As Carlton's name has no relation to its region, its on-screen identity has been completely removed (along with those of HTV, LWT and GMTV).

Some commentators consequently speculated that Thames had fallen victim to a "government vendetta", whilst others felt that the auction had been won fairly.

At the stroke of midnight, following ITN's Into The New Year bulletin featuring the Westminster clock tower chimes, technicians at the Crystal Palace transmitter switched from Thames' Euston Road headquarters to the LNN playout centre from where Carlton went on-air with an opening ident featuring the then Town Crier of London, with the then-famous slogan of Carlton, "This is Carlton Television for London", ringing the bell three times, and the first announcement from continuity announcer Graham Bannerman.

The station's first programme was the entertainment special A Carlton New Year, produced in-house and presented by Chris Tarrant.

After the special, the movie Best Defense, which starred Dudley Moore and Eddie Murphy, aired, which began after Carlton's second ident, with the Cadets of the Royal Navy, saying the slogan, was shown.

The first Carlton-produced programme to be broadcast nationally was Surprise Party, effectively the same format as This Is Your Life, previously a mainstay of predecessor Thames Television.

At the end of the hour-long show, Michael Parkinson told viewers to keep their eyes out for another Surprise Party.

Alarm bells had been ringing before Carlton even transmitted as part of the ITV network, as one notable commission with wide publicity was The Good Sex Guide, inviting scorn and derision from conservative newspapers, before it had actually been broadcast.

In May 1994, the Independent Television Commission criticised a number of ITV stations as part of its review for the first 12 months of the new franchise in 1993.

Carlton Television was condemned for providing a wide range of 'unimpressive and very disappointing' programmes for the ITV network, which were 'neither distinctive nor noticeable high quality'.

[8] This criticism came after Carlton and Granada secretly planned to axe News at Ten in the chase for ratings, a move which was foiled by the ITC.

[10][page needed] During a 1994 review, ITC commented that Carlton had made improvements, in its factual and drama output, while its children's programmes were 'impressive', but more remained to be achieved.

[11][page needed] In 1995, its regional programming was regarded as high quality but with few innovations; The Good Sex Guide was guilty of breaching taste and decency requirements with little educational classifications, which resulted in the company receiving two written warnings from the ITC.

[13][page needed] Carlton found itself at the centre of a major controversy about truthfulness in broadcast journalism in May 1998, when The Guardian carried a series of articles alleging the wholesale fabrication of a much-garlanded 1996 documentary, The Connection, which had purported to film the route by which heroin was smuggled into the United Kingdom from Colombia.

[15][16] Changes in legislation concerning media ownership enabled Carlton to buy out many of the other ITV stations, including Central Independent Television, Westcountry, and part of HTV (via Granada), as well as the rights to the archives of ITC Entertainment and its former sister company ATV.

The ITC archive is financially lucrative, since it includes such popular series as Thunderbirds, The Prisoner, and The Saint, as well as such feature films as On Golden Pond.

In 1997, Carlton formed a partnership with Granada and BSkyB to bid for some of the multiplexes for the new digital terrestrial network.

In June of that year, it was successful in its application, and began the service, OnDigital, under the condition BSkyB withdrew from the group.

On 4 September 1995,[19] a new in-house look was launched featuring changing backgrounds of colours with a translucent Carlton logo in the centre of the screen, becoming opaque and white at the end of the ident.

Lambie-Nairn devised the new set on 25 November 1996,[20] featuring the Carlton logo against a brightly coloured background and various animations occurring.

Between 1996 and 2003, Carlton owned a number of extra channels, carried initially on analogue cable, and also later on their flagship platform, ONdigital too, although none of them ever made it onto Sky Digital.

Carlton Cinema received an EPG position of its own, but would be periodically closed down to provide bandwidth for "On Sport 2" during the ONdigital days.