ITV London split lives on

The recent renewal of the channel 3 regional licences highlights an important historic anomaly.

In a purely legal sense, there are still two separate ITV licences covering London.

A London weekday licence runs from 9.25am on Monday to 5.15pm on Friday – apart, of course, from the breakfast hours.

Then, in licensing terms at least, the riverfolk on the South Bank take over so you have “a good London Weekend”.

Of course, this is a simple historic anachronism.

Technical handovers ended in 1993 when Carlton London and LWT started to share playout facilities. The two companies also worked together to create a coherent 7-day news operation for the first time.

The on-screen distinction between the two London licences ended in 2002 when network continuity was introduced.

LWT – lately part of Granada – has long been killed off by ITV plc.

And no separate programme obligations exist for the London Weekend licence. The regional news commitments are delivered across the week in conjunction with the weekday licence.

You might be tempted to think that merging the two licences into one ITV London licence would be an obvious bit of housekeeping.

This, presumably, would be no different to the separation of Wales from the West of England and the creation of a single licence covering both the former HTV West and Westcountry areas.

It would not be dogged by the potential difficulties which prevent a licence covering all of Scotland from being created.

So why not do it?

There is still one meaningful distinction between the two London licences.

Undertakings on advertising sales were given at the time ITV plc was created 20 years ago.

Essentially this means that advertising in the London region on weekdays is sold separately from advertising at the weekends.

This explains the one on-screen difference which remains: the local weather at the weekend has a different sponsor.

I can never quite decide if the voiceover says “ITV London – weekend weather” or “ITV London Weekend weather”.

Of course, all those licensing quirks are a reminder of another time.

Probably nobody under 30 who isn’t a student of broadcasting will know that London once had two separate ITV companies.

And nobody much under 40 will know that Thames and LWT were not always the best of chums.

Just like the 9.25am handover between breakfast and the regions though, something which was once significant still exists in a very specific sense behind the scenes.

Acknowledgements