Yorkshire Television
Yorkshire Television is the
ITV contractor for
Yorkshire, England, and the surrounding areas. It was formed from a '
shotgun marriage' between two applicant groups in the 1967 franchise round, Telefusion Yorkshire Ltd and Yorkshire Independent Television, the former having large financial backing and the latter having the better plans (but less money). It went on air on
29 July 1968 from purpose-built colour studios in
Leeds, the first of their kind in Europe. It also has a smaller studio in
Sheffield. Before the studios in Leeds were completed early shows were produced at the
ABC studios at
Didsbury,
Manchester.
Until
2002, Yorkshire Television was often known on air as YTV. Its logo, from
1968 until
2004, was a chevron, and the identification theme (heard before all its programmes throughout the ITV network until the end of
1987) was based on the traditional Yorkshire song '
On Ilkla Moor Baht'at'. YTV's first startup tune was the striking "Yorkshire Television March", written by
Derek New and arranged by
Ron Goodwin; this was changed in
1982 for the "Yorkshire Theme" written by
Chris Gunning. The station nearly came to grief a few months after going on-air, when its transmitter at
Emley Moor collapsed under a heavy build-up of ice, leaving the major part of the region uncovered by television broadcasts. However, a temporary mast was quickly erected and television to the West Riding of Yorkshire resumed.
With the introduction of
UHF broadcasting, YTV had failed to gain the
Bilsdale transmitter in
North Yorkshire, which was allocated instead to
Tyne Tees Television due to the transmitter's penetration into
Teesside and
County Durham. This seriously reduced YTV's monopoly commercial broadcast area. Partially to address this issue, in 1974 the
Independent Broadcasting Authority reallocated the
Belmont Transmitter, then served by
Anglia Television, to YTV. Although the area served by Belmont was largely rural, it did cover the more industrial centres of
Hull,
Grimsby,
Scunthorpe and
Lincoln and it was felt the region would be better served from
Leeds than from
Norwich.
Major Yorkshire Television programmes include the soap opera
Emmerdale (originally
Emmerdale Farm) and drama
Heartbeat, as well as the quiz shows
3-2-1 for ITV and
Countdown for
Channel 4. Local programmes include the news service
Calendar. From
1974 to
1978 Yorkshire produced one of ITV's few critically-acclaimed
sitcoms,
Rising Damp, starring
Leonard Rossiter. Its continuity announcers through the
1970s and
1980s included
Redvers Kyle,
John Crosse and
Graham Roberts.
As a broadcaster, Yorkshire Television was the first member of the ITV Network to acquire the long-running late-night cult soap opera
Prisoner Cell Block H, premiering the show on Monday 8th October 1984 at 11pm. Yorkshire Television was vocal in its disapproval of
Thames Television's surprise poaching of
Dallas from the BBC, and was successful in insisting Thames adhere to the rules of fair play.
In the mid 1980s Yorkshire broke from the network by refusing to screen the
BAFTA Awards, claiming them to be slaps on the backs of the BBC. The movie
The Sting was a replacement in 1986. As the rest of the network over-ran in the live BAFTA screening, Yorkshire had to cobble together minor programmes until other regions were able to screen the late-running
ITN News. YTV, alone amongst ITV regions, also opted out of screening the
1982 FA Cup Final replay, arguing that a game between two London sides would be of limited interested to viewers in its region, and that in any case those who wanted to watch it could do so on
BBC1. A
John Wayne film was shown instead.
From its inception YTV had a turbulent relationship with the broadcasting unions (a common theme within ITV). Viewers tuning in to watch one edition of
News at Ten in
1970 found themselves looking at a hand-written card which read 'Yorkshire TV have threatened to sack us so we are going on strike. Goodnight'.
In the
ITV strike of 1979 the station, like the rest of the network, was off the air for over two months. However the dispute was more intense at YTV as the company's management were seen as instrumental in fighting the unions, and because the company covered an "Old Labour" heartland where the
miners' strike would later be fought. In the
1980 franchise round several YTV staff submitted their own application for the
Yorkshire franchise under the name of 'Television Yorkshire'.
YTV was forced off the air by more industrial action in
1980. This partially coincided with a three-day national shutdown of both
BBC channels by strikes in December of that year, meaning that for those three days the people of Yorkshire had no television at all.
Although Yorkshire Television claims to serve the whole of Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire, it has long been contended by many of the people of
Sheffield that Yorkshire Television shows an unacceptable bias towards West Yorkshire in general and Leeds in particular
