Carlton

UK-based Carlton dates from the 1960s. It is a major UK commercial television broadcaster (competing with Murdoch's BSkyB and Granada) and has multimedia and film/tv production interests. Revenues in 2000 were reported as US$3 billion, with pre-tax profits of US$506 million. The group operates in Europe and North America, with around 3,000 employees.

     the group 

Carlton began by supplying technical services to film and video program producers and has moved up the production chain, swallowing service providers, film libraries, CD and videocassette manufacturers, broadcasters, book publishers and other businesses as it went. A chronology is here.

It was formally established in 1983, when Michael Green's private company - involved in television production facilities, programming, exhibition contracting and development of specialist audio/video gear - went public.

Carlton expanded through acquisition of television post-production units in the US and UK, such as The Moving Picture Company and Complete Post, at one stage buying and selling off the United Engineering Industries conglomerate that encompassed racing cars and pixellation software. It bought equipment manufacturers (most since sold) such as Abekas Video Systems and film processor Technicolor, along with the Nimbus CD operation and disk/tape plants in the UK, Canada, US and Mexico. After acquiring an initial stake in ITV licence-holder Central Independent Television it absorbed Zenith Productions in 1987, becoming the largest independent UK tv program maker (eg Inspector Morse and Wheel of Fortune).

By the end of the decade Carlton had a global market (and units in the UK, US, Canada, Mexico, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands). Its equipment sold in 47 countries, it was Europe's leading video post-production service, it was the world's largest processor of motion picture film and the largest producer of pre-recorded videocassettes. In 1991 it established Carlton television after gaining the London Weekday Channel 3 licence, the most lucrative ITV franchise. It launched Carlton Books (absorbing ailing upmarket publisher Andre Deutsch) and bought downmarket but more profitable audio and music group Pickwick. In 1993 it gained a stake in ITN, the commercial broadcast news service, continued to buy film libraries (including the Korda and Rank films), moved to full ownership of Central and sold Zenith Productions to comply with Broadcasting Act requirements.

At that stage the group had 30% of ITV advertising revenue, equivalent to 22% of total UK television advertising and covering 36% of the UK population. Its 1996 purchase of Cinema Media (renamed Carlton Screen Advertising) gave it 80% of all cinema advertising in the UK and Ireland. It swallowed Westcountry Television (increasing aggregate coverage to 39% of the UK population) and producers such as Action Time and Planet 24. Plans to merge with other media groups were rejected. In 2000 it reshuffled its ITV units, buying HTV from Granada.

In 1997 Carlton and established ONdigital (now ITV Digital) with half of the digital terrestrial capacity in the UK, competing with cable services (most substantially owned by US Liberty Media) and Murdoch-controlled BSkyB. In effect there are now two analogue tv broadcasters in England, several cable networks and two digital groups.

Future direction is unclear; Carlton (like its competitors) is servicing heavy debts in markets where significant new investment seems required. It's reported as wanting to float some of the equity in the disappointing ITV Digital. As a terrestrial broadcaster, however, it can frighten away many predators by waving UK media ownership legislation.

An indication of Carlton holdings towards the end of 2001 is here.

     studies 

The major study of Carlton is Raymond Snoddy's irreverent and often perceptive Greenfinger: The Rise of Michael Green and Carlton Communications (London: Faber 96).

As a grand acquisitor it's hoovered up some of the more colourful parts of the content industries. For a glimpse of the ITC film library see Lew 'Raise the Titanic' Grade's memoir Still Dancing (London: Collins 87). Perhaps the best study of Alexander Korda and London Films is Michael Korda's Charmed Lives (London: Allen Lane 80). For Rank see Roy Armes' A Critical History of the British Cinema (New York: Oxford Uni Press 78) and Geoffrey Macnab's J Arthur Rank and the British Film Industry (London: Routledge 93). There's alas no study of Raymond Rohauer, the piratical silent film buff who reputedly left his collection to his two cats, who presumably lived well off Carlton's £1m.

Asa Briggs' five volume official historyThe History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom (London: Oxford Uni Press 61-86) provides background to the ITV system but predates Carlton's expansion. There's better coverage in Independent Television in Britain (London: Macmillan 82- ) by Bernard Sendall, Jeremy Potter & Paul Bonner and in Stuart Hood's Behind the Screens: The Structure of British Television in the Nineties (London: Lawrence & Wishart 94).

For Andre Deutsch see Diana Athill's superb Stet: A Memoir (London: Granta 00).





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