UTV rebrand

Thanks for that.

Not sure how you're taking that interpretation from my post. I don't believe I've ever regarded UTV as a true TV company. In terms of programme production, present day UTV possibly has the lowest number of hours per week than at any point in its history. However, UTV has never been anything to write home about in this respect. Media commentators have long referred to UTV as the TV company (their term, not mine) that made money out of not making programmes.

You mention shareholders. And yes, UTV has been about the shareholders now for a very long time - it certainly hasn't been about serving viewers. UTV's main brag has always been the ratings success of its early evening news programme. It must be nice for them that practically the only programme they make does ok in that respect. However, as an occasional viewer of said programme, its success is something of mystery to me. I can only surmise that its largely down to its timeslot and getting in before their main opposition. From the perspective of production values, gravitas and quality of journalism, its BBC NI rival has the edge. Just my opinion.

However, I'm led to believe that UTV Live's ratings lead is not what it once was. I don't have specific details (and have not seen the figures myself) but I'm sure someone on here will be able to quote some of the latest numbers.

So just out of interest, what is your 'cut-off' point for which of the ITV regions were 'true TV companies'?

UTV was by no means the smallest of the licencees, so presumably there were others you viewed with similar disdain?

Let's be honest here - in commercial television the priority is always to serve shareholders. It's a business. You serve shareholders by providing a service which attracts enough viewers to buy the products the advertisers want to flog to them, at the lowest possible cost. That's the reality. Anything else is for prestige (winning over politicians, advertisers, boosting the brand) or due to regulatory requirement (which is partially why ITV probably looked at UTV Ireland and thought "not worth it")

So for example, Scotland Tonight on STV is a highly regarded programme which I suspect in terms of delivering a pure audience will do worse than a repeat of The Chase or something, but boslters the channel's reputation and may well deliver an audience that otherwise may not consider STV a natural home. It also helps to answer those who criticise the station for mainly relaying ITV programming. The STV local channels, once they inevitably become STV2, will also do that, which is a slightly ingenious way of killing off the danger of local competition while essentially producing a new networked channel which will have its own programming. The idea of a Scotland-produced national and international news programme on STV2 is the same, a spoiler for any Scottish Six the BBC may have coming down the track.

The problem UTV had was that, when the time came, no-one really fought its corner because it hadn't really produced much that an ITV-owned UTV wouldn't. That's not to say it didn't in the past - it would have had to produce excellent local news at a time of incredible pressure, constant bulletins, will have produced some shows people will fondly remember and the likes of Julian, even if the act may be outdated now, have become legendary in the country. It's the right time for change, but there's no point in basically just going "well that was just a load of rubbish". UTV produced a huge media company from Northern Ireland which punched above its weight for a while, and in a world of London concentration of the media scene, fair play to it for doing that.

Just had a flick over to itv London and hear one of the Northern Irish Announcer but strangely no announcers on utv daytime is this itv's baby steps into breaking up the UTV brand I think so (still nice to hear a Northern Ireland accent that sounds nice on national TV)

Yes it's only really news and UTV Life now which is a UTV production, all their regional programming such as Lesser Spotted Ulster, EY Entrepreneur of the Year, Paul & Nick are all outsourced by independent production companies. Around 2008/09 they axed programmes like the teatime UTV Life, Kelly (then the follow up Gerry Meets), Jenny Bristow, School Choir of the Year, School Around the Corner and some of these were made by UTV and some not however since 2009/10 it's only been really the 6pm & 10.30pm news and slots in between Coronation Street and Tuesday night.

Mike Nesbitt also said these were axed when UTV became a PLC they changed from caring about the viewer to the shareholder but he still thought it should remain under local ownership and everyone knows the expansion into Ireland caused the selling up of the station however how long they would have held out I don't know as I think the buyout by ITV was inevitable. In my opinion I think UTV Live still does well in this day and age as a legacy of the troubles, people in NI were used to switching on the news daily at 6pm to hear another bombing or person murdered and while this country has moved on a great deal I think habit still makes people switch on UTV at 6pm and like yourself I don't think they are getting the same viewership of years ago it is still holding up well.



While I have been critical of UTV on here on occasions they have indeed done a lot for Northern Ireland, as one of the smallest ITV regions no one expected them to be at the forefront of a civil war for many years and dealt with it incredibly well putting out an hour of news which became the most watched regional news bulletin in the UK. I think Julian also made everyone laugh in dark times and the station should be applauded for all they did in the past and it is a shame in one way that UTV has gone out of NI ownership after 57 years but they needed to move on and they didn't really.

But MMcG198 asserts that UTV was never a proper TV company, which means that even when they were producing this range of programming, and going further back to the 1970s and 1980s, they still weren't a proper TV company. It's no use trying to to make out that this view is somehow a product of modern-day commercial realism -- the view being put forward here is that regionalism itself is irrelevant, and always has been.

As an aside, my view is that the fatal decision UTV made was to allow themselves to be steamrollered by ITV into cancelling 'Kelly' in 2003 despite continued popularity. Where STV stood up for itself, declaring all-out war on ITV at one point, UTV folded in the face of ITV pressure to free up the 9pm slot. That probably marked the turning point in the company's fortunes on a regional level.

I see the point your making that UTV was basically a branch of ITV and not a proper TV Company however UTV was important during the 70s and 80s in NI especially for news being at the forefront of a civil war in this country and I would say regionalism which becoming irrelevant was important back then.

On Kelly it was actually 2005 when Kelly finished with him continuing doing one to one interviews for another 2 years usually at 7.30pm on a Thursday night known as Gerry Meets... and his New Years Eve show but he left to go to BBC Radio Ulster in January 2008. Around 2005/06 Gerry Kelly whilst still at UTV he was interviewed by RTE and stated it was time to move on and was continuing interviews albeit one to one for half an hour on UTV however after leaving the channel he stated that UTV were put under pressure for opting out of the ITV primetime schedule and he never wanted the show to end and of course he was never going to make this public while at the channel. UTV were never able to do what STV did when they stopped showing football, The Bill etc. as they didn't have enough local programming to cover it neither did they have the money to fight ITV like STV did and your quite right about this being a turning point in UTV as Kelly were getting some massive ratings at the time one such episode which was a special on George Best got something like 250,000 watching which is ridiculous for a local UTV programme, at the time only Coronation Street would of bettered that.

I should stress that the above is not my point, or my view at all

I don't think you realise how incredibly offensive your last few posts were.

Cymru am byth.

Spare me your faux outrage and nationalism.

In that case can we have ITV Vindaloo England?