London Weekend (1968-2002)

London Weekend, known on air after 1978 as LWT, was the weekend (Friday night to Sunday night, eventually to the early hours of Monday morning) franchise holder for London and its environs. The brainchild of David Frost and a clique of media big-hitters, it defined itself against the populism of ATV London and initially promised much highbrow material.

After a ratings collapse and a refusal by many other regions to show its programmes, and intense internal turmoil - including a brief period of involvement by Rupert Murdoch, then a new figure in the UK media scene - the company became an effective "son of ATV London", specialising in sitcoms such as On The Buses and light entertainment such as Blind Date and (ironically) a remake of ATV's Palladium show, although it also produced prestigious period drama such as Upstairs, Downstairs. It often had a tense relationship with Thames Television. Senior broadcasting executives such as Michael Grade, John Birt and Greg Dyke first came to prominence at London Weekend.

In 1994, the company was bought by Granada although it retained its own on-screen identity and its association with light entertainment, eventually moving into a new era with Popstars. The LWT brand bowed out in 2002 with a spectacularfinal startup and montage of the company's idents although its name would still appear after programmes produced at its former production base of The London Studios (originally the South Bank Centre), now the epicentre of ITV, until 2004.