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Granada and Carlton have won government approval for a £4.5bn merger, which will help the ITV companies compete with the BBC and BSkyB. 08-Oct-2003 Carlton Communications is to dispose of its 25,000 sq ft Knightsbridge headquarters in London, and staff may be relocated to its office in St Martins Lane. 02-Jun-2003 Carlton is to shed 75 jobs at its Lenton Lane studio in Nottingham, following the decision to stop producing the Crossroads programme. 11-Apr-2003 Granada and Carlton are planning a £2.7bn merger, which would create a combined commercial broadcasting business with 8,000 staff. 14-Oct-2002 Carlton Communications is to set up a production company on the east coast of the US, in order to expand its output of TV documentaries. 28-Aug-2002 Carlton Communications and Granada have gained control of the ITN News Channel by acquiring the 65% stake held by ITN, and will relaunch the service to compete with other rolling news channels. 13-Jun-2002 Carlton Communications has formed a joint venture with Thomson Multimedia to acquire the cinema advertising operations of UGC of France and RTBF of Belgium for £62m. 16-May-2002 Granada and Carlton Communications are planning a £4m revamp for their London News Network joint venture, which will result in the loss of about 28 of the 250 jobs. 17-Aug-2001 Carlton Communications and Sainsbury have closed their Taste Network internet and digital TV food channel with the loss of about 20 jobs. 10-Aug-2001 Carlton Communications is forming a partnership with the Public Broadcasting Service and Corporation for Public Broadcasting to invest £14m in the production of TV programmes for the US market. 21-Jun-2001 Granada and Carlton Communications are planning to combine their ITV, pay-TV and internet operations under the ITV brand, which will result in ONdigital being renamed ITV Digital. 23-Apr-2001 Granada Media is discussing plans to merge its internet operations with those of Carlton Communications, in order to maximise the value of the ITV brand name. 29-Jan-2001 Carlton Communications has sold its Technicolor video and film processing business to Thomson Multimedia of France, in a £1.4bn deal that will also give Carlton a 5.5% stake in Thomson. 12-Dec-2000 Carlton Communications is to acquire HTV, the Welsh ITV franchise, from Granada Media, in exchange for £181m and Carlton's 20% stake in the Meridian licence. 24-Oct-2000 Carlton Communications is planning to acquire Andre Deutsch, the publisher of sports and TV books, from VCI for less than £5m. 05-Oct-2000 United News & Media and Carlton Communications have dropped plans for a £8bn merger, following a ruling by the Competition Commission that the combined group would have to dispose of the Meridian TV franchise. 24-Jul-2000 Carlton Communications has sold its Quantel image processing equipment business to management for £51m. 14-Jul-2000 Carlton Communications is planning to form a pan-European internet investment alliance with TF1 of France, Telecinco of Spain, Mediaset of Italy and Kirch of Germany. 25-May-2000 Carlton Communications has acquired Screenvision for £63m, in order to move into the US cinema advertising market. 23-May-2000 Carlton Communications is looking to sell its Technicolor film processing business, in order to raise £1.5bn to invest in its TV and online operations. 15-May-2000 Pearson and Carlton Communications are in discussions to acquire TalkBack Productions, the producer of TV comedy programmes. 03-Apr-2000 WH Smith and Carlton Communications are to link their e-commerce operations, with visitors to Carlton's web sites being directed to WH Smith's site and any resulting revenue shared between the two companies. 22-Mar-2000 Carlton Communications is to expand its Technicolor division through the £31m acquisition of Consolidated Film Industries, the US processor of large film formats for the movie industry. 06-Mar-2000 United News & Media and Carlton Communications have had their proposed merger referred to the Competition Commission, which is expected to lead to a major review of ownership of the ITV network. 09-Feb-2000 Carlton Communications has sold its Solid State Logic audio mixing console business to management for £43m, and may now sell off its Technicolor video duplication and Quantel digital pixellation operations. 23-Dec-1999 Carlton Communications is forming a £63m joint venture with TF1 of France to help internet businesses expand across Europe, and other media groups may be invited to join the project. 17-Dec-1999 Carlton Communications and Granada are each investing £20m in a joint venture to create a UK version of the Ask Jeeves internet search engine. 06-Dec-1999 United News & Media and Carlton Communications have announced plans for a merger, in order to create the largest ITV broadcaster with six franchises and a market valuation of £8bn. 26-Nov-1999 Carlton Communications is considering plans to bid for one of the next generation of mobile phone licences, and is discussing potential alliances with phone manufacturers and retailers. 06-Nov-1999 Carlton Communications has bought a 20% stake in PeopleBank, the online recruitment company, in a £2.3m deal. 27-Oct-1999 Carlton Communications has identified a number of non-core businesses which could be sold to their management teams or to outside bidders. 29-Sep-1999 Carlton Communications is to acquire the remaining 50% of Hamdon Entertainment, the distributor of US TV dramas, for up to £19m, and will rename the business Carlton America. 07-Sep-1999 Carlton Communications is to rebrand its Westcountry and Central ITV franchises under the Carlton banner. 01-Sep-1999 Carlton Communications has acquired a 49% stake in Real Image Digital, the digital film processing business, for £14m. 06-Aug-1999 Carlton Communications is to establish a cinema advertising business in the US, by opening an office in New York in October. 05-Aug-1999 Carlton Communications is seeking a new office building in London of about 200,000 sq ft, having dropped plans to move to Unity Buildings in the West End. 03-Jul-1999 Carlton Communications is buying two North American video duplicating companies for £12m - VTR Video of Canada and Grupo Video Visa of Mexico. 21-Jun-1999 Carlton Communications is considering plans to link up with Granada to launch a new TV channel to show the most popular ITV programmes. 27-May-1999 Carlton Communications and Granada are said to be in discussions to acquire a stake in Video Networks, in preparation for the nationwide launch of its interactive TV services later this year. 22-Mar-1999 Carlton Communications has acquired Planet 24, the TV production company, for £15m. 11-Mar-1999 Carlton Communications has launched an internet service through its DHE subsidiary, which will be aimed at retailers and publishers. 11-Feb-1999 Scottish Media and Guardian Media are planning to sell their combined 35% stake in GMTV, which could result in Carlton Communications and Granada taking full control of the breakfast TV station. 04-Feb-1999 Carlton Communications is buying the ITC library of 300 movies and 5,000 hours of TV programming from Seagram for £94m. 20-Jan-1999 Carlton Communications has ended talks with Arsenal that could have led to an offer being made for the football club. 21-Nov-1998 Carlton Communications is considering plans to bid for Rank's video duplication business. 05-Nov-1998 Carlton Communications is in negotiations to acquire PolyGram's film and TV library from Seagram. 17-Oct-1998 Carlton Communications is in discussions with Arsenal that could lead to the acquisition of the football club, while other media groups are also becoming interested in owning clubs. 11-Sep-1998 Carlton Communications is said to have secured the supply of a film and a crime channel from Universal Studios of the US, for broadcasting via its On Digital service. 04-Aug-1998 Carlton Communications is in discussions with a number of media companies about the formation of joint ventures for its forthcoming Carlton Films and Public Eye pay-TV channels. 07-Jul-1998 Carlton Communications is planning to acquire Nimbus CD International, the US disk maker, for £160m, in order to give its Technicolor division access to the new digital versatile disks that are expected to replace CD-Roms and video cassettes. 18-Jun-1998 Carlton Communications has acquired a 50% stake in Central de Video, the Mexican video cassette maker, for £9m. 12-Jun-1998 Carlton Communications has acquired National Screen Service, the distributor of promotional material on films to UK cinemas, from its management for £2.2m. 12-Jun-1998 Carlton Communications is to invest £20m in the creation of a new company called Carlton Online, which will develop a number of new internet businesses and create 30 jobs. 23-Apr-1998 Carlton Communications is linking up with National Geographic Television to invest about £18m in the production of 300 hours of TV documentaries. 16-Apr-1998 Carlton Communications is planning a £6m investment to expand production of DVD video discs at its Technicolor subsidiary in California. 25-Mar-1998 BSkyB has threatened legal action against Carlton and Granada, the British Digital Broadcasting shareholders, if they choose a digital TV set-top box system that is not compatible with the one being used by BSkyB. 20-Feb-1998 Carlton Communications is forming a joint venture with Intermedia to prepare feature films for production, and Carlton will merge its international sales operation with Village Intermedia Pictures. 20-Sep-1997 Carlton Communications has acquired Metrocolor London from Time Warner Entertainment for £3.8m, and will combine it with its Technicolor film processing business. 12-Sep-1997 Carlton Communications has bought the Rohauer Film Collection of classic movies for undisclosed terms. 20-Aug-1997 The Independent Television Commission has awarded the main licence for digital terrestrial television to British Digital Broadcasting, the consortium made up of Carlton Communications and Granada. 25-Jun-1997 Carlton Communications and its partners in the British Digital Broadcasting consortium have started discussions with British Telecom to develop interactive set-top boxes for digital TV. 30-Apr-1997 Carlton Communications has acquired Rank Film Distributors from the Rank Group for £65m. 03-Apr-1997 Rank is discussing the sale of Rank Film Distribution to a company thought to be Carlton Communications. 01-Mar-1997 Carlton Communications and Hampton Trust are planning to build the largest tower building in Birmingham as part of a £200m leisure complex. 28-Feb-1997 Carlton Communications has said it will spend up to £100m on the production of programmes for the British Digital Broadcasting consortium. 11-Feb-1997 BSkyB is linking up with Carlton Communications and Granada to bid for the rights to introduce digital terrestrial television in the UK. 31-Jan-1997 Carlton Communications has acquired a 10% stake in Getty Communications, the provider of images to media companies, for £17m, with an option to increase the stake. 11-Dec-1996 Carlton Communications is planning to expand into pay TV as both an operator and provider of programmes, and believes that new opportunities will stem from the launch of digital terrestrial TV. 05-Dec-1996 Carlton Communications has acquired Action Time, the independent television production company, for up to £4.3m. 26-Nov-1996 Carlton Communications has acquired Westcountry Television for £85m, having outbid United News & Media. 25-Nov-1996 Carlton Communications has agreed a deal to supply 700 hours of programming to UK Gold, its first major sale outside the ITV network. 18-Sep-1996 Carlton Communications is discussing the acquisition of Metrocolour, the London-based film and television processing laboratory currently owned by Warner Brothers. 17-Sep-1996 Carlton Communications has launched Carlton Food Network, Europe's first cable TV channel dedicated to food. 03-Sep-1996 Carlton Communications has bought Cinema Media, which controls about 80% of UK cinema advertising, for £58m. 23-Jul-1996 Pearson and Carlton Communications are considering plans to jointly launch a Hindi-language satellite channel in India. 19-Mar-1996 Carlton Communications has bought SelecTV, the cable channel, for £5.2m, but will put its holding into a "dead-locked" company to avoid breaching broadcasting rules. 31-Jan-1996 Carlton Communications plans to introduce cable and satellite channels, including a Carlton Gold channel. 07-Dec-1995 Carlton Communications and Granada are running out of time to each sell 16% of the ITN shares by the end of the month, as required by the ITC. 06-Dec-1995 Carlton may launch a satellite channel in India. 14-Oct-1995 Carlton Communications has sold Abekas Video Systems for $52m to Scitex Corp of Israel. 19-Sep-1995 Carlton Communications has formed a 3-way joint venture to launch Channel KTV, a new music satellite channel, in Asia. 11-Sep-1995
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