STV Group plc (formerly known as Scottish Television plc, Scottish Media Group plc and SMG plc) is a media company based in Glasgow, Scotland. Beginning as a television broadcaster in 1957, the company expanded into newspapers, advertising and radio; after completing a restructuring in 2010, STV Group is active in broadcast television, video-on-demand and television production. The company is a constituent of the FTSE SmallCap Index.
STV Group plc owns two Scottish ITV licences: Scottish Television, which covers Central Scotland, and Grampian Television, covering Northern Scotland. On 2 March 2006, it was announced that Scottish Television would revert to using its former brand name of "STV", which it previously used from the start of colour broadcasting in 1969 until 30 August 1985, and which the station was still informally known as in parts of Scotland. Scottish Television became known as STV Central. At the same time, Grampian Television would also become known as STV North, with the one main identity of STV serving the two licences. The rebrand took place on 30 May 2006.
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The former SMG plc ran its own digital channel, S2, throughout the Scottish and Grampian ITV regions. S2, which aired on the Digital Terrestrial platform, was launched on 30 April 1999 and was replaced by ITV2 just over two years later – as part of a deal with ITV Digital – on 27 July 2001.[3]
Sky Scottish was a satellite television channel operating on the analogue Sky TV service between 1 November 1996 and 31 May 1998. The service was a joint venture between British Sky Broadcasting and SMG. It initially broadcast between 6.00pm and 8.00pm. The channel was closed due to poor ratings.[citation needed]
A high-definition channel, STV HD, launched on 6 June 2010.[4]
On 11 January 2013, STV were awarded two local TV licences by Ofcom to operate digital terrestrial television channels in Glasgow and Edinburgh for up to 12 years.[5] The two channels, STV Glasgow and STV Edinburgh, were to be delivered in partnership with Glasgow Caledonian University and Edinburgh Napier University respectively.[6] STV Glasgow launched on 2 June 2014,[7] and STV Edinburgh launched on 12 January 2015. In March 2015, STV were awarded local licences for the Aberdeen, Ayr and Dundee areas.[8] In April 2017, STV Glasgow and STV Edinburgh were re-branded as STV2. Just over a year later in May 2018, STV announced that it would be closing STV2 on 30 June 2018.[9]
£137.80 million (2022)[2]
£25.20 million (2022)[2]