ITV 50

ITV 50 (usually referred to as ITV50) was a special event around September 2005, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the ITV terrestrial television network's launch; the official anniversary was stated as being 22 September, the anniversary of the first ITV region, Associated-Rediffusion, beginning broadcasts. Other regions, though not launched in 1955, were also involved in the celebrations, broadcasting network and local ITV50 celebration programming. All ITV plc regions received ITV50 presentational material including branded graphics and station idents. STV (then Scottish and Grampian) and UTV screened much of the networked ITV50 content but used their own presentation styles.

Introduction

In September 2005, the ITV network celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with a season of ITV 50 programming that was run on the network, including a run down of ITV's 50 top programmes, a World of Sport retrospective, a seven-week Gameshow Marathon presented by Ant & Dec, the launch of an "Avenue Of The Stars", and most notably a five-part documentary series made by Melvyn Bragg, which chronicled ITV's history. The regional companies owned by ITV plc also aired special regional retrospectives (even though none of them were themselves fifty years old), as well as using special ITV 50 station identification. While Scottish Television, Grampian Television, and UTV aired the network ITV 50 programming, they did not themselves air regional programmes of this sort, nor did...
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