ITV Anglia

Anglia Television launched on 27 October 1959 as an independent company serving the East of England, the eleventh ITA station to go on air. At its launch, Anglia broadcast from the Mendlesham Transmitter and was soon joined by Sandy Heath and then Belmont. Under the chairmanship of Aubrey Buxton the station soon established a reputation for producing excellent drama, through a deal with the then-franchise holder for London, Associated-Rediffusion. Anglia also established the long-running nature documentary series Survival. During the early 1960s, it looked towards the unserved portion of south-east England, which was to be served by a transmitter at Dover, as a logical extension to its eastern bailiwick – however, the ITA decided to hand this part of the country to Southern Television instead.

In 1973, the IBA planned to transfer the Belmont transmitter, which served Lincolnshire, north Norfolk and parts of the East Midlands, away from Anglia to Yorkshire Television. The public protested against such a move, especially in parts of north Norfolk.[2][3] Anglia decided not to publicly fight the IBA plans, after a board member had agreed to produce a film for the IBA explaining why Anglia should be allowed to keep hold of the Belmont transmitter.[4] On 30 July 1974, the transmitter was transferred;[5] due to this change, Anglia's profits were reduced from £2.2 million to £1.29 million.[6] However, by 1976 Anglia had managed to improve its operations, posting results of £1.47 million. Anglia described the improvement as "satisfactory", and its prospects were considered "encouraging".[7]

In 1975, the technicians' union (ACTT) criticised Anglia over the amount of regional programming being produced at the station, stating it had been dramatically decreasing since 1970 to just five hours per week. The concerns were raised to the IBA, who they believed would be able to construe the rapid decline in programming as the failure of Anglia to not fully commit to its obligations for the franchise area.[8]

In December 1976, Anglia dropped the Thames children's series Pauline's Quirkes as it believed it was insufficiently entertaining for its young audience. The company denied the move was due to the high volume of complaints about the content of the series. Thames said it was "surprised" at the decision, as the programme had rated well.[9]

In the autumn of 1977, a commercial Dutch television company was recording Anglia television signals and transmitting its English programmes, including Granada's Coronation Street and its own Survival, to its viewers in Amsterdam. The Dutch government did not believe it was a violation of Dutch copyright law – EBU legal advisers held discussions about to how resolve the matter.[10]

In 1979, a survey carried out by the IBA highlighted Anglia as one of the best known ITV companies – Anglia claimed that this was a testament to the strength of its commitment to a prominent local and national identity.

Anglia House, Anglia Television's headquarters on Agricultural Hall Plain in Norwich

Throughout Anglia's existence, the company has retained its headquarters at Anglia House in Norwich,[19] which contains four studios and offices for the company. As Anglia's production grew the company also expanded, buying a former bowling alley in Magdalen Street in the late 1970s and creating a further studio, referred to as 'Studio E'.[20] While larger productions moved here, as did the news service in 1999, some smaller productions (such as regional programmes) continued at Anglia House.

In recent years though, and especially since the formation of ITV plc, the need for studio space has become unnecessary. In 2006, Anglia sold its Magdalen Street studio complex (which included its newsroom and twin news studios) to Norfolk County Council, which, with the help of the East of England Development Agency, created EPIC – the East of England Production Innovation Centre. Intended as an "incubator" for small creative and media enterprises, Studio E (formerly home to Trisha) is now available for hire as an independent facility. One of the first tenants of EPIC was Televirtual, a company formed out of Broadsword Productions which made Anglia's popular children's show Knightmare. A major education partner at EPIC is the Norwich School of Art and Design, which has based its Foundation Degree in Film and Video at the centre since September 2007.[21] As a consequence of the sale, Anglia News moved back to a new state-of-the-art facility at Anglia House.

The Anglia knight, used from 1959 to 1988.

Anglia's original ident was a silver statue of a knight on horseback.[22] At the end, the camera zoomed in on the pennon atop the knight's lance, which showed the station's name. An arrangement by Malcolm Sargent, of Handel's Water Music was played over the film.[22] The Anglia knight logo became so closely identified with the station that when Anglia produced a book to mark its fortieth anniversary in 1999, it was entitled A Knight On The Box. Before the ident, the channel's start-up music was Ralph Vaughan Williams' Sea Songs, which was used from 1959 until the early 1980s.[22] With the introduction of colour television on ITV in November 1969 (although not in the Anglia region until October 1970), the ident was remade with constant lighting, and the knight constantly rotating on a turntable – a longer version of the ident was used at the start of the day's transmission until the mid 1980s.[22]

On Monday 21 March 1988, the knight was replaced by a new identity a quasi-heraldic stylised 'A' made of triangles, designed by Robinson Lambie-Nairn at a cost of £500,000.[23] The ident was accompanied by a deep sombre jingle composed by Nic Rowley[22] and remained in use until 8 November 1999, when (along with most other ITV companies), Anglia took the Hearts idents, which featured the stylised "A" – though in a square rather than a flag – and were used until 2002.

The Anglia 'A' logo introduced in March 1988.

On 28 October 2002, Anglia lost its on screen identity in favour of the ITV1 brand, with regional idents only before regional programming. This regional ident featured the Anglia name below the ITV1 logo against a blue background covering half of the screen, with a celebrity covering the other half. The Anglia logo could still be seen on screen as part of the news service and on the purple end boards used by the Granada companies introduced in 2001. In 2004, with all English and Welsh-based companies now owned by ITV plc, the station lost its separate identity. The station was officially branded as ITV Anglia, and the stylised 'A' logo was dropped as the company logo, with the on screen name used less and less, and dropped entirely by 2006.[22]

Much of Anglia's back catalogue is now held and preserved at the East Anglian Film Archive. A number of Anglia Television's productions including The Way We Were, Bygones and Anglia At War have been released on DVD. A compilation of the first years of Anglia TV's local news, Here Was the News was also released in 2009.

Some of Anglia's best known programmes were:

• ITV (TV channel)
• ITV plc
• ITV London
• ITV Central
• ITV Yorkshire
• East Anglia

• A Knight On The Box, ISBN 0-906836-40-9

• ITV Anglia at itv.com