In 2002, a major change of appearance occurred when all ITV regions in England and Wales adopted national continuity.

However, in line with the other former analogue channels, ITV1's audience share has fallen as a result of availability of multi-channel television, and more recently streaming services, in the UK.

The three largest regions, London, the Midlands, and the North of England, were initially sub-divided into weekday and weekend services, with a different company running each.

The regulator, the ITA (and later the IBA) operated the transmitters, awarded franchises and had a great influence over schedules, content and technical standards.

Legally the regulator was the broadcaster – the companies were contracted to provide an "independent television service" to compete with the BBC.

The ITV network existed in a region-heavy form from its inception through to the 2000s, although the switch to a single unified service was gradual.

ITV1 became the generic on-screen brand name used by the twelve franchises of the ITV network in the United Kingdom.

The ITV1 brand was introduced on 11 August 2001 by the franchisees owned by Carlton and Granada, initially used alongside the local regional name, such as "ITV1 Anglia" and "ITV1 Meridian".

The United Kingdom Broadcasting Act 1990 changed many of the rules regulating the ITV network, which most notably relaxed separate franchise ownership, and hours of production.

Meridian's owner, Mills and Allen International, then went on to purchase Anglia Television in the same year, before merging to become United News and Media (UNM) in 1995.

Granada then agreed a deal to take over Yorkshire-Tyne Tees Television in 1997, giving the broadcaster access to both Yorkshire and North East franchises.

Granada then went on to purchase all of UNM's television interests (including its ITV franchises), which brought Meridian and Anglia into its power, but due to regulation, Granada was forced to sell HTV's franchise to Carlton while acquiring HTV's production facilities.

Initially, the UTV name was retained, but on 2 April 2020 the station began using ITV's national continuity-at first as an emergency measure due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, then announced as a permanent transition on 26 November 2020.

This arrangement was suspended in February 2009, when ITV implemented plans to save the company £40m a year on the amount it spent making local news, but was reinstated (with slightly fewer sub-regions) on 16 September 2013.

On 16 September 2013, ITV reverted to a more localised system, as was the case prior to a shake-up in 2009, with 14 news regions (rather than eight).

[4] This meant people in the Borders, for example, saw a return to a Border-only news service, with all stories covered solely on Southern Scotland and Cumbria, similar to the pre-Tyne Tees merger in February 2009.

By 2001, all eleven franchises of England and Wales were owned by either Granada plc or Carlton Communications, and a new common name, ITV1, was launched on 11 August 2001.

Promotions were used in a similar format to ITV1, and all daytime programmes advertised within ITV1 hours branded with the ITV Day logo.

In January 2006, the channel adopted a new on-air look, designed mainly to improve cross-channel promotion across ITV's multichannel presence.

The new logo brought ITV1, ITV2, and ITV3 in line with ITV4's and had been observed on various billboard ads in the UK when the new identity was first used on-screen on 16 January 2006.

The overhaul also put an end to the former ITV Day brand, which was axed in favour of a full-time ITV1 identity.

[16] ITV1 also received another rebrand, as part of a redesign of all ITV's main channels, being carried out in tandem with the launch of the streaming service ITVX.

[17] The logo is now coloured blue and uses idents that are cross-used across ITV2, ITV3, ITV4 and ITVBe with different views which reflect the channel's image and programming output.