1 May – BBC Television becomes available in Northern Ireland for the first time although initially from a temporary transmitter, brought into service in time for the Queen's Coronation. A permanent mast at Divis is brought into service on 21 July 1955.
1958
September – The Independent Television Authority, advertises the franchise for Northern Ireland.[1] Two consortia apply and the ITA persuades the applicants to merge their bids to obtain the new franchise, on the provision that a greater stake of investment in the station was offered to Catholic sources.
1959
31 October – Ulster Television launches at 4.45pm.
3 August – A technicians strike forces ITV off the air for several weeks although management manage to launch a temporary ITV Emergency National Service with no regional variations. The strike ends on 18 August.
14 September – The final edition of Ulster Television's listings magazine TV Post is published. Listings are subsequently carried in an Ulster edition of TVTimes which now becomes a national publication on 21 September.
1969
UTV Reports replaces Roundabout as Ulster's regional news programme.
1970sedit
1970
14 September – Ulster launches a colour television service, but only from the Divis transmitter. To mark the change, the logo is redesigned.[2]
1971
The music used as part of the station's daily start-up routine is changed when The Antrim Road, a classical symphony composed by Wayne Hill and Earl Ward, replaced Seamus, written by the American musician, composer and bandleader Van Phillips, which had been used since the station's launch.
1972
16 October – Following a law change which removed all restrictions on broadcasting hours, ITV is able to launch an afternoon service.
1973
No events.
1974
The 1974 franchise round sees no changes in ITV's contractors as it is felt that the huge cost in switching to colour television would have made the companies unable to compete against rivals in a franchise battle.
1975
1 December – The Limavady transmitting station starts broadcasting a colour service to the north west of Northern Ireland, with additional coverage provided by the Londonderry transmitter. Consequently, colour broadcasts from Ulster Television is now available in the North West.
Good Evening Ulster replaces UTV Reports as Ulster's regional news programme. It becomes the UK's first hour-long regional news programme.
10 August – The ten-week ITV strike forces Ulster Television off the air. The strike ends on 24 October.
1980sedit
1980
31 October – To celebrate its 21st anniversary, Ulster commissions a new ident featuring a model of the station logo embedded on four faces of a cube, coated in silver with a pole skewering the top and bottom of the cube. The logo is nicknamed "The Lollipop".[3]
1981
No events.
1982
Ulster restores all-day broadcasting hours. For the last few years it had broadcast reduced hours, not coming on air until 12.00pm during the week when no schools programmes were being broadcast and closing down every evening at 11.30pm.
1983
1 February – ITV's breakfast television service TV-am launches. It is a UK-wide service and therefore contains no Northern Irish-specific content. Consequently, Ulster's broadcast day now begins at 9.25am.
1984
No events.
1985
3 January – The last day of transmission using the 405-lines system.
1986
No events.
1987
7 September –
To coincide with the launch of the station's evening magazine programme, Six Tonight, a new ident was used to introduce the programme, featuring a computer-animated silver station logo on a blue/green backdrop.[2]
Following the transfer of ITV Schools to Channel 4, ITV provides a full morning programme schedule, with advertising, for the first time. The new service includes regular five-minute national and regional news bulletins.
1988
3 October – Ulster begins 24-hour broadcasting.[4] Ulster had planned to commence 24-hour transmissions a month earlier but a last minute decision to take the overnight service provided by Granada, rather than that provided by Central, caused the delay.
1989
1 January – A revised computer animation is introduced and is the last to feature the logo first seen in 1970.[2]
1990sedit
1990
No events.
1991
16 October – Ulster retains its licence. There were three applicants for the licence and the other two had tabled higher bids. However, Television Northern Ireland (TVNI) was rejected because of its business plan and Lagan Television failed to meet the quality threshold.
1992
No events.
1993
4 January – Ulster's news service is renamed UTV Live. The programme broadcasts for 60 minutes, instead of 30.
4 June –
At 6.00pm, UTV unveils a new logo to coincide with the station now being known as UTV. Since the start of 1993, continuity announcements and trailers referred increasingly to "UTV". It also drops ITV network promotions and introduces locally produced trails.[2]
11 November – UTV introduces a new series of idents which showcase scenic locations in Northern Ireland. These include the Giant's Causeway, a waterfall at Glenarriff, and Portaferry harbour. Some of the idents featured UTV personalities.[2]
1997
No events.
1998
12 January – The 1996 logos are supplemented with a set of idents featuring people playing the UTV jingle on various musical instruments.[2]
8 March – Following the introduction of the ITV Evening News, UTV Live is brought forward by half an hour to start at 5.30pm. The first half-hour sees feature reports, light-hearted stories and the weather forecast branded as part of a separate programme, UTV Life, which airs before the main evening news which starts at 6.00pm and is branded as UTV Live at Six.
28 June – UTV launches a second television channel, TV You. It is available only to viewers of digital terrestrial and NTL cable.
2000sedit
2000
TV You is rebranded as UTV2.
2001
No events.
2002
22 January – UTV2 closes following a deal with ITV Digital to replace UTV2 with ITV2.[5]
UTV Live and UTV Life are merged into a single hour-long programme, running from 5.30pm.
28 October – UTV adopts the new celebrity idents as network ITV1. However, these were gradually replaced with local versions featuring notable personalities and broadcasters from Northern Ireland.[2]
2003
20 November – UTV replaces its network-inspired graphics with a series landscape films of Northern Ireland in their idents, in the form of a panorama shot as the camera revolved around a location.[6]
2004
No events.
2005
16 December – After more than 16 years on air, the final edition of UTV's regional talk and variety showKelly is broadcast.[7] At around the same time, UTV axes the rest of its local entertainment programming as part of cutbacks to the station's local output.
2006
16 January – To coincide with the introduction of a new identity across ITV plc stations, UTV replaces its 2003 idents with a brand new set.[8] The new idents featured newly recorded films shot across Northern Ireland, again in the form of panoramas.[8] The landscape films used in these idents are updated in July 2007 and October 2008.
26 May – The registered company name is changed from 'Ulster Television plc' to 'UTV plc'. The company believed that the existing name no longer reflected the full scope of the company's business.[9]
2007
February – UTV Live and UTV Life are split into separate programmes and all bulletins outside of the main early evening programme are retitled UTV News. This continues until April 2009.
2008
No events.
2009
February – Mid-morning weekday and weekend lunchtime UTV Live bulletins are axed when the station is permitted to reduce their weekly news output from five hours and twenty minutes to four hours.[10]
6 February – Cost-cutting measures and a reduction in regional programming at the station result in the end of UTV Life.
27 April – UTV launches a 30-minute late evening news and current affairs programme, UTV Live Tonight, which follows the News at Ten on Monday to Thursday nights and incorporates the station's late news bulletin alongside extended political and business coverage.
Having scaled back in-vision to weekend evenings in recent years, UTV reintroduces in-vision continuity to weekday evenings.
12 October – UTV launches a new set of idents.[12]
23 October – At just after 11.30pm, Digital switchover is completed in the UK when analogue television signals in Northern Ireland are switched off.[13]
1 January – UTV Ireland is launched and four days later, a news and current affairs programme for the channel, Ireland Live launches, broadcasting a half-hour early evening newscast and an hour-long programme at 10.00pm, also produces local news updates during UTV Ireland's simulcasts of Good Morning Britain.[14]
14 May – UTV Ireland begins broadcasting hourly Ireland Live news updates throughout the day.[15][16]
19 October – UTV Media announces that it will sell its ITV franchise and the UTV brand to ITV plc for £100 million, subject to regulatory approval.[17] The sale is completed on 29 February 2016.[18]
2016
January – UTV Life returns as a weekly 30-minute Friday night programme, airing after the late UTV Live bulletin and presented by Pamela Ballantine.
29 September – The 30-minute long UTV Live Tonight is axed and replaced by a shorter ten-minute bulletin and a Monday night hour-long current affairs programme called View from Stormont.[20] September also sees UTV Life returning to a weekly primetime slot at 8.00pm.[20]
16 October – At 11.15pm, the last live in-vision announcement is made ahead of the launch the following day of a brand new look which sees an alignment of the UTV brand more closely with that of the ITV network.[21]
2017
9 January – UTV Ireland is closed and is replaced by a substantially new channel called Be3, focussing on children's and female-orientated programming. The closure also sees the ending after two years of UTV-produced news and current affairs programme for the channel, Ireland Live.
2018
1 July – ITV closes UTV's Havelock House studios and UTV begins broadcasting from a new broadcast centre at City Quays 2 in the Belfast Harbour Estate.[22]
2019
No events.
2020sedit
2020
2 April – UTV begins broadcasting full ITV branding and presentation from London including network announcements, idents, promos and end credit sequences, initially as a temporary measure due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on staff at the Belfast studios.[23] This became officially permanent in November with the departures of the announcing team from the station.[24]
26 November – Local continuity is officially abandoned with the departures of the announcing team.[24]
2021
25 April – A local voice-over is reinstated to introduce some local programmes.[citation needed] A new bumper with the UTV logo and the tagline "Part of ITV" is also shown for a short time before some – but not all – commercial breaks.[25]
2022
15 November – ITV reverts its flagship channel's name back to ITV1 in all ITV plc-owned regions, and the UTV name continues to be used for local programming and in on-air promotions for local non-news programmes.[26]
^"ITV confirms £100m takeover of UTV Media's television channels". The Guardian. 19 October 2015.
^McDonnell, Francess (29 February 2016). "UTV rebrands as Wireless Group and shifts focus to radio". Irish Times. Retrieved 5 March 2016.
^"TV3 owner Virgin Media buys UTV Ireland for €10m". The Irish Times.
^ abITV axes UTV Live Tonight in network revamp, Belfast Telegraph, 10 August 2016
^UTV's new channel identity goes live, itv.com, 17 October 2016
^UTV to relocate from Belfast's Havelock House, bbc.co.uk, 14 October 2016
^@cleanfeed_ttvr (April 1, 2020). "NEWS: tonight's announcement by UTV, about coronavirus-related changes - including the suspension of local (UTV) on…" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
^ abEnd of era at UTV as Julian Simmons and Gillian Porter exit, Belfast Telegraph, 26 November 2020
^"UTV or ITV?". The Ident Gallery. Retrieved 2021-04-25.
^"ITV will rebrand main channel as ITV1 alongside launch of ITVX". Radio Times. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
January 01, 1970
timeline, ulster, television, this, timeline, history, ulster, television, known, provides, network, service, northern, ireland, contents, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, 2020s, also, references1950s, edit1953, television, becomes, available, . This is a timeline of the history of Ulster Television now known as UTV It provides the ITV network service for Northern Ireland Contents 1 1950s 2 1960s 3 1970s 4 1980s 5 1990s 6 2000s 7 2010s 8 2020s 9 See also 10 References1950s edit1953 1 May BBC Television becomes available in Northern Ireland for the first time although initially from a temporary transmitter brought into service in time for the Queen s Coronation A permanent mast at Divis is brought into service on 21 July 1955 1958 September The Independent Television Authority advertises the franchise for Northern Ireland 1 Two consortia apply and the ITA persuades the applicants to merge their bids to obtain the new franchise on the provision that a greater stake of investment in the station was offered to Catholic sources 1959 31 October Ulster Television launches at 4 45pm 1960s edit1960 No events 1961 No events 1962 Ulster opens a second studio at its Havelock House Belfast base 1963 18 February The Strabane transmitter opens bringing coverage to the west of Northern Ireland for the first time 1964 Newsview replaces Roundabout as Ulster s regional news programme Ulster is given a three year extension to its licence This is later extended by a further year 1965 No events 1966 No events 1967 The Independent Television Authority renews Ulster s licence for a further seven years 1968 3 August A technicians strike forces ITV off the air for several weeks although management manage to launch a temporary ITV Emergency National Service with no regional variations The strike ends on 18 August 14 September The final edition of Ulster Television s listings magazine TV Post is published Listings are subsequently carried in an Ulster edition of TVTimes which now becomes a national publication on 21 September 1969 UTV Reports replaces Roundabout as Ulster s regional news programme 1970s edit1970 14 September Ulster launches a colour television service but only from the Divis transmitter To mark the change the logo is redesigned 2 1971 The music used as part of the station s daily start up routine is changed when The Antrim Road a classical symphony composed by Wayne Hill and Earl Ward replaced Seamus written by the American musician composer and bandleader Van Phillips which had been used since the station s launch 1972 16 October Following a law change which removed all restrictions on broadcasting hours ITV is able to launch an afternoon service 1973 No events 1974 The 1974 franchise round sees no changes in ITV s contractors as it is felt that the huge cost in switching to colour television would have made the companies unable to compete against rivals in a franchise battle 1975 1 December The Limavady transmitting station starts broadcasting a colour service to the north west of Northern Ireland with additional coverage provided by the Londonderry transmitter Consequently colour broadcasts from Ulster Television is now available in the North West 1976 No events 1977 No events 1978 Ulster starts broadcasting in colour from the Brougher Mountain transmitter 1979 Good Evening Ulster replaces UTV Reports as Ulster s regional news programme It becomes the UK s first hour long regional news programme 10 August The ten week ITV strike forces Ulster Television off the air The strike ends on 24 October 1980s edit1980 31 October To celebrate its 21st anniversary Ulster commissions a new ident featuring a model of the station logo embedded on four faces of a cube coated in silver with a pole skewering the top and bottom of the cube The logo is nicknamed The Lollipop 3 1981 No events 1982 Ulster restores all day broadcasting hours For the last few years it had broadcast reduced hours not coming on air until 12 00pm during the week when no schools programmes were being broadcast and closing down every evening at 11 30pm 1983 1 February ITV s breakfast television service TV am launches It is a UK wide service and therefore contains no Northern Irish specific content Consequently Ulster s broadcast day now begins at 9 25am 1984 No events 1985 3 January The last day of transmission using the 405 lines system 1986 No events 1987 7 September To coincide with the launch of the station s evening magazine programme Six Tonight a new ident was used to introduce the programme featuring a computer animated silver station logo on a blue green backdrop 2 Following the transfer of ITV Schools to Channel 4 ITV provides a full morning programme schedule with advertising for the first time The new service includes regular five minute national and regional news bulletins 1988 3 October Ulster begins 24 hour broadcasting 4 Ulster had planned to commence 24 hour transmissions a month earlier but a last minute decision to take the overnight service provided by Granada rather than that provided by Central caused the delay 1989 1 January A revised computer animation is introduced and is the last to feature the logo first seen in 1970 2 1990s edit1990 No events 1991 16 October Ulster retains its licence There were three applicants for the licence and the other two had tabled higher bids However Television Northern Ireland TVNI was rejected because of its business plan and Lagan Television failed to meet the quality threshold 1992 No events 1993 4 January Ulster s news service is renamed UTV Live The programme broadcasts for 60 minutes instead of 30 4 June At 6 00pm UTV unveils a new logo to coincide with the station now being known as UTV Since the start of 1993 continuity announcements and trailers referred increasingly to UTV It also drops ITV network promotions and introduces locally produced trails 2 Ulster s extended studios at Havelock House are formally opened by former UTV newsreader Gloria Hunniford 1994 No events 1995 No events 1996 11 November UTV introduces a new series of idents which showcase scenic locations in Northern Ireland These include the Giant s Causeway a waterfall at Glenarriff and Portaferry harbour Some of the idents featured UTV personalities 2 1997 No events 1998 12 January The 1996 logos are supplemented with a set of idents featuring people playing the UTV jingle on various musical instruments 2 15 November The public launch of digital terrestrial television in the United Kingdom takes place 1999 8 March Following the introduction of the ITV Evening News UTV Live is brought forward by half an hour to start at 5 30pm The first half hour sees feature reports light hearted stories and the weather forecast branded as part of a separate programme UTV Life which airs before the main evening news which starts at 6 00pm and is branded as UTV Live at Six 28 June UTV launches a second television channel TV You It is available only to viewers of digital terrestrial and NTL cable 2000s edit2000 TV You is rebranded as UTV2 2001 No events 2002 22 January UTV2 closes following a deal with ITV Digital to replace UTV2 with ITV2 5 UTV Live and UTV Life are merged into a single hour long programme running from 5 30pm 28 October UTV adopts the new celebrity idents as network ITV1 However these were gradually replaced with local versions featuring notable personalities and broadcasters from Northern Ireland 2 2003 20 November UTV replaces its network inspired graphics with a series landscape films of Northern Ireland in their idents in the form of a panorama shot as the camera revolved around a location 6 2004 No events 2005 16 December After more than 16 years on air the final edition of UTV s regional talk and variety show Kelly is broadcast 7 At around the same time UTV axes the rest of its local entertainment programming as part of cutbacks to the station s local output 2006 16 January To coincide with the introduction of a new identity across ITV plc stations UTV replaces its 2003 idents with a brand new set 8 The new idents featured newly recorded films shot across Northern Ireland again in the form of panoramas 8 The landscape films used in these idents are updated in July 2007 and October 2008 26 May The registered company name is changed from Ulster Television plc to UTV plc The company believed that the existing name no longer reflected the full scope of the company s business 9 2007 February UTV Live and UTV Life are split into separate programmes and all bulletins outside of the main early evening programme are retitled UTV News This continues until April 2009 2008 No events 2009 February Mid morning weekday and weekend lunchtime UTV Live bulletins are axed when the station is permitted to reduce their weekly news output from five hours and twenty minutes to four hours 10 6 February Cost cutting measures and a reduction in regional programming at the station result in the end of UTV Life 27 April UTV launches a 30 minute late evening news and current affairs programme UTV Live Tonight which follows the News at Ten on Monday to Thursday nights and incorporates the station s late news bulletin alongside extended political and business coverage Having scaled back in vision to weekend evenings in recent years UTV reintroduces in vision continuity to weekday evenings 2010s edit2010 5 October UTV HD launches but only on Virgin Media 11 2011 11 January At 8 00pm UTV 1 launches 2012 12 October UTV launches a new set of idents 12 23 October At just after 11 30pm Digital switchover is completed in the UK when analogue television signals in Northern Ireland are switched off 13 24 October UTV HD launches on Freeview 2013 4 November UTV HD launches on Sky and Freesat 2014 No events 2015 1 January UTV Ireland is launched and four days later a news and current affairs programme for the channel Ireland Live launches broadcasting a half hour early evening newscast and an hour long programme at 10 00pm also produces local news updates during UTV Ireland s simulcasts of Good Morning Britain 14 14 May UTV Ireland begins broadcasting hourly Ireland Live news updates throughout the day 15 16 19 October UTV Media announces that it will sell its ITV franchise and the UTV brand to ITV plc for 100 million subject to regulatory approval 17 The sale is completed on 29 February 2016 18 2016 January UTV Life returns as a weekly 30 minute Friday night programme airing after the late UTV Live bulletin and presented by Pamela Ballantine 11 July ITV plc sells UTV Ireland to Virgin Media Ireland for 10 million 19 29 September The 30 minute long UTV Live Tonight is axed and replaced by a shorter ten minute bulletin and a Monday night hour long current affairs programme called View from Stormont 20 September also sees UTV Life returning to a weekly primetime slot at 8 00pm 20 16 October At 11 15pm the last live in vision announcement is made ahead of the launch the following day of a brand new look which sees an alignment of the UTV brand more closely with that of the ITV network 21 2017 9 January UTV Ireland is closed and is replaced by a substantially new channel called Be3 focussing on children s and female orientated programming The closure also sees the ending after two years of UTV produced news and current affairs programme for the channel Ireland Live 2018 1 July ITV closes UTV s Havelock House studios and UTV begins broadcasting from a new broadcast centre at City Quays 2 in the Belfast Harbour Estate 22 2019 No events 2020s edit2020 2 April UTV begins broadcasting full ITV branding and presentation from London including network announcements idents promos and end credit sequences initially as a temporary measure due to the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic on staff at the Belfast studios 23 This became officially permanent in November with the departures of the announcing team from the station 24 26 November Local continuity is officially abandoned with the departures of the announcing team 24 2021 25 April A local voice over is reinstated to introduce some local programmes citation needed A new bumper with the UTV logo and the tagline Part of ITV is also shown for a short time before some but not all commercial breaks 25 2022 15 November ITV reverts its flagship channel s name back to ITV1 in all ITV plc owned regions and the UTV name continues to be used for local programming and in on air promotions for local non news programmes 26 See also editHistory of ITV History of ITV television idents Timeline of ITV Timeline of television in Northern Ireland Timeline of commercial television in the Republic of IrelandReferences edit Independent TeleWeb Ulster Television History Users zetnet co uk 4 November 1958 Retrieved 7 January 2011 a b c d e f g TV Live UTV TV Live Ulster Television 1980 1988 TV Ark ITV Overnight Services Northern Ireland gets ITV2 Media Guardian 23 January 2002 Retrieved 2011 06 27 UTV Today 2003 05 Scenery Idents Old Soundtrack Archived 6 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 4 January 2009 Belfast Telegraph Curtain falls on the Kelly Show dated 1 September 2005 retrieved 11 January 2008 a b UTV Today 2006 07 Scenery Idents About These Idents Archived 6 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 1 April 2008 1 Archived 10 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine UTV Life may face axe Belfast Telegraph 8 October 2008 accessed 18 January 2009 UTV HD launches on Virgin Media NI Digital Spy 5 October 2010 TV Ark UTV 2012 2016 Northern Ireland completes UK digital TV switchover BBC News 23 October 2012 Retrieved 24 October 2012 UTV Ireland to broadcast GMB with Ireland Live News Archived 2015 02 09 at the Wayback Machine utv ie 30 January 2015 UTV moves news time to be in competition with TV3 Irishexaminer com 2015 05 14 Retrieved 2015 06 10 UTV Ireland moves tea time slot while launching hourly news updates Goss ie Retrieved 2015 06 10 ITV confirms 100m takeover of UTV Media s television channels The Guardian 19 October 2015 McDonnell Francess 29 February 2016 UTV rebrands as Wireless Group and shifts focus to radio Irish Times Retrieved 5 March 2016 TV3 owner Virgin Media buys UTV Ireland for 10m The Irish Times a b ITV axes UTV Live Tonight in network revamp Belfast Telegraph 10 August 2016 UTV s new channel identity goes live itv com 17 October 2016 UTV to relocate from Belfast s Havelock House bbc co uk 14 October 2016 cleanfeed ttvr April 1 2020 NEWS tonight s announcement by UTV about coronavirus related changes including the suspension of local UTV on Tweet via Twitter a b End of era at UTV as Julian Simmons and Gillian Porter exit Belfast Telegraph 26 November 2020 UTV or ITV The Ident Gallery Retrieved 2021 04 25 ITV will rebrand main channel as ITV1 alongside launch of ITVX Radio Times Retrieved 2022 10 14 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Timeline of Ulster Television amp oldid 1196772405, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
