1991/1992 to introduce local programming.
LWT replaced the 1989 ITV generic ident on 4 September 1992 with a large 3D logo forming from the left to a remixed version of the generic music, with two versions: 'Flying Blocks' and 'Flare'. On 30 August 1996,[46] an updated ident and logo was introduced, splitting the river colours of red, white and blue on the individual respective letters, L, W and T, with six different versions. On 12 November 1999, LWT adopted the second ITV generic look, based on the theme of hearts. LWT was the only company to drop this look on 24 March 2000, replacing it with the theme of a video wall. The first version of the ident had two problems: the colour scheme was in essence primarily red, and the soundtrack theme consisted of electronic beeps. This ident was altered from July 2000, reducing the red colour scheme and featuring a significantly remixed soundtrack, and another revision on 11 August 2001 included the new ITV1 logo and, from November that year, the itv.com website as well.
By 2001, Carlton and Granada controlled all of the franchises in England and Wales, and in 2002 decided to unify the playout and branding of all of the companies to become ITV1, with regional references used only in accordance with regional programming. LWT marked its final day on air with a series of tributes to LWT's past, beginning with an authentic startup routine leading into the ITN Morning News. All elements of the startup were recreated in Macromedia Flash and in the 16:9 aspect ratio, created by Dave Jeffery. Later that day, a recreation of LWT's famous River ident would lead into The South Bank Show, which would be the last programme broadcast under the LWT name. The show was followed by a final signoff featuring continuity announcers Glen Thompsett and Trish Bertram appearing 'in-vision' to toast the departing station, and a montage of LWT presentation across the years, assembled by senior ITV presentation producer Gareth Randall.
When GMTV handed over to the weekday franchise the following morning, the national ITV1 brand was on-air, with the new team of announcers announcing for the first time; former Meridian announcer Paul Seed was the first network voice. The operations of LWT and Carlton Television were merged to become ITV London, a seven-day service. Unlike the other English and Welsh franchises, ITV London did not receive regional idents featuring the London name until the 2003 refresh; only one of these idents was ever used at a single junction from launch. Apart from this rare occasion, the channel was only known verbally as "ITV1 London" prior to regional programmes only.
On 2 February 2004, Granada and Carlton completed their merger to become ITV plc, holding eleven of the fifteen ITV regional franchises. The LWT logo continued to appear at the end of its programmes until 31 October 2004. From 1 November, the end caption (endcap) was replaced by a Granada endcap, with programmes either credited as "A Granada London Production", or "A Granada Production" instead. From 16 January 2006, all network productions produced by any ITV plc-owned company carried an "ITV Productions" endcap, and then from the start of 2009 adopted the "ITV Studios" brand.
Programmes[edit]
Programmes[edit]
Other notable early shows included We Have Ways of Making You Laugh (a sketch show starring Frank Muir which was due to be the first programme scheduled to be aired on LWT, but industrial action blacked it out early in the first show); the children's fantasy Catweazle; and several sitcoms, including the popular No, Honestly, On the Buses, Please Sir!, Me and My Girl and Mind Your Language, and cult favourites such as End of Part One, Whoops Apocalypse and Hot Metal. The channel also created the comedy-clips format with It'll Be Alright on the Night, Clive James on Television and Game for a Laugh; the latter in turn spawned Beadle's About and You've Been Framed!.
Although as a weekend station, LWT tended to concentrate on lighter material than its weekday neighbours Thames and Carlton, it did produce a number of successful drama series too. Within These Walls was a prison drama starring Googie Withers; Lillie was based on the real-life story of Lillie Langtry (with Francesca Annis reprising the role from ATV's Edward the Seventh); and The Gentle Touch, starring Jill Gascoine, was the UK's first drama series with a female police detective as the lead role. However, by far the station's most successful drama was Upstairs, Downstairs, a successful attempt to produce a costume drama comparable in scale to BBC1's The Forsyte Saga.
Neither did LWT neglect other responsibilities; it established the long-running Sunday lunchtime political series Weekend World and a variety of regional programmes including award-winning current affairs series The London Programme and the light-hearted magazine show The Six O'Clock Show. It also pioneered multicultural programming via the work of the in-house London Minorities Unit, which produced Gay Life, the world's first gay television series, and the youth documentary series Twentieth Century Box.[47] The company also became heavily involved in social action with the use of on-air and off-air campaigns by the London Community Unit (LCU), later relaunched as LWT Action.
The Sports Department at LWT featured programmes such as World of Sport which ran for 20 years on a Saturday afternoon and was billed as ITV's answer to BBC1's Grandstand. Other shows included Saint and Greavsie, On the Ball, and The Big Match (renamed The Match between 1988 and 1992). The latter two shows were hosted for many years by ITV's main football commentator Brian Moore.
Major programmes on LWT included most of ITV's weekend line-up, which included gameshows and comedies like Friday- and Saturday-night favourites Play Your Cards Right, The Two of Us, Square Deal, Close to Home, The Piglet Files, Second Thoughts, Faith in the Future, Popstars: The Rivals, Surprise Surprise, You Bet!, The Moment of Truth, Blind Date, Gladiators, Barrymore, My Kind of Music and Don't Try This at Home, and long-running Sunday night drama series Agatha Christie's Poirot, Forever Green, The Knock and London's Burning. Nigel Lythgoe, who won infamy as a judge on ITV's pop talent show Popstars and now appears on the BBC's So You Think You Can Dance, is a former controller of entertainment at the company, working as an executive producer on many of the station's top-rating programmes during the 1990s and early 2000s. LWT also owned 50% of London News Network Limited, producers until February 2004 of the news programmes London Today and London Tonight; regional news for London is now produced by ITN and known as ITV News London.
Regional news programmes[edit]
From 1982 until it launched a proper news service of its own in 1988, LWT also showed Thames Weekend News, produced by Thames Television, on Friday evenings, until December 1987.