STV

On August 31st, 1957, Scottish Television made its debut as the first seven-day franchise awarded by the ITA in Central Scotland. This marked the arrival of ITV in Scotland, bringing the question “What’s on Channel 10, Hen?” to households. The company was owned by Canadian newspaper magnate Roy Thomson, who established its headquarters in the Theatre Royal in Glasgow, where the first show ‘This Is Scotland’ was broadcast.

Despite being approached in the 1970s by the IBA to launch a second ITV channel, nothing came to fruition. Scottish did, however, contribute to Channel 4, including the first ever TV coverage of curling. In 1981, Scottish became the first ITV region to have their own regional teletext pages on ORACLE.

In 1997, Scottish took over Grampian, but failed to acquire Border, which was acquired by Capital Media. In 2006, the channel was renamed STV Central.