Independent Television (ITV), UKA B C D E F G H IJKL M N O P R S T U VXYZWfranchises for independent television,
uk). Th ey are currently licensed and supervised
by Ofcom (see ofcom: office of communi-
cation, uk) born of the communications
act (uk), 2003. Th e ITV landscape has altered
substantially from the early days of commercial
television, largely in the direction of concentra-
tion of company ownership. For example, in 1992
Yorkshire TV bought up Tyne Tees TV, only to
become part of Granada TV in 1997.
South England witnessed similar convergence.
Following the collapse of ITV Digital in face
of competition from BSkyB (see british sky
broadcasting, bskyb), the remaining major
players, Carlton and Granada, merged and
became ITVplc (2004). Of the fi fteen regional
broadcasters in the UK, the ITV Network
controls eleven.
Concentration has been one trend; another
has been the weakening of ITV’s commitment
to the principles and practices of public service
broadcasting (see public service broadcast-
ing (psb)). What remains an imperative is the
requirement to provide regular national and
local news; provided nationwide by Independent
Television News (ITN).
Referred to as Channel 3 in order to diff er-
entiate it from the BBC’s Channels 1 and 2, and
Channel 4, ITV programming is in the main
entertainment-based, targeting the kind and size
of audiences likely to appeal to commercial TV’s
taskmasters, the advertisers. Programmes with
high audience-ratings such as Who Wants to Be
a Millionaire? and X Factor, and soaps such as
Coronation Street and Emmerdale, are the domi-
nant and highly profi table fare of ITV; the loss
has been the demise of quality current aff airs
programmes such as World in Action (Granada)
and Th is Week (Rediff usion/Th ames).
In February 2011 product placement was
permitted in programme content for the fi rst
time in the UK (for all broadcasters), off ering
rich pickings for provider and advertiser alike
but marking a worrying incursion of commerce
into the creative process (see consumeriza-
tion; culture: globalization of).
ITV was closely involved with the BBC in the
launch of Freeview in 2002 and Freesat in 2008.
After suffering dramatic losses in advertising
revenue during the economic recession in the
UK in 2009, ITV sprang back to profi t in 2011,
though success in the highly competitive fi eld of
commercial broadcasting depends on the sustain-
ability of current popular programmes and the
audience drawing-power of new ventures.
▶Wikipedia: comprehensive and reliable entries.and Nicholas W. Jakowsky, ‘Th e analysis of the
“unsaid” is sometimes more revealing than the
study of what is actually expressed in the text.’
Th is would suggest a key aspect of the study of
media – a focus on what is omitted, or absent, as
well as what is included and present.
Impression management Technique of self-
presentation defi ned by Erving Goff man in Th e
Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Anchor,
1959; Penguin, 1971). Because most social inter-
action requires instant judgments, alignments
and behaviour, the individual must be able
rapidly to convey impressions of him/herself
to others, highlighting favourable aspects, and
concealing others.
Goff man argues that impression-management
has the character of drama: all social roles, he
believes, are, in a sense, performances in which
it is important to set a scene and rehearse a
role, and this means coordinating activities with
others in the ‘drama’. Th us we put up a front,
‘that part of the individual’s performance which
regularly functions in a general and fi xed fashion
to defi ne the situation for those who observe the
performance’.
Our formal, public selves Goff man calls front
region and our more informal, relaxed selves,
back region. Indeed Goff man believes that all our
roles depend upon the performer having a back
region; equally all front-region roles rely upon
keeping the audience out of the back regions.
Teams as well as individuals operate in front
and back regions: in a restaurant, for example,
the front-stage conduct of the team of waiters
and other staff subscribes to formal rules and
rituals, even a mystique. Behind the scenes,
however, the performers relax. Th e need to unify
in sustaining an expected version of reality – of
smartness, politeness, professionalism – gives
way to a back-stage reality where individual
diff erences can be freely aired without letting
the team, or the performance, down. See self-
presentation.
Independent Television (ITV), UK The
broadcasting monopoly held by the BBC since
the inception of broadcasting in Britain ended
with the UK Television Act of 1954. Th is set up
the Independent Television Authority (ITA), its
responsibility to establish, control and review
independent commercial television (ITV). Th e
service opened in London in 1955 and in the
Midlands and North England the following
year, each region having its own programme-
producing studios.
ITV companies are licensed to broadcast for
limited periods (see franchises from 1993, uk;