ITV Anglia

ITV Anglia, previously known as Anglia Television, is the ITV franchise holder for the East of England. The station is based at Anglia House in Norwich, with regional news bureaux in Cambridge and Northampton. ITV Anglia is owned and operated by ITV plc under the licence name of ITV Broadcasting Limited.

ITV Anglia broadcasts to Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, northern Hertfordshire, northern Buckinghamshire and the southeastern fringes of Lincolnshire and Leicestershire. Today, one of its main programmes is ITV News Anglia, which is split into two regional editions. These editions air at 18:00 on weekdays and at various times on weekends.

History

Further information: Timeline of Anglia Television

Anglia Television began broadcasting on 27 October 1959 as an independent station for the East of England. It was the eleventh station to go on air under the ITA. Anglia produced popular shows like the nature series Survival and worked with London’s Associated-Rediffusion to create drama programs.

Over the years, Anglia faced changes such as losing a transmitter and adjusting its programming schedule. In the 1980s, it kept its broadcasting rights and started round-the-clock service in 1987. By the 1990s, Anglia created regional news programs and partnered with American companies to produce films. Eventually, Anglia became part of ITV plc in 2004, and its separate brand ended. Though it no longer creates many national shows, Anglia’s old studio still works on programs for other channels.

Studios

ITV Anglia has its main office at Anglia House in Norwich. This building has four studios and many offices. In the late 1970s, Anglia bought an old bowling alley in Magdalen Street and made another studio there called 'Studio E'. Bigger shows and the news program moved there in 1999, but smaller local shows stayed at Anglia House.

Later, especially after ITV plc took over, Anglia didn’t need so many studios anymore. In 2006, they sold the Magdalen Street studios to Norfolk County Council. This place became EPIC, a center to help small creative businesses. Studio E, where the show Trisha used to be filmed, can now be rented by anyone. Anglia News moved back to a new, modern studio at Anglia House.

Identity

Anglia Television started with a special logo of a knight on horseback. This logo was very popular, and even a book about the station’s history was called A Knight On The Box.

Later, the knight logo was replaced by a new design that looked like a letter “A” made of triangles. Eventually, Anglia stopped using its own special logo and started using the ITV1 brand instead.

Programmes

Many old shows from Anglia are kept safe at the East Anglian Film Archive. Some favourite shows like The Way We Were, Bygones, and Anglia At War have been made into DVDs. In 2009, a collection of the first years of Anglia TV's local news called Here Was the News came out too.

Some of Anglia’s most popular shows included:

• Survival (1961–2001)
• Bygones (1967–89)
• Sale of the Century (1971–83)
• Gambit (1975–85, 1995)
• Backs to the Land (1977–78)
• Tales of the Unexpected (1979–88)
• Birthday Club (1980–2002)
• Miss Morison's Ghosts (1981)
• Ten adaptations of the Adam Dalgliesh novels of P. D. James (1983–98)
• The Zodiac Game (1984–85)
• Marjorie and Men (1985)
• Inside Story (1986)
• A Killing on the Exchange (1987)
• Cause Célèbre (1987)
• Knightmare (1987–94)
• Menace Unseen (1988)
• Lucky Ladders (1988–1993)
• A Quiet Conspiracy (1989)
• Anything More Would Be Greedy (1989)
• Goldeneye (1989)
• The Chief (1990–95)
• Jumble (1991–92)
• Chimera (1991)
• Growing Rich (1992)
• A Dangerous Man: Lawrence After Arabia (1992)
• Framed (1992)
• Jilly Cooper's Riders (1993)
• My Good Friend (1995–96)
• Jilly Cooper's The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous (1997)
• Bring Me the Head of Light Entertainment (1997–2000)
• Where the Heart Is (1997–2001)
• Touching Evil (1997–99)
• Ain't Misbehavin' (1997)
• Trisha (1998–2004)
• Animal Cops (2002–2018)
• A Line in the Sand (2004)