Carlton Television (UK)

Background : Carlton Television began broadcasting on January 1, 1993 as the third holder of the ITV franchise for London weekdays, after outbidding the much-loved Thames Television - for which it had previously made two unsuccessful takeover attempts - in the auction-style 1991 franchise round. The company quickly became notorious for its low-budget and poor-quality programming - a stark contrast to its predecessor - and for having an appetite for corporate acquisitions. These included fellow ITV stations Central and Westcountry - both of which were rebranded with the Carlton name in 1999 - and the license and broadcast facilities of HTV, as well as Technicolor and the film libraries of ITC Entertainment Group and The Rank Organisation. Carlton eventually ran into financial difficulties (spurred on by ONdigital, a failed digital television joint venture with Granada, and an expensive TV rights deal with the English Football League that went bad), and on February 2, 2004, it merged with Granada to form ITV plc. Subsequently, the Carlton name was dropped from most uses, with ITV reinstating the Central and Westcountry names, while Technicolor Corporation was sold off. The Carlton archive holdings (including the Hamdon Entertainment, World International Network, Carlton America, ITC, ATV/Central, Westcountry, HTV, London Films and Rank Film Distributors libraries) are now the property of ITV plc.

===1st Logo (1991-1992)===

Logo : On a white background, a roll of film flies through the air, spinning. The film roll creates two blue lines. Once the roll of film has left the picture, the word "CARLTON" in a Bembo font zooms in below the top blue line, while the word "TELEVISION" in the same font zooms in below the bottom blue line.

Variant : A still version was used on some programs.

FX/SFX : All CGI animation.

Music/Sounds : TBA

Availability : Extremely rare for the animated version. The still version was seen at the end of programs produced by Carlton during the early 1990s, some of which aired on the Children's Channel. This ident did not air on the channel itself.

2nd Logo (1 January 1993-November 22, 1996)
See Granada Television for a description of this logo.

Availability : Saved on Today with Des and Mel episodes.