55-519: Market in Honey Lane was an ATV British television weekly series, which switched to a twice weekly soap opera format (shown at varying times around the ITV regions) after the first year. It was broadcast between April 1967 and March 1969. This cockney drama was set in an East London street market and covered the traders and customers. It was created by Louis Marks . According to www.lostshows.com 13 of
110-553: A Birmingham focus. In 1980, the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) decided that ATV's lack of regional programming and production (it had a major studio centre at Elstree in Hertfordshire , a legacy of its London contract, well outside its Midlands franchise) was hampering the region, so it insisted that the new applicant for the franchise be more clearly based in the region and have separate facilities for
165-524: A large chain of cinemas under those initials , successfully sued for prior ownership of the name. After the Associated Broadcasting Company had been operating for three weeks the name was changed to Associated TeleVision Ltd (ATV). The logo, designed for "ABC" and tweaked for "ATV", was a "shadowed eye" inspired by the CBS logo and reputedly designed by Lew Grade on a transatlantic flight back from
220-522: A new "national" release but this was unattractive to distributors and in 1961 Paramount switched to ABC after refusing a "national" release for the Dean Martin comedy All in a Night's Work . The "national" release soon ended entirely and there were in future just ABC and Odeon release patterns. In 1967, Seven Arts , the new owners of Warner, decided to dispose of its holdings in ABPC and subsequently EMI launched
275-528: A service to London at weekends from 1955 to 1968, to the Midlands on weekdays from 1956 to 1968, and subsequently to the Midlands all week from 1968 to 1982. It was one of the " Big Four " until 1968, and the "Big Five" after 1968, that between them produced the majority of ITV networked programmes. In 1982, ATV was restructured and rebranded as Central Independent Television , under which name it continued to provide
330-444: A single eye shape, moving to reveal the shadowed eye, and animating so that each of the letters ATV animate in accompanied by one of the three musical notes on the ident score. The caption below read Associated TeleVision Ltd. , the only time the station's full name was displayed in an ident. The shadowed eye however was out of proportion, attributed to the hurry to redraw the ident following the name change from ABC. Shortly after
385-408: A small cinema and vice versa). In the 1940s, ABC set up the first major Saturday cinema club for children, "The ABC Minors". At the beginning of each Saturday morning session, the "ABC Minors Song" would be played to the tune of 'Blaze Away' by Abe Holzmann (1874–1939), whilst the lyrics were presented on the screen with a bouncing red ball above the words to help the audience keep the place. In
440-615: A successful take-over bid for the company. Associated British Picture Corporation was later to be renamed Thorn-EMI Screen Entertainment Ltd, although the cinema chain retained its name. In 1986, this was later divested by EMI to the Australian businessman Alan Bond who sold the EMI film/cinema assets a few days later to the Cannon Group for a reported £50 million profit in seven days. EMI retained ABPC's lucrative television interests. Eventually,
495-551: A town showed their own releases and barred each other from showing the same film. Television led to a sharp decline in cinema audiences after 1952 though with the coming of commercial television from 1955 ABPC had expanded into the new medium with the creation of ABC Television Limited , which gained the Independent Television contracts for the North of England and Midlands at the weekend. ABC-TV lost its franchises in 1968 and
550-590: A twelve beat fanfare for the station, by ATV's musical director Jack Parnell and arranged by Angela Morley . This ident was used from the introduction of colour in 1969 right until the ATV name ceased to be used in 1982. In addition to this, a variation was produced which only featured a white dot on a black background, growing and transforming into the white shadowed eye for programmes still being shown in black and white. Company names: On-air names: Initials used: In 2015, ITV Broadcasting Ltd surrendered its rights to
605-552: The Carlton Television produced Crossroads of 2001. This article relating to a television programme from the UK is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Associated Television Network ATV Network Limited (originally Associated TeleVision , and usually shortened to ATV ) was a British broadcaster, part of the ITV (Independent Television) network. It provided
SECTION 10
#1732851285540660-505: The East and West Midlands . ATV Midlands Limited , a shell company created by ACC solely for the franchise process, applied successfully for the contract. As a condition of its award, ACC was forced to sell 49% of the company, relinquish executive roles, sell the Elstree studios and rename the company to demonstrate that it was effectively a new business. ATV ceased broadcasting at 12.34am on
715-697: The Independent Television Authority , the governing body of ITV, invited Grade and Littler to join the ABDC consortium. This provided the money required and put Littler and Grade in control of the new company, sidelining Collins. The new company was originally named the Associated Broadcasting Company ( ABC ), but the Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC), which wished to call their station "ABC" and ran
770-496: The Midlands . The latter service opened on 17 February 1956, with ABPC's ABC Weekend TV providing the weekend programmes. The company ran into financial difficulty due to the staggering losses of the first two years of ITV and start-up costs. The London weekday contractor Associated-Rediffusion shouldered some of ATV's losses and further funding was achieved by selling shares to the Daily Mirror newspaper. The company structure
825-419: The 'litespots' of the 1970s. Noting it felt the iconic symbol was best left in the past. The majority of ITC programmes were first broadcast by ATV and distributed in the UK by them. Similarly, ATV's productions were distributed by ITC outside of the UK, with most ATV idents replaced with those for ITC. As a side note to ATV's television activities, the company also set up a music publishing division. This
880-569: The 60 remaining ABC Cinemas, which were mostly older, town centre cinemas, were rebranded as Odeon or were closed as the chain was now being run by the former Rank/Odeon executives. An exception was the venue at Westover Road, Bournemouth venue which retained the ABC brand until its closure in early 2017. The Odeon on the same road closed later that year. In 2004, the Odeon chain was sold to Terra Firma Capital Partners who had recently purchased UCI cinemas and over
935-469: The ATV trademark and it was acquired by Associated Television Productions Ltd which has produced programming for the Made Television network of local television channels. The company, ATV Network Limited, was re-established in 2006 headed by former ATV cameraman, director and Head of Children's Drama Alan Coleman. It aims to promote and celebrate the legacy of Lew Grade's ATV, with a new logo, based on
990-610: The Cannon cinemas "due to the competition from the new multiplex" – examples of this happened in Northampton and Swindon. MGM Cinemas subsequently changed hands many times, first becoming Virgin Cinemas . Virgin Cinemas was founded in 1995 when Richard Branson 's Virgin Group acquired MGM Cinemas, Virgin Group bought the cinemas (numbering 116 at the time) for £195m, and subsequently sold 90 of
1045-581: The IBA ordered that for ATV Midlands to keep the franchise the Elstree centre must be sold and a studio centre built in the east of the region. ATV Midlands, renamed Central Independent Television , needed an immediate start for separate East and West Midlands facilities. The new east site was at Lenton Lane, Nottingham , and the land had been bought while ATV was still in control. Planning issues delayed construction so Central purchased an independent production studio in
1100-591: The Media Archive for Central England at the University of Lincoln. For most of its time on air, ATV's main production centre was based at Elstree , Borehamwood , Hertfordshire , near London, where the majority of ATV's earlier programming was produced and distributed. The Elstree studios had been film studios since 1914, and when ATV acquired them in May 1958, the intention was to use them for ITC TV shows shot on film. One of
1155-449: The Midlands region. This service started on Friday, 17 February 1956, the third ITA franchisee to go on air, and was extended until Monday, 29 July 1968. Subsequent to the changes made by the ITA to the regional structure of the ITV network, ATV lost its London franchise, but was awarded the franchise to provide a seven-day service for the Midlands region which started on Tuesday, 30 July 1968 and
SECTION 20
#17328512855401210-645: The Ritz brand such as the Ritz Cinema, Muswell Hill . After he died in 1940, his widow Catherine sold a large number of shares to Warner Brothers , who eventually became the largest shareholders and able to exercise control, though ABPC was separately quoted on the London Stock Exchange. By 1945 it operated over 400 cinemas (usually called the Savoy or Regal) and was second only to Rank's Odeon and Gaumont chains. By
1265-568: The US. The logo is one of the most recognisable in broadcasting. The Associated Broadcasting Company began broadcasting in its own right on Saturday 24 September 1955, after jointly presenting the network's opening night on Thursday 22 September. The name ATV was first seen in London on Saturday 8 October 1955. The company won two contracts, the weekend contract for London and the Monday–Friday contract for
1320-414: The advent of largely American-owned multiplexes led to the end of barring and the old distributor alignments, which had in any case been rendered largely irrelevant by cinema closures often leaving only one cinema in a town, which had access to all films but usually had to give precedence to its traditional alignment (so an Odeon might have a poor "Rank" release in its biggest screen and a big "ABC" release in
1375-521: The banner Alpha Television . They supplied both ATV and ABC, and supplemented production from Elstree. In readiness for colour television, a large 'state of the art' television studio was built by ATV, the ATV Centre off Broad Street near the centre of Birmingham . This replaced the Aston studios, which were sold. The ATV Centre was in use until 1997 although two of the production studios had been 'mothballed' in
1430-475: The chain's remaining non-multiplex cinemas to Cinven for £70m to concentrate on multiplexes. Virgin then divested itself of the cinema business to French-owned UGC . Subsequently, UGC divested its UK operations to a rival operator, Cineworld . While this was happening, the divested smaller ABC cinemas gained a stablemate under Cinven; in 2000 Cinven bought over the one-time rival chain of Odeon Cinemas for £280 million from Rank Group plc and most of
1485-675: The city (at Giltbrook ) as its East Midlands newsroom. Industrial action prevented this centre from being used, with the new studios ready by the time it was resolved. In 1983 the Elstree centre was sold to the BBC for around £7 million, and is now home of the soap EastEnders . East Midlands Television Centre in Nottingham began operation in September 1983 but was officially opened by H.R.H. Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, in March 1984. The studio
1540-418: The close of the 1950s, ABC had started rebranding most cinemas as ABC and dropped names like Regal. UK exhibition was characterised by alignments between distributors and exhibitors. ABC had access to Warner Brothers, MGM and its own ABPC productions, whereas rival Rank had 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Walt Disney, Columbia, Universal, United Artists and its own productions. Rival ABC, Odeon and Gaumont cinemas in
1595-512: The company bought ITC's television and film library from PolyGram/Seagram for £91 million, which reunited the programme library of ATV and Central Television and doubled the stock of its library division Carlton International , by giving it a total of 15,000 hours of programming. Granada plc merged with Carlton in 2004, and all of ATV's national archive programming has been taken into their ownership. The regional news archive from both ATV and Central, plus some regional programmes, are stored at
1650-517: The direction of chief architect W. R. Glen, who had been appointed in about 1929 and maintained a distinct house style. It acquired First National Pathé Limited which gave it trading connections to First National Pictures in the United States. Existing cinemas which could not be re-modelled were usually operated as separate circuits. In 1937, the parent company, BIP was renamed Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC). ABC also ran cinemas under
1705-548: The early 1990s as demand for production studios fell. As of June 2014, the complex has been partially demolished to be replaced by the upcoming Arena Central development, with the main studio building off Bridge Street standing derelict, pending the commencement of further demolition work. The Alpha Tower remains as a listed building . A documentary about the ATV Centre was released in 2011 by MACE ( Media Archive for Central England ). Entitled From ATVLand In Colour (referring to
Market in Honey Lane - Misplaced Pages Continue
1760-777: The first productions to be filmed was The Adventures of William Tell . ATV London used a number of other converted locations for live and video-taped shows during its first decade on air, such as the Wood Green Empire, the Hackney Empire , the former Highbury Film Studios , and briefly, the New Cross Empire, but it soon became clear these were inadequate and it was decided to convert the Elstree studios from film to electronic production. The first of four studios there opened in November 1960. Playout and presentation for ATV London
1815-442: The first time. Starting with three lightspots of red, blue and green that grow individually and combine to form six colours above the caption 'In Colour', the three lightspots fully merge forming a single cream dot which then animates out into the ATV shadowed eye, fully formed, in yellow, while the background dissolves from light grey to dark blue. The score for the ident featured four trumpets, four trombones, timpani and vibraphone in
1870-490: The late 1980s, on the verge of bankruptcy, Cannon was taken over by Italian fraudster Giancarlo Parretti , who then changed the company's name to Pathé Communications , which subsequently bought MGM . These Cannon cinemas, along with a group of theaters Cannon owned in Holland , were used as part of a phony transaction by Parretti to a holding company purportedly owned by Italian media mogul Silvio Berlusconi , Cinema V ; Cinema V
1925-465: The launch of the Midlands franchise, the ident was again changed to an ident consisting of five stripes. Three of four vertical stripes contain the letters ATV, which animate in to the same musical score, with the other vertical stripe housing the logo and the stations airing times, either displaying both or those of the region being viewed in. the final stripe is horizontal, with the caption 'Presents' inside. The next ident, launched in 1959, featured
1980-595: The morning of Friday 1 January 1982 (the night of Thursday 31 December 1981), following Scottish Television 's networked Hogmanay Show. The final closedown was marked by a brief tribute to ATV from original announcer Shaw Taylor before duty announcer Mike Prince signed off with the playing of the National Anthem (an organ recording made at St. Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham ). The newly reformed company, Central Independent Television plc , began broadcasting with an extended promo at 9.25am that morning. Central inherited
2035-439: The new ITV stations. ABDC won the contract but had insufficient money to operate it; ITC failed to win a contract, mainly due to a perceived conflicts of interest resulting from the business operations of Grade and Littler. By the time of the merger ABDC were well advanced with their plans whilst ITPC planned to operate as an independent producer selling their shows to the new network contractors. When financial problems hit ABDC,
2090-413: The nickname used on ATV's children's programme, Tiswas , and the building being purpose-built for colour broadcasting), the documentary features presenters, actors, announcers and behind-the-scenes staff talking about their time working there, and the programmes that were made there. Contributors include Chris Tarrant , Shaw Taylor , Jane Rossington and Bob Carolgees . In the 1981 franchise review,
2145-454: The original 91 episodes are missing from the archives. The main cast included: Anna Wing also appeared. She would later find fame in the BBC soap EastEnders , which was also set in the East End of London. Market in Honey Lane was recorded at ATV Elstree , the same studio complex that is now home to EastEnders . Ray Lonnen would go on to star in another ATV soap, Crossroads , but in
2200-458: The remainder of Central after the Australian investor Robert Holmes à Court staged a boardroom coup and forced Grade to cede control. ACC remained in control of ITC and Stoll-Moss Theatres until 1988 when The Bell Group, the owners of ITC were taken over by the Bond Corporation . Subsequently, the new owners started an asset-stripping programme at ITC. In November 1988, ITC Entertainment
2255-492: The service for the Midlands. ATV was awarded its first franchise by the Independent Television Authority (ITA) to provide the Independent Television service at weekends for the London region. This service started on Saturday, 24 September 1955, the second ITA franchise to go on air, and was extended until Sunday, 28 July 1968. ATV was also awarded the franchise to provide the weekdays Independent Television service for
Market in Honey Lane - Misplaced Pages Continue
2310-406: The shadowed eye zooming into the screen, whilst the familiar letters animate in as in the previous versions. This was altered in 1964 to add either the region name below it, or the word 'Presents' if the programme was an outside broadcast. The company's most recognisable ident, however, is the one launched in 1969. Called Zoom 2, it was the ident that heralded colour broadcasts to the region for
2365-413: The studios at ATV Centre, Birmingham and ATV Elstree along with land that ATV Midlands had purchased for their new Nottingham studio centre. Central also maintained control of ATV's news archive and regional programmes, along with programming already in production or being shown at the time of changeover and schools programming; the rest of the ATV archive was sold by ACC. ACC later divested itself of
2420-484: The weekend franchise in London to the London Television Consortium , later renamed London Weekend Television , but its Midlands contract was renewed and extended for the full seven days. At this point the company was renamed ATV Network Limited . During the 1970s, ATV received much criticism over its lack of local programming, particularly for the east of its region; such critics held that local shows had
2475-520: Was a shell company owned by Parretti's business partner Florio Fiorini, to make it appear that Pathe was paying off their debts to their bank, Credit Lyonnais Bank Nederland , when in reality the bank's loans to Pathe had expanded tremendously (including the $ 184 billion supposedly paid by Cinema V); this was done to prevent the Dutch central bank from finding out about the deepening connection between CLBN, Parretti and Fiorini. In any case, even after Parretti
2530-518: Was arrested and Credit Lyonnais seized control of MGM in 1992, the new company began opening its own multiplexes as MGM Cinemas . The existing few Cannon multiplexes were also renamed as MGM Cinemas. MGM continued to operate multiplex and non-multiplex cinemas, but under its two different brand identities, with the multiplexes being known as MGM Cinemas and the smaller non-multiplexes remaining as Cannon. MGM opened new multiplexes in towns and markets already served by their Cannon cinemas, and then closed
2585-634: Was based at a separate master control facility at Foley Street in Central London, which included two studios for continuity and smaller-scale programming, such as Police 5 . Shortly after ATV ceased transmission in London, the Foley Street centre was also used to transmit a management-run national ITV service during the ITV technicians' strike of August 1968. ATV's Midlands studios were originally based in Aston , Birmingham , jointly owned by ATV and ABC under
2640-472: Was bought by its management. In January 1995, PolyGram Filmed Entertainment bought ITC for $ 156 million, with Grade returning as chairman for life, bringing him back into control of ITC until his death in 1998. Carlton Communications spent much of the 1980s and 1990s buying up the intellectual property of the former ACC, including the rights to the ATV logo and company name, the ATV news archive (via its purchase of Central) and finally in early January 1999,
2695-496: Was changed several times until 1966, when ATV and ITC both became subsidiaries of the Associated Communications Corporation (ACC), formed by turning the old structure on its head. This marked the point where Lew Grade advanced from being the greatest influence over the company to taking control. ATV's main impact was in variety and light entertainment . In the contract and region changes in 1968, ATV lost
2750-454: Was eventually sold in 2004 to the University of Nottingham as an independent facility and as the home of the Media Archive for Central England, where most of ATV's and Central's programmes are archived. ATV's logo has always consisted of a shadowed eye, inspired supposedly by the logo of CBS . This shadowed eye with the letters ATV inside came to represent the company. The first ident featured
2805-570: Was finally extended until 00:34 on Friday, 1 January 1982. The company was formed from the merger of the Associated Broadcasting Development Company (ABDC) under the control of Norman Collins , and the Incorporated Television Programme Company ( ITC ) under the control of Prince Littler and Lew Grade , two showbusiness agents. Both companies had applied for a contract to become one of
SECTION 50
#17328512855402860-402: Was known as ATV Music and existed initially to publish TV-related music, such as theme tunes, composed by its in-house composers. It was formed after ATV acquired a substantial share of Pye Records . This company was eventually split away from the parent company and went through numerous different owners as well as buying into other established music publishers including Northern Songs , which
2915-401: Was merged with Rediffusion to become Thames Television . As a result of the decline many suburban ABC theatres closed. Most of those remaining began, from the late 1950s to lose their individual names and were simply branded "ABC". In 1959 Rank abandoned the separate Odeon and Gaumont release and put the best cinemas from each circuit onto a new Rank release. The remaining cinemas were given
2970-450: Was reused in the 1990s until 2000. ABC Cinemas was established in 1927 by solicitor John Maxwell by merging three smaller Scottish cinema circuits. It became a wholly owned cinema subsidiary of British International Pictures when it was merged with the production arm of British National Pictures Studios , which had been formed by Maxwell in 1926. During the 1930s, it grew rapidly by acquisitions and an ambitious building programme under
3025-525: Was the Beatles ' publishing company. ATV Music eventually settled into the hands of Michael Jackson before being merged into Sony/ATV Music Publishing . ABC Cinemas ABC Cinemas ( Associated British Cinemas ) was a cinema chain in the United Kingdom. Originally a wholly owned subsidiary of Associated British Picture Corporation (ABPC), it operated between the 1920s and the 1980s. The brand name
#539460