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When did ITV become channel 3?
swb1964
Posts: 4,700 Forum Member
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ITV of course was the second channel to launch, not the third yet it has been channel three for as long as I can remember. Certainly it was always button three from well before thedays
of remote controls let alone digital.
Was this a planned thing from the dawn of UHF or did it just work out this way?
of remote controls let alone digital.
Was this a planned thing from the dawn of UHF or did it just work out this way?
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From when the BBC launched BBC2, more so when UHF 625-line only sets began to appear - about 1969/1970. BBC1 was on the first preset, BBC2 the second, and ITV the third. Then even more so when remote control sets came in in the early 80s - most of these, unlike the non-remote ones, didn't have channel names next to the the buttons on the remote (which, around this time, gave rise to the "ITV2" anomaly.)
Up until the advent of UHF, the ITV channels promoted themselves with their VHF channel allocation. For instance ITV in London was on VHF Ch 9. VHF TV sets, had
turret selectors, where you turned in clicks from Ch 1 to 13. BBC 1 in most areas was
between Ch 1 and 5, ITV between Ch 6 and 13.
UHF was a different kettle of fish, it ran from Ch 21 to 68. Turret tuners were not used, it was either a continuously variable knob, or (very soon afterwards) sets had tunable push buttons (because from Nov 1969 BBC 1 and ITV started to join BBC 2 on UHF)
There were too many UHF transmitters in a given region to use the 'frequency allocation' channel number anyway. So, as Adrian says, it soon became standard to use button 1 for BBC 1, 2 for BBC 2, and 3 for ITV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5KO5Q2w8jY
And each ITA test card carried the transmitter name in the sixties- eg ITA CROYDON CH9
Anyone know why VHF tuners are turrets whilst UHF tuners aren't?
This appears to have been the case in America too
BBC 1 was "1" and ITV was "10"....later on BBC 2 was "2". It was like opening a safe!!
In later years, when we went 'colour' - our TV had FIVE buttons to push! What a wonderful modern thing it was! BBC was 1 and 2...and ITV was 3. Lordy knew what the other two were for!!
My dad told me that button 4 was for ITV 2.....actually he was close - it ended up as channel 4 (but was sistered with ITV at the time).
I never dreamed that we would have so many channels like we have now......and nowhere near enough quality shows as we had then!!
(Thank goodness for ITV 3, Drama, and True Entertainment!)
The set manufacturers played their part in the way it was numbered. Up to the early 80s, tuning was by a mechanism that tuned the set by pressing a button down, there were usually six pf them labelled as BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, 2 (or even ITAx) and something like "ALT1" and "ALT2".
When synthetic tuning and remote controls came along, you just got channel up and channel down buttons, hence the presents were numbered 1,2,3,4,5,.....etc ,98,99. The logic of ITV becoming channel 3 was just the logical pre-set that it normally got allocated to.
When the IBA was replaced by the ITC, and franchises became licences, the name of the licence was called "Channel 3" .
TOT - had an interesting time today in the bar of a Novotel listening (ear wigging) on some OfCom dirty washing being done!
Yes the idiot Bruce Gengell wanted to rename all of itv as channel 3 and renamed tyne tees channel 3 north east and Yorkshire was unofficially known as "Yorkshire Television on Channel 3".
When he realised it wasn't working he sold the channels to Granada.
I remember as a kid my parents had an old tv that had 8 buttons in 2 rows of 4 and they were labeled from left to right:
Row 1: BBC 1, ITV, BBC 2, *
Row 2: BBC 1, ITV, BBC 2, VCR
So that tv clearly was from before channel 4 launched and had ITV and BBC 2 in the order that they launched, but at the same time was also after home VCRs became available!
I wonder why they listed BBC1, ITV and BBC2 again
Also, I don't know why manufacturers had so many channel buttons. AFAIK UHF analogue was only designed for/capable of four channels (they had to retune video recorders and put up with reduced coverage to squeeze in a fifth).
Which programme/channel did this relate to?
I don't know why they duplicated them but we found uses in our house for the extra buttons, * of course was channel 4, VCR was you guessed it the VCR, the second ITV was used for games consoles, the other two BBC channels became analogue sat and then digital sat when sky digital came along eventually, but I think the TV was changed shortly after that.
You are right though you would need a cable signal that was unencrypted and a tv that could tune below uhf channel 21 to use lots of buttons!
Perhaps because sets were made for several different markets. It was easier to just sell one type with more buttons than needed in the UK.
Its just a shame that Drama and True Entertainment are so low quality and on freeview even ITV 3 is low quality, but never mind.
But surely the ita could have created an ITV channel that was a nationwide franchise and used the frequencies that later became channel 4? That would obviously have meant that channel 4 itself would never have existed but at the same time a 4th channel would have come to being earlier perhaps?
Why was it seen as such a bad thing to name ITV as channel 3? Even if the general public didn't care for the name at that time, if it had been pushed through all over the country, come today itv would have labeled the whole network as only channel 3 and would have created conformity with channels 4 and 5!
Lol well tech obviously moved on before they could use that!
It needed an act of parliament to create Channel 4, just as it would to have been needed to create 'ITV 2'
That was definitely what ITV was pushing for in the 70's- but they couldn't legally go ahead and do it.
Because, turret tuners required a tuned circuit for each position, crowded but possible with VHF, because there were only 13 positions.
Not so easy at UHF, with 44 positions, and each tuned circuit would have required accurate set up.
Yes, although I don't recall any more than 8 mechanically tuned UHF buttons on TV sets in the 70s ?
We used 6 of them at home, BBC 1, 2, three ITV regions, and the VCR, (with BBC 1 and 2 from another region on 7 and 8, used when the local Tx broke down etc)
Of course once electronic synthesiser tuning came in, in the 80s, there were dozens of positions on many sets, sometimes 99 !!
Between Basingstoke and Newbury
Hannington: (just up the road) ITV Southern
Crystal Palace: ITV London
Oxford: ITV Midlands
They were the days !! :cool:
TWW Wales (Welsh service)
TWW General (English service)
Westward
ATV
Southern