ITV Studios

ITV Studios is a British multinational television production and distribution company owned by the British television broadcaster ITV plc. It handles production and distribution of programmes broadcast on the ITV network and third-party broadcasters, and is based in 12 countries across 60 production labels, with local production offices in the UK, America, Australia, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Israel, France and Scandinavia.

History
ITV Studios Limited's history can be traced back to Granada Productions, which was founded in 1954 as Granada Television's in-house production arm, and Central Television Enterprises, Central Independent Television ' s international sales operations founded in 1987. Granada Productions and Carlton International (re-branded name for CTE) were merged in 2009 to form ITV Studios; however, some of ITV Studios' subsidiaries, such as ITV Studios Australia, still carried the Granada name until 2014.

ITV Studios not only makes programmes primarily for its parent company ITV plc, but also for other networks such as the BBC and Channel 4. It was formed from a gradual amalgamation of the production divisions of all ITV plc owned 'channel three' licensees which occurred from 1994 to 2004, and for a number of years thereafter following the creation of ITV plc.

The division is also responsible for ITV's production facilities The London Studios, 3SixtyMedia (based at ITV Granada, and co-owned with BBC Studios and Post Production), and location hire company ProVision (based at ITV Yorkshire, with sales offices at ITV Granada and The London Studios). ITV Studios Global Entertainment (formerly Granada International and Granada Ventures) is responsible for sales of finished programmes, formats and commercial licensing deals.

Programmes on non-ITV channels (except S4C, which has always used the name ITV Cymru) retained the Granada brand (examples are Channel 4's Countdown, and The Royle Family for the BBC) until 2009. Many of the programmes shown on ITV network show the end-board featuring the ITV Studios logo after the credits as of 2009.

In May 2017, ITV plc acquired production company World Productions. As a result of the takeover, the company is now a part of ITV Studios, with ITV Studios Global Entertainment handling international distribution of future series. That same year, ITV Studios also acquired Swedish game show and entertainment programming producer Elk Production, a stake in Danish drama producer Apple Tree Productions, founded by former DR Drama Deputy Head Lars Hermann and Piv Bernth (producer of the hit series The Killing) who had both left public broadcaster DR (which was the home for The Killing), and another stake in Italian film and television producer Cattleya, well known for producing the 2015 crime film Suburra and the 2017 RAI/Netflix television series co-production that serves as a prequel to it.

In 2017, American Horror Movie production company Blumhouse Productions sold a 45% stake in their independent television studio Blumhouse Television to ITV. Blumhouse is known for their globally successful films such as Paranormal Activity and Insidious.

Output
ITV Studios is a major commercial TV producer in the UK, creating over 3,500 hours of original programming each year across all genres except news. Its network programmes include, or have included, Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Heartbeat, Marple and Agatha Christie's Poirot, Brainiac: Science Abuse, 'I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!, Parkinson, Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, Tonight, The Jeremy Kyle Show and This Morning.

ITV Studios also produces programmes for other UK broadcasters outside of its own network. These include the BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Sky. ITV Studios is based in London and Manchester, with the centre in Leeds now only home to Emmerdale and Shiver Productions (formerly Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television's then Granada Productions' northern features department). The production centres in Bristol and Norwich closed in 2006 and 2012 respectively. ITV Studios also owns So Television after acquiring Graham Norton's production company in 2012. On 22 April 2013, ITV announced they had acquired production company The Garden for £18 million; which is best known for producing Channel 4 series 24 Hours in A&E. In 2013, ITV launched a new production company named Potato. 2016 saw ITV Studios secure a four-year British horse racing deal which saw the Cheltenham Festival, Grand National and Royal Ascot all be shown on ITV.

Since 14 January 2013, the ITV logo has been added to the opening credits of the majority of ITV Studios-produced shows airing on ITV's channels, similar to the BBC.

Production franchises of ITV Studios
In 2004, a duopoly had formed, and Granada owned six franchises, whilst Carlton Communications owned five. Granada bought a 64% controlling stake and took over Carlton in 2004 with the amalgamation of ITV. Consequently, programmes produced by all divisions were referred to as 'A Granada Manchester Production', 'A Granada London Production', etc., at the end of credits. ITV Studios comprises the network production divisions from its following predecessor companies:


 * ITV Anglia
 * ITV Central formerly Carton Central, Central Independent Television and ATV.
 * ITV Granada
 * ITV Wales & West (formerly HTV) - including its former subsidiary, Harvest Entertainment.
 * ITV London (Carlton Television and London Weekend Television)
 * ITV Meridian
 * ITV Tyne Tees
 * ITV Yorkshire
 * ITV Breakfast (formerly Daybreak, GMTV and TVAM)


 * ITV Border and ITV Westcountry rarely contributed network programmes, so were largely unaffected by the creation of ITV Studios.

Boom Group
On 29 June 2015, a majority stake of Boom Supervisory Ltd was acquired by ITV Studios, which had acquired Twofour five days earlier. Boom Supervisory was the holding company for subsidiaries such as Boomerang, Boom Cymru and Indus. The Boom Group is currently one of the largest Welsh entertainment production companies, comprising four production divisions, Boom Cymru, for Welsh productions, Boom for productions for the rest of the United Kingdom outside of Wales as well as international markets, Boom Kids for children's programming and Boom Social for digital content, post-production facility Gorilla, international animation company Cloth Cat Animation and visual effects & motion graphics studio BAIT Studio.

12 Yard
12 Yard was founded in 2001 by David Young and the creative team behind the worldwide hit Weakest Link and Hat Trick Productions.

12 Yard has gone on to become one of the world's most successful entertainment format creators, producing hit formats including the BBC's long-running early evening quiz Eggheads, Saturday night BBC One lottery formats The National Lottery: In it to Win it and Who Dares Wins!, primetime feel-good format Holding out for a Hero, Take on the Twisters and Big Star's Little Star for ITV and Coach Trip, Celebrity Coach Trip and Christmas Coach Trip for Channel 4.

On 5 December 2007, it was announced that ITV had acquired 12 Yard for £35 million.

The Garden
The Garden was created in 2010 to produce "cutting edge, ambitious, distinctive factual programmes for major broadcasters in both the United Kingdom and outside and to be the most ideal production company we can be, where programming producers can do their very best work and that always delivers exceptional television." On 22 April 2013, The Garden was acquired by ITV Studios. It is known for producing 24 Hours in A&E for Channel 4 and Inside Claridge's for BBC Two.

World Productions
World Productions is a television production company founded on 20 March 1990 by acclaimed producer Tony Garnett and owned by ITV Studios since May 2017. The company's first major series was the police drama Between The Lines (BBC One, 1992–1994), and throughout the decade they went on to produce a succession of drama series. The most notable of these include This Life (BBC Two, 1996–1997), about a group of young law students in London; vampire thriller Ultraviolet (Channel 4, 1998) and police drama The Cops (BBC Two, 1998–1999), which was so controversial in its depiction of the police force that official police advice was withdrawn for the second series. More recently, the company has made the series No Angels for Channel 4 (2004–2006), a drama based around the lives of young nurses, and also Goldplated and for Channel Five it has produced the Perfect Day trilogy and Tripping Over, a co production with Network Ten in Australia. It also co-produced, with BBC Cymru Wales, a one-off This Life reunion special, which aired in early 2007.

In 2018, the company produced the hit TV series Bodyguard, which achieved the highest viewing figures for a new BBC drama in the multichannel era and the highest BBC viewing figures since 2008.

Mainstreet Pictures
Mainstreet Pictures is a drama label of Twofour run by joint MDs Sally Haynes and Laura Mackie. Mainstreet Pictures is well known for producing the hit ITV series Unforgotten.

Delightful Industries
Delightful Industries is a comedy production company founded by Irish comedy writer and director Graham Linehan and Director of Programmes Richard Boden in 2012, well known for producing Motherland with Irish actress, writer, and producer Sharon Horgan and Clelia Mountford's Merman and film studio Lionsgate for the BBC. It is part of the Twofour Group.

Oxford Scientific Films
Oxford Scientific Films (OSF) is a British company that produces natural history and documentary programmes. Founded on 8 July 1968 by noted documentary filmmaker Gerald Thompson, the independent company broke new ground in the world of documentaries, using new filming techniques and capturing footage of never before filmed activities of its various subjects. In 1996, Oxford Scientific Films was sold to Circle Communications, where it retained its own identity as a division within the company. The following year, Circle Communications was taken over by Southern Star Entertainment UK. Under the new ownership, Oxford Scientific Films continued to enhance its reputation for innovative film-making, producing multiple award-winning series and films, including the highly acclaimed Animal Planet series Meerkat Manor.

In March 2008, parent company Southern Star Group merged its Sydney-based factual business unit into the Oxford Scientific Films division. The merged company used two brands, with the existing Oxford Scientific Films name being used for specialist factual programmes and the Southern Star Factual brand being used for features and factual entertainment shows. Some time later, OSF became part of the Twofour Group.

Cats on the Roof Media
Cats on the Roof Media is a subsidiary of ITV Studios that consists of Gameface Productions, a producer of game and quiz shows founded by the creative team behind the ITV game show The Cube, Second Act Productions, a comedy label founded in 2015 by Andrew O'Connor and Paul Sandler and Crook Productions, a producer of entertainment and factual programming. It was created by O'Connor and ITV Studios as a joint venture on 12 June 2015.

Mammoth Screen
Mammoth Screen is a British television drama production company that was established in 2007 by Michele Buck and Damien Timmer and is a subsidiary of ITV Studios. It produces drama for key British broadcasters, especially ITV and the BBC, and also for international distribution. Examples of Mammoth Screen productions are Endeavour, Poldark, Victoria and the ITV/Amazon Prime Video co-production Vanity Fair.

Monumental Pictures
Monumental Pictures was founded in 2014 by producers Alison Owen and Debra Hayward, well-known for their participation in films such as Les Misérables and Saving Mr. Banks, to produce film and television content. At the end of April 2015, ITV Studios acquired a minority stake in Monumental Pictures, which later became 51% on 18 July 2019 four years later. Examples of Monumental Pictures productions are Will for TNT, Anne with an E for CBC Television and Netflix and Harlots for Hulu.

Multistory Media
Multistory Media originally started as the factual entertainment and features network production departments of Tyne Tees Television and Yorkshire Television. When ITV plc was created, the separate departments of these two subsidiaries were merged into Yorkshire Television and renamed Granada Productions North Factual Entertainment and Features. It was then renamed again as the Northern factual entertainment and features department within ITV Yorkshire as part of ITV Productions. At this point an internal reorganization took place to disband the management structure of Yorkshire Television and transfer the production business from Yorkshire Television Limited to ITV Productions Limited. The departments were then closed as part of a wider company production review but were relaunched in Leeds as Shiver. On 23 May 2019, Shiver changed their name to Multistory Media.

Today, Multistory Media is one of the largest producers of factual entertainment for television in the United Kingdom. Examples of Multistory Media productions are Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs, 60 Minute Makeover and Peter Andre: My Life.

Noho Film & Television
Noho Film & Television is a subsidiary of ITV Studios that was originally founded in 2012 as an independent joint by Managing Directors Robert Wulff-Cochrane and Camilla Campbell who both formerly headed the drama department at Channel 4.

Big Talk Productions
Big Talk Productions is a film and television production company founded on 11 February 1994 by Nira Park and acquired by ITV Studios on 26 July 2013. The company has produced critically acclaimed films such as Baby Driver, Edgar Wright's Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Paul and Sightseers. Television series produced by Big Talk include Mum, Back and the revived Cold Feet.

So Television
So Television is a television production company founded in 1998 by Irish television and radio presenter, comedian, actor, and author Graham Norton and his partner Graham Stuart, best known for producing Norton's chat shows V Graham Norton and The Graham Norton Show. The company also produces programmes for radio, mainly for BBC Radio 4, via the So Radio division. Both So Television and So Radio are based in London. On 30 August 2012, ITV Studios acquired the company for an estimated £17 million.

Tall Story Pictures
Founded in 2016, Tall Story Pictures is a television drama production company working with the very best established and emerging writing talent, placing the writer’s vision at the heart of everything it develops and produces. Examples of Tall Story Pictures productions are psychological thriller Trauma, crime thriller The Bay and detective thriller Bancroft, both produced for ITV.

Twofour
Twofour is an international award-winning television production company, producing programming for the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, UKTV and a variety of other British and foreign broadcasters. Twofour was awarded Broadcast's "Best Indie Production Company" title in 2010 and 2014, with titles including The Jump (Channel 4), multi award-winning The Real Marigold Hotel (BBC One/BBC Two) and the fastest selling format of the year, This Time Next Year (ITV) and Channel 5's longest running series, The Hotel Inspector.

The company produces ob-doc and fixed rig shows such as Channel 4's International Emmy winning Educating Yorkshire, Educating the East End and 2011's Educating Essex. In May 2012, Series Director David Clews was awarded a BAFTA Television Craft Award for his work directing Educating Essex.

Twofour has produced a range of adventure documentaries such as Harry's Arctic Heroes for BBC One and Harry's Mountain Heroes for ITV, both featuring Prince Harry and a group of wounded soldiers as they attempt to reach the North Pole and Mount Everest respectively.

Boomerang
Boomerang produces factual entertainment, popular factual, documentary and sports entertainment programmes and is based in Cardiff, Wales. On 11 May 2016, the label absorbed sister entities Twofour Wales and Indus.

ITV America
ITV America (formerly known as ITV Studios America) is co-headquartered in Sherman Oaks, California and New York City, with production studios in Stamford, Connecticut, It produces programming primarily for US networks, such as: Fox's Hell's Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares, Sit Down, Shut Up, and Nanny 911; NBC's Hit Me, Baby, One More Time, the American versions of The Voice and their crime drama Prime Suspect, and Little Friends; CBS' Eleventh Hour; VH1's But Can They Sing? and Celebrity Fit Club; A&E's Airline, The First 48 and House of Dreams; and MTV's Room Raiders.

In 2006, Granada, in association with FremantleMedia North America, produced Gameshow Marathon, an American version of Ant & Dec's Gameshow Marathon for CBS.

Television movies from Granada and ITV America include: Molly Shannon in 12 Days of Christmas Eve; Jason Priestley in Reality of Love; Farrah Fawcett in Hollywood Lives, based on Jackie Collins’ best selling novel; Anne Heche in Dead Will Tell; Melanie Griffith in Lethal Seduction; Jon Voight and Cary Elwes in Pope John Paul II (2005 miniseries), Matthew Perry in The Ron Clark Story (2006), Aidan Quinn and Mary-Louise Parker in Unexpected Journey, Susan Sarandon in Ice Bound. Television programs now owned domestically from its former ITC library include 1978 adaptation of Les Miserables (Richard Jordan, Anthony Perkins), The Scarlet and the Black (1983 Gregory Peck, Christopher Plummer), Not My Kid (1985 George Segal, Stockard Channing) and At Mother's Request (1987).

Until recently the Chief Executive Officer of ITV Studios was David Gyngell, son of the late Bruce Gyngell, the former managing director of former ITV breakfast franchisee TV-am and Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television.

The company was formerly Granada America but was re-branded in May 2009.

On 7 May 2014, ITV Studios announced the acquisition of Leftfield Entertainment, which produces shows such as Pawn Stars, Counting Cars and American Restoration. ITV has taken an 80% stake in the company initially, according to ITV this will make them "largest unscripted independent producer in the US"

In 2018, ITV announced a relocated of a large part of their operations from California and New York City to Stamford, Connecticut, creating 450 new jobs in the process.

Subsidiaries

 * Blumhouse Television (45%)
 * Circle of Confusion Television Studios (joint venture with talent management company Circle of Confusion; well known for producing the cult AMC post-apocalyptic horror series The Walking Dead and its companion piece Fear the Walking Dead)
 * DiGa (51%)
 * Fremulon
 * Good Caper Content
 * Gurney Productions
 * High Noon Entertainment (well known for producing Cake Boss for TLC and Fixer Upper for HGTV)
 * Leftfield Entertainment
 * Leftfield Pictures
 * Loud TV (joint venture with television producer and executive Nick Rigg)
 * Outpost Entertainment (joint venture with former Screaming Flea Productions and Cineflix executive Jodi Flynn)
 * Sirens Media
 * Riot Creative
 * Thinkfactory Media
 * Tomorrow Studios (joint venture with Marty Adelstein)

ITV Studios Australia
ITV Studios Australia is the Australian division of ITV Studios, based at Fox Studios Australia in Sydney. The company has its origins in production company Artist Services, a company formed in 1989 by a group of investors including Steve Vizard, producing many classic shows. Half of the company was sold to John Fairfax Holdings in 1995 for A$9 million, at a time when the company was generating about $50 million per year. In 1998, the entire company was acquired by Granada for A$25 million.

The company rebranded as ITV Studios Australia in January 2013, with the first program carrying the new branding being the second season of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation comedy news program Shaun Micallef's Mad as Hell.

ITV Studios Germany
ITV Studios Germany productions include Ich bin ein Star – Holt mich hier raus! (the local version of I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!), Star Duell and Deutschlands Beste Doppelgänger (Stars And Their Doubles) for RTL; and East-West German comedy Ei Verbibbsch for Sat.1. ITV Studios Germany was previously known as Granada Germany.

At the start of October 2008, ITV acquired a 51.2% controlling stake in German television production company Imago TV, founded in 1999 by journalists Andrea Schönhuber-Majewski and Fabian Sabo. This deal gave ITV exclusive international rights to distribute and exploit content, format and series rights retained by Imago.

ITV Studios France
Home to a richly diverse slate of programming ranging from primetime entertainment, talent competitions and daily magazine shows to comedy, drama and documentary, ITV Studios France creates content for major broadcasters throughout France. The division has successfully adapted hit international formats for French audiences including 4 Mariages Pour 1 Lune de Miel (a French version of Four Weddings) and The Voice: la plus belle voix (a French version of The Voice) for TF1 and Les 5 anneaux d'or (a French version of 5 Gold Rings) for France 2 and also produces popular original programming such as daily magazine show Je t’aime etc for France 2, comedy series Importantissime for Canal+ and drama feature Quand je serai grande je te tuerai (a French remake of the two-part British thriller television miniseries Undeniable) for TF1.

At the end of February 2017, ITV Studios acquired a majority stake in independent production group Tetra Media Studio, which participates in the fields of fiction (mainly television dramas such as A French Village which is the company is known for producing), documentaries, magazine series, live entertainment, animation, new media, music and distribution; however, Tetra will continue to operate independently from ITV Studios France.

Tetra Media Studio
Tetra Media Studio is a French independent television group founded in 1990 by directors Miguel Courtois, Gilles de Maistre and Jérôme Cornuau. The company participates in the fields of fiction (mainly television dramas such as A French Village which is the company is known for producing), documentaries, magazine series, live entertainment, animation, new media, music and distribution. The group consists of:

ITV Studios Nordic
ITV Studios Nordic is the division of ITV Studios in the Nordic countries, operating through five units: ITV Studios Norway, ITV Studios Finland, ITV Studios Sweden (including Elk Production) and two companies in Denmark named United Productions and Apple Tree Productions respectively.

ITV Studios Netherlands
ITV Studios Netherlands is the Dutch division of ITV Studios, created on 11 October 2018.

On 10 March 2015, ITV Studios acquired Talpa Media, the production arm of the Talpa Network which was well known for creating the successful worldwide music reality competition franchise The Voice. The company comprised Talpa Netherlands (which consisted of Talpa Content and Talpa Productions) and Talpa Global. On 1 October 2019, founder John de Mol left Talpa when ITV Studios began restructuring.

On 1 October 2019, ITV Studios Netherlands absorbed Talpa Netherlands (including Talpa Global, Talpa Productions and Fictie) and also MasMedia and Vorst Media as part of ITV Studios' restructuring. Talpa Media was a Dutch global television production company owned by ITV Studios and before that Talpa Network which was well known for creating the successful worldwide music reality competition franchise The Voice. The company comprised Talpa Netherlands (which consisted of Talpa Content and Talpa Productions) and Talpa Global. In addition, founder John de Mol stood down from the company.

Talpa Global comprised divisions in North America, the Middle East and Germany, although other partnerships were vested in the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Portugal, the Nordic countries, Australia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The North American division was based in Los Angeles, California, the United States, while the Middle East division was based in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates and the German division has offices in Berlin and Hamburg. When ITV started restructuring on 1 October 2019, Talpa's German division was absorbed into ITV Studios Germany and the Middle East division was renamed ITV Studios Middle East.

Distribution
In addition to its production labels, ITV Studios is the worldwide distributor of programming produced by ITV's production teams, as well as independent producers. Programmes include films like Brief Encounter, and the Carry On... films. Also a part of this collection is the ITC Entertainment feature film library, including The Eagle Has Landed, The Return of the Pink Panther, and On Golden Pond. ITV also owns the rights to the film catalogues of The Rank Organisation and Alexander Korda. These films are currently distributed theatrically by Park Circus, in conjunction with Westchester Films, whose parent company Shout! Factory signed a North American theatrical, television, and home video distribution deal with the ITV library in March 2018. This deal covers over a hundred films and series. ITV Studios's distribution arm was known until 2020 as ITV Studios Global Entertainment.

The television library features programming by most of the major ITV network companies (except for Thames Television which is divided between Fremantle for general entertainment and Boat Rocker Media for children's programming; Television South (TVS) which currently belongs to Disney, and Southern Television which until recently belonged to Endemol Australia); including titles such as Prime Suspect, Doctor Zhivago (2002 miniseries), The Forsyte Saga (2002), and Agatha Christie's Poirot, plus children's shows, TV movies (e.g. 2005's Pope John Paul II), wildlife documentaries, and other factual programming. The library also includes hit series such as Bodyguard (produced by World Productions), which has been picked up by Netflix outside the UK.

Independent productions distributed by ITV include programming produced by Wall to Wall: (Ancient Egyptians, The Story Of Us), Darlow Smithson Productions: (Seconds From Disaster), Wark Clements: (A Mother's Journey), Aardman Animations: (Creature Comforts), Ragdoll Productions: (Rosie and Jim, Tots TV), Optimum Television: (Old Bear Stories), Honeycomb Animation: (Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids), Chorion: (Agatha Christie's Marple and Poirot), Carnival Films: (Rosemary & Thyme), and Red Productions: (Bob and Rose, Second Coming).

The company also incorporates ITV Studios Home Entertainment, and a publishing and consumer licensing division, responsible for merchandising rights of ITV Productions and third-party programmes (including CBeebies' Numberjacks). Both have recently been merged in a restructuring of ITV's international arm, which saw the new entity firstly named ITV Worldwide and now ITV Studios Global Entertainment.