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HTV Group plc is a television company, the ITV contractor of Wales and the West of England, owned by ITV plc. It took over from Television Wales and West Limited in 1968. Initially the station was known as Harlech Television (after the head of the company, Lord Harlech), but from the introduction of colour in 1970 became HTV.
HTV operates two separate services - "ITV1 Wales" (formerly HTV Wales) in Wales, and "ITV1 West" (previously "ITV1 West of England", and formerly HTV West) in the West of England area. Since 28 October 2002, on ITV1 West, the full name is seen only before local programmes - at all other times the station is simply called ITV1. The ITV1 Wales name is seen before all programmes (except overnights) on that service however. In addition, ITV1 Wales has its own team of announcers, while ITV1 West shares a team with the other ITV1 regions in England.
The HTV name has not disappeared completely however. It continues to be seen on programmes made for S4C. All off-air branding also remains HTV. Initially, the HTV name was also kept for news programming, but this was dropped in favour of ITV on 2 February 2004.
Main programmes include "ITV Wales News", "ITV West News", "The Ferret", and "Nuts and Bolts". HTV does not now produce much in the way of regular network programming, although it does commission "Movies, Games and Videos". Previously, there have been some major HTV commissions including "Robin of Sherwood" and much children's programming.
Since 1982, HTV has provided Welsh language programming to S4C, although this is now commissioned rather than produced in-house. Prior to S4C's introduction, HTV's evening news had to be split into two fifteen-minute bulletins presented from the same studio and separated by an advertising break, one in Welsh, called Y Dydd ('The Day') and the other in English, called Report Wales .
In 1996, HTV was taken over by United News and Media plc (now United Business Media plc). In 2001, it was sold to Carlton Communications plc, owners of Carlton Television, though the HTV name was retained on-air until 27 October 2002.
External links
- ITV1 Wales (http://www.htvwales.com)
- ITV1 West (http://www.htvwest.com)
- Harlech House of Graphics (unofficial history site) (http://www.hhg.org.uk/)
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