30 Facts About LWT

From 1968 until 1992, when LWT's weekday counterpart was Thames Television, there was an on-screen handover to LWT on Friday nights.

LWT is managed with Carlton Television as a single entity, although the name for the London Weekend licence on the Ofcom site is still "LWT".

ATV, now the seven-day Midlands franchise holder after losing their London contract to LWT, refused to transmit any of their programmes in peak time; elsewhere, the powerful sales department at Thames Television, who provided London with a Monday to Friday service, took advantage of LWT's ratings crisis by adopting a "beggar thy neighbour" strategy, encouraging advertisers to use Thames during the week by heavily discounting their airtime.

LWT continued to increase his stake further and, by the end of 1971, he possessed 39.

LWT continued to show arts programming, mainly Aquarius and its successor The South Bank Show.

Related searches

LWT's fortunes improved, which helped increase profits, and more money was made available for new programming.

In May 1976, LWT was reorganised to form a new company, LWT Limited which allowed the company to expand into a number of new ventures, including Hutchinson Publishing.

LWT warned shareholders that heavy spending on programmes would continue to reduce chances of increased profits.

LWT had developed a reputation in many fields, including co-ordination of the ITV network's sport productions and presentation.

LWT started overhauling the schedules, to maximise audience numbers: his measures to achieve this included moving some niche shows back out of peak time, and putting Cilla Black under contract.

LWT criticised how ITV companies were spending huge amounts of money on local programmes and post-watershed dramas, which left a funding gap for shows broadcast between the two periods, which did not help LWT as it only had a two-and-a-half-day franchise period.

LWT postponed and shelved a number of other productions during the early 1980s, due to cost and frustration with other ITV companies' ideas for the weekend schedules.

LWT finally found a solution in 1985, when an agreement was reached with TVS, which wished to expand its own output for the ITV network.

The deal helped LWT to fill its schedules with appropriate, domestically-produced programming while not having to increase its budget, while TVS was able to get more of its programmes onto the ITV network slots.

In 1990 LWT created the second ITV Sales company Laser Sales, to deal with its own and TVS's advertising operations.

LWT threatened not to bid for its franchise again, as opposition to the new franchise bidding process gathered momentum.

LWT denied it was trying to blackmail the government, but admitted the threat of some of the largest contractors packing their bags might make government think again.

LWT tried to outstep the takeover bid with talks being held with Yorkshire Television and Scottish Television.

On Friday 25 February 1994, LWT had succumbed to Granada's £770 million bid for the company.

LWT logo has appeared at the end of its programmes until 31 October 2004.

Fortunately, LWT only had to use Wembley until its new purpose-built studios were opened in 1972.

On 1 September 1989, 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.

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 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.

Related searches

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.

The LWT logo has appeared at the end of its programmes until 31 October 2004.

LWT became heavily involved in social action with the use of on-air and off-air campaigns by the London Community Unit, later relaunched as LWT Action.

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.

From 1982 until it launched a proper news service of its own in 1988, LWT showed Thames Weekend News, produced by Thames Television, on Friday evenings, until December 1987.