For over 60 years of ITV, its homegrown programmes have become among the best remembered as well as being extremely successful. Before the 1990s, nearly all of the content for the channel was produced by the fifteen franchise licensees: the regional companies. However, following legislation in the
Broadcasting Act 1990 imposing a 25% quota for commissioning of independent productions, Historically, ITV aired breakfast programmes from 6am until 9.25am but ITV extended this to 10am on weekdays on 6 January 2020. and now broadcasts two breakfast programmes on weekdays -
Good Morning Britain and
Lorraine.
Good Morning Britain keeps viewers up to date with all the latest news, sports, features and weather, whilst
Lorraine predominantly focuses on celebrity interviews, recipes, fashion and showbiz. Until 27th August 2023, the service would show a simulcast of the CITV channel, but since that service has closed, a mix of repeated programming is shown whilst the CITV service that still exist broadcasts at breakfast time on ITV2 (which has the CITV block), ITV3, ITV4 and ITVBe from 7am show other repeats some of which provide a sign language service within the broadcast as part of its quota and licence requirements.
Daytime programming ITV's strong daytime line-up helped by programmes such as
This Morning,
Loose Women, ''
Dickinson's Real Deal and game shows Tipping Point and The Chase'' are very popular, achieving the highest audience share during the daytime slot.
Entertainment In recent years the network has tried to use formats that ITV Studios own outright (whether they have originated in the UK with their Lifted Entertainment company or have come from production companies they own abroad), though some popular programme formats like
The Masked Singer have still been acquired from other companies abroad. Currently ITV are behind the formats for
Dancing on Ice,
The Voice UK (the format originally coming from their Dutch production company) and ''
I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, while forthcoming music game show Walk The Line'' has been co-developed by Simon Cowell's Syco Entertainment and ITV.
National and international news Since the network started,
Independent Television News Limited (ITN) has held the contract to produce news for the ITV network, with 30-minute national news bulletins currently broadcast at
1:30 pm, and 10:00 pm, and an hour-long bulletin at 6.30pm. These bulletins were broadcast under the ITN brand from 1955 until 1999, when a new network identity reinforced the ITV brand, resulting in the new bulletins being broadcast under the
ITV News brand. ITN has long been respected in the news industry as a source of reliable information and news, and as a result the service has won many awards for their programmes, the latest being in May 2011 when
News at Ten was named best news programme by the
Royal Television Society and
BAFTA.
Weather The ITV National Weather forecast was first broadcast in 1989, using data supplied by the
Met Office, and was presented by a number of weather forecasters. The forecasts are sponsored with the sponsor's message appearing before and after the forecast. The forecasts are made immediately after the main national news bulletins. Prior to the creation of the national forecast, each regional company provided its own regional forecast. The regional forecasts today are incorporated into the main regional news bulletins, and in the summer months, includes a pollen count.
Late-night programming Currently only new episodes of long-form news and current affairs programmes like
Exposure,
Peston and
On Assignment are being scheduled after
News at Ten. The channel broadcasts a partnership teleshopping service overnight, replacing gambling broadcasts: the time between the news and the shopping is usually kept for re-runs, with ITV repeating its primetime entertainment shows, films, or sports programming from ITV4. Also aired overnight are repeats, many of which have on-screen BSL signing for the deaf community. Replacing the information-based
ITV Nightscreen slot in 2021 was
Unwind With ITV, programming produced in association with the
Campaign Against Living Miserably. This mindfulness programme shows calming shots of natural landscapes and relaxing animations, with versions of the footage also seen on ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4. On some occasions the schedule is varied, for example a live event overnight, such as the
Super Bowl or the
Oscars. This overnight programme service is very different to what used to be shown on the network in the years after 24-hour broadcasting was introduced - this included new entertainment, imports, sports and other information programmes, and, in some regions, a job finder service.
Regional programming The regional ITV companies are required to provide local news as part of their franchise agreement together with local weather forecasts, with the main local bulletin at 6pm and regional bulletins located after each national news programme. In addition to this, traditionally ITV companies would provide other regional programming based on current affairs, entertainment or drama. However, apart from a monthly political programme, most non-news regional programming in the English regions was dropped by ITV plc in 2009, although it continues in Wales and the Channel Islands, as well as on STV and UTV and ITV Border in Scotland from 2014 to cover mainly Scottish politics whilst ITV Border in England broadcast network programming . On 14 January 2013, ITV plc regional news programmes titles were discontinued in favour of more generic branding under the
ITV News title with the region listed as the subheading. However some "heritage" brand names were retained including
Calendar,
Granada Reports and
Lookaround. On 28 June 2014,
ITV News Cymru Wales returned to its historic name of
Wales at Six.
Current regional news programmes • Anglia:
ITV News Anglia (with East and West variations) • Border:
ITV News Lookaround (although with a Scotland non-news opt out) • Central:
ITV News Central (with East and West variations) • Channel:
ITV News Channel TV • Granada:
ITV News Granada Reports • London:
ITV News London • Meridian:
ITV News Meridian (with South variation and a Thames Valley opt-out and South East variation) • STV Central:
STV News (non-ITV plc) (with East and West variations) • STV North:
STV News (non-ITV plc) (with a Dundee opt-out) • Tyne Tees:
ITV News Tyne Tees • UTV:
UTV Live • Wales:
ITV News Wales at Six • West Country:
ITV News West Country (with West and South West variations) • Yorkshire:
ITV News Calendar (with East and West variations)
Former programmes • ATV:
ATV Midlands News,
ATV Today • Anglia:
About Anglia,
Anglia News,
Anglia News Tonight,
Anglia Tonight • Carlton:
London Tonight • Central / Carlton (Central):
Central News,
Central News at Six,
Central Tonight • Channel:
Channel Report • Grampian:
North Tonight • Granada:
Northern Newscast,
Scene at Six Thirty,
Granada Tonight • HTV Wales / ITV Wales:
Report Wales/Y Dydd,
Wales Tonight,
HTV News,
ITV Wales News • HTV West / ITV West:
Report West,
HTV News,
The West Tonight,
ITV West News,
West Country Tonight • London Weekend Television / LWT:
LWT News,
London Tonight • Meridian:
Meridian Tonight • Scottish Television / STV:
Scotland Today • Southern:
Day by Day /
Scene South East (Dover Transmitter) • Television South West / TSW:
Today South West,
TSW Today • Television South / TVS:
Coast to Coast • Thames:
Thames News • Thames Valley (Non-Franchise):
Thames Valley Tonight • Tyne Tees:
Today At Six,
Northern Life,
Tyne Tees Today /
Network North (Bilsdale Transmitter),
North East Tonight • Ulster Television / UTV:
Good Evening Ulster,
Six Tonight • Westward:
Westward Diary • Westcountry / Carlton (Westcountry):
Westcountry Live Sports •
Football • ITV holds joint rights for the
FIFA World Cup and the
UEFA European Championship with the
BBC and has shown every World Cup live since 1966, on a shared basis with the BBC. This arrangement has been in place since the 1960s. ITV shares the rights for the
FA Cup with the BBC, having previously done so from 1955 to 1988. ITV also held the live rights to the competition from 1998 to 2001 and from 2008 until 2014. The 24/25 season also added the Carabao Cup to its portfolio broadcasting both semi finals with the first leg of one and the second leg of the other and the final sharing the broadcasting rights with Sky Sports. •
Horse racing • ITV other flagship sporting coverage is as the exclusive free to air home of British horse racing. ITV's deal, which began on 1 January 2017, encompasses horse racing every Saturday afternoon on ITV or ITV4. •
Boxing • ITV Sport has broadcast many boxing matches over the years under the
Big Fight Live banner and the sport was a regular fixture on ITV screens until the mid 1990s when ITV lost its two premier contracts to
Sky Sports In 2005, ITV returned to the ring when it reached an agreement to broadcast the main share of
Frank Warren's
Sports Network fights. This continued until 2008, and in 2010 ITV decided to stop covering the sport as ITV thought that boxing was no longer commercially viable. In the late 2010s ITV showed some boxing on a pay-per-view channel
ITV Box Office. However ITV's boxing coverage is now restricted to
Premier Boxing Champions which it shows on ITV4, having closed
ITV Box Office at the start of 2020. •
Cycling • ITV has shown the
Tour de France in 2002. Initially, live coverage was only broadcast at the weekend but since the 2010 Tour de France,
ITV4 has broadcast daily live coverage of every stage. ITV also broadcasts the Women's Tour and
Tour of Britain live. • Darts • ITV4 covers six tournaments each year, including the
UK Open,
The Masters and the
World Series of Darts. ITV had previously extensively covered the sport and did so from 1972 until it decided to drop the sport in 1988. ITV resumed coverage of
darts in 2007 and since then it has gradually increased the number of events it shows. •
Motorsport • ITV's flagship motorsport coverage is of the
British Touring Car Championship and has shown the event in full since 2002. ITV also broadcasts highlights of the
World Superbike Championship and the
British Superbike Championship. ITV had previously covered
Formula One and did so for 12 seasons, from 1997 to 2008. •
Rugby • ITV has broadcast every
Rugby World Cup live since 1991. ITV also broadcasts the
Women's Rugby World Cup and the Under 20 World Cup. Since 2016, ITV has shared coverage of the
Six Nations Championship with the
BBC. ITV broadcasts all England, France Ireland and Italy home matches live, while BBC shows all Scotland and Wales home matches live. ITV also shows 7 live matches from
Premiership Rugby including the final and a weekly highlights show on ITV4 on Sunday evenings, repeated later on ITV1. •
Snooker • Snooker is another sport which ITV dropped but has subsequently restarted showing. In the 1980s and early 1990s, ITV broadcast four tournaments per season. ITV dropped snooker after the 1993 British Open and the sport was mostly absent from ITV screens until the 2010s. In summer 2014 ITV and
Barry Hearn announced they had signed a 5-year deal to cover 2 Snooker Tournaments per year, keeping coverage of the
Champion of Champions and a new tournament called the World Grand Prix. ITV now shows four tournaments each year, including the
Champion of Champions and the
World Grand Prix.
Children's programming The network broadcasts children's programming under the CITV (Children's ITV) strand. Children's programming was originally provided during weekday afternoons and weekend mornings, however following the launch of the
CITV channel in 2006, all children's programming, with the exception of the weekend ITV Breakfast slot, were relocated from the ITV line-up to the CITV channel in 2007, a move which was challenged by Ofcom in April 2007. In 2023, ITV announced that CITV would cease broadcasting as a linear channel, and would be replaced by
ITVX Kids, a
streaming media service which launched in July 2023. The CITV channel closed on 1 September 2023, with a dedicated CITV programming block now broadcasting on ITV2 every morning, from 2 September 2023.
Schools programming Schools programming on the network began in 1957 in some regions and expanded as more regions began broadcasting. It was a contractual obligation for some ITV companies to broadcast schools programming, and this was initially broadcast as part of the normal scheduling. The programmes were moved into a segment for broadcast during the day in the 1960s, under the banner
Independent Television for Schools and Colleges and from 1987 were broadcast on
Channel 4 in the
ITV Schools on Channel 4 segment. In 1993, this segment became
Channel 4 Schools and later in 2000
4Learning. These strands of programming consisted of schools programming from all the ITV companies or from independent sources. The schools strand itself is now defunct, with no particular branding segment used.
Acquired programming ITV was originally very reliant on broadcasting American series, with westerns such as
Gunsmoke and
Rawhide in particular being considerable successes for the network during its earlier years. Action drama
The Fugitive and sci-fi anthology
The Twilight Zone were also broadcast by various regions in the early 1960s, with
Batman and
I Dream of Jeannie shown later on in the decade. Due to the varying schedules of many ITV regions, acquired content was not broadcast by some franchises. By the 1970s, most ITV regions were airing the likes of
Hawaii Five-O,
Happy Days, and
The Brady Bunch. 1972 also saw the beginning of ITV's daytime programmes at lunchtime, a slot that would become associated with the many Australian soap operas that were broadcast in the newly expanded schedule, including
The Sullivans and
The Young Doctors. By the 1980s, more were added to the schedule, such as
Sons and Daughters and
A Country Practice. In primetime by the 1980s, ITV was broadcasting the likes of
Hill Street Blues (which ITV began showing just one week after its debut on NBC in the United States) and
L.A. Law. It was also early in the decade when Australian evening soap opera
Prisoner: Cell Block H was bought by ITV, and was broadcast after
News at Ten. By 1982, Channel 4 had launched, and despite originally being related to ITV, it competed against its parent network to screen popular American programmes such as
St. Elsewhere and
Cheers, although the latter did receive a single ITV broadcast as part of a night showcasing Channel 4 programmes. Both
Hill Street Blues and
L.A. Law had moved from ITV to Channel 4 by the end of their runs. A heavy emphasis on action, fantasy and science fiction series was also placed by ITV during the 1980s, with
The A-Team,
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, and
Airwolf being broadcast by the network, as well as the likes of
Baywatch and
SeaQuest DSV by the 1990s. ITV also picked up a glut of older-skewing CBS dramas through that period, including
Murder, She Wrote and
Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. In February 1989, in tandem with the network launching its national weather forecast, and as part of a new early evening lineup which involved the shortening of Children's ITV, Australian soap
Home and Away was acquired by ITV, particularly to compete with the success of rival Australian soap opera
Neighbours on BBC One. ITV also broadcast
Beverly Hills, 90210 beginning in early 1991, in the same Saturday teatime slot that
Baywatch had occupied, although some episodes were broadcast in later time slots. It moved to
Sky One beginning with the third season. ITV reshuffled its daytime schedules in the autumn of 1993, and just a few months prior,
Central began broadcasting the New Zealand soap opera
Shortland Street. The revamp saw more ITV companies pick it up, with
Scottish Television the only region to reject the series outright. Central also broadcast the Australian soap opera
Echo Point around the same time, although no other franchises picked it up. ITV also aired a considerable amount of syndicated unscripted US programmes in daytime during the 90s, such as
Judge Judy and
The Jerry Springer Show. By 1996, ITV had been quiet with US series in primetime, particularly as Channel 4 and Sky One increased the competition for securing the most popular US dramas and sitcoms. However, that summer, ITV debuted the primetime soap
Savannah, in a 9pm Friday slot. It was a considerable success for ITV's standards, and it became the highest rated new American series of that year. Despite this success, ITV moved the show for its second season, no longer networking the series and moving to late night slots. ITV tried again at broadcasting an American drama series in September 1997, with the ABC legal drama
The Practice, which ran in the same slot that
Savannah had the year prior. It saw nowhere near the same levels of success, and was dropped by the network after just three episodes. It later resurfaced in late night before moving to BBC One in 2000. ITV attempted launching a Monday night block for American sitcoms in the post-
News at Ten slot in the autumn of 1998, with ''
Veronica's Closet (which ITV beat Channel 4 for the rights to) followed by Dharma & Greg''. After this failed to catch much steam, ITV all but pulled out from showing American programmes on the main network by the end of the decade, and it would prove to be the final time ITV aired US comedy on the main network. ITV made attempts during the mid 2000s to poach proven popular US shows such as the mystery comedy-drama
Desperate Housewives and medical drama
House from Channel 4 and Five, respectively, but both shows ended up remaining on their incumbent rights holders. ITV were reportedly also interested in 2004 about acquiring the
Friends spin-off
Joey but later denied such interest, and in 2007 were close to picking up
Neighbours after the BBC declined to continue broadcasting it, although Five eventually won the rights to both programmes. ITV returned to US programming in 2006, acquiring
Six Degrees. Initially it had been planned to air in a primetime slot in 2007, but ended up being shown in late nights in 2008. This could be due to the show being cancelled after its first season by original network
ABC due to low ratings, despite high expectations and its slot following top-10 hit ''
Grey's Anatomy. It was also around this time that Supernatural and Dexter'', which ITV2 & ITV4 aired respectively, were given late night repeats on ITV1. The following year, ITV acquired another US programme, fellow ABC series
Pushing Daisies. It debuted in 2008 in a Saturday evening slot and initially did well garnering 5.7 million viewers, although there were fan complaints when ITV chose to skip broadcasting the second episode, blaming football coverage, eventually releasing it on their website. The last attempt so far by ITV to broadcast acquired output in primetime was the TV adaption of
Lethal Weapon in 2017, where it remained for all three seasons. As of 2024, most US acquired programming that ITV owns the UK rights to, such as
Family Guy, ''
Bob's Burgers, The O.C., Dawson's Creek, Gilmore Girls and Superstore'' air on
ITV2, as opposed to the main ITV network.
Notable programming Daytime programming •
Good Morning Britain •
Lorraine •
This Morning •
Loose Women •
ITV Lunchtime News • ''
Dickinson's Real Deal'' •
Tenable •
Lingo •
Riddiculous •
Tipping Point •
Deal or No Deal •
Jeopardy! •
The Chase Primetime programming •
ITV Evening News •
ITV News at Ten •
Emmerdale •
Coronation Street •
Tonight •
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? •
Midsomer Murders •
Vera •
The Bay •
My Mum, Your Dad • ''
I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!'' •
Big Brother •
Celebrity Big Brother •
The Martin Lewis Money Show •
Beat the Chasers •
On Assignment • ''
Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs'' • ''
Kate Garraway's Life Stories'' •
ITV Sport •
Peston Weekend programming •
The 1% Club • ''
Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway'' • ''
Britain's Got Talent'' •
Catchphrase •
The Chase: Celebrity Special •
Dancing on Ice •
Family Fortunes •
ITV Weekend News •
ITV Racing • ''
James Martin's Saturday Morning'' • ''John and Lisa's Weekend Kitchen'' •
The John Bishop Show •
The Jonathan Ross Show •
Limitless Win •
Love Your Garden •
The Masked Singer •
Password •
Soccer Aid •
Tipping Point: Lucky Stars •
The Voice UK •
The Voice Kids •
Wheel of Fortune Night-time programming •
AEW Dynamite •
AEW Rampage •
Motorsport •
Shop Direct •
Unwind with ITV Teletext provider The Public Teletext Licence allows the holder to broadcast a text-based information service around the clock on Channel 3 (as well as
Channel 4 and
S4C) frequencies. Teletext on ITV was provided by
ORACLE from 1974 until 1993 and from 1993 to 2010 by
Teletext Ltd., whose news, sport and TV listings pages rivalled the BBC's offering,
Ceefax on terrestrial and
BBC Red Button on digital. Teletext Ltd. also provided digital teletext for the Channel 3 services, as well as the text output for both
Channel 4 and
S4C under the same licence and
Channel 5. However, the licence was revoked by Ofcom on 29 January 2010 for failing to provide news and local non-news information on ITV and there is currently no teletext licence holder for ITV. ==Availability outside the UK==