10 Facts About Scottish Television

Scottish Television is the ITV network franchisee for Central Scotland.

Scottish Television was founded by Canadian newspaper magnate Roy Thomson .

Scottish Television began broadcasting at 5:30 pm on Saturday 31 August 1957 with This is Scotland, an hour-long variety special broadcast live from the Theatre Royal studios – STV was the seventh ITV franchise to launch, and the first outside the three largest regions, as well as the first to broadcast seven days a week.

Scottish Television retained its franchise at the first time of asking in 1967, despite strong competition from a consortium led by the future BBC Director General Alasdair Milne and strong indications that the company would lose its franchise.

In 1970, the company made a loss of £39,000; a warning was given that regionalism would be abandoned, and a forced merger with Grampian Scottish Television would happen, unless the chancellor reduced the levy applied on advertising revenue.

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In October 1981, Scottish Television became the first ITV station to operate a regional Oracle teletext service, containing over 60 pages of local news, sport and information.

Scottish Television would continue as a major provider of children's programming throughout the 1990s, including a number of co-productions with other broadcasters and production companies.

On 31 August 1985, the station revived the 'Scottish Television' branding and introduced a computer generated thistle ident designed by Peter Goodfellow.

Scottish Television did use the first national ITV ident from 1 September 1989 but used it in conjunction with its own branding but this was dropped by early 1990.

Scottish Television maintained in-vision continuity throughout its first thirty years on air.