UTV sell TV business to ITV

I don't think it will as the current local bulletins are done from the continuity studio with no UTV Live branding or similarities whatsoever.

With regards to UTV during ITV Breakfast, obviously as reported the other week the new UTV DOG appeared in error during GMB. Worth noting that since then the ITV DOG hasn't appeared during GMB hours, when apparently it should.

I highly doubt the new look will debut at 5:59am, 9:25am seems more certain.

ITV launched their new look at 05:59.

I agree on 9.25am, however I presume that now the UTV DOG will be shown during GMB as there will no longer be a separate 6am-9.25am services in terms of technical switching (although they will still be separate franchises).

UTV doesn't start up until 9:25am so it will debut then.

Do you think when ITV buy STV they'll finally move the end of the breakfast schedule to 9.30 instead of 9.25? Although I like the fact it's still there just out of tradition

Interesting experience. I'm not familiar with UTV at all, which means that I'm not in a good position to comment on the pros and cons of the takeover by ITV, but would you say that UTV has lost it's way as a producer and broadcaster so is now trudging forlornly into the 21st century?

A few months ago I enquired about whether STV and UTV regularly networked programmes. The reply was very rarely. TonyCurrie stated that “IIRC the original plan (in 1959) was for UTV in its first year to produce just a few hours a week of local programmes. However, given the way that the ITV network operated in those days, that meant they would acquire and broadcast a fair amount of acquired film programmes (they didn't have VT at this point of course). So they would pick as much appropriate material as they could from what was available on the network and then fill the gaps with things like 'The Four Just Men'. They were an affiliate of ABC Television who looked after arrangements with the network on their behalf.”

http://www.tvforum.co.uk/tvhome/stv-utv-networked-programmes-41808/

UTV is a TV channel that doesn't really exist outside of Ulster and Ireland. Even in the decades of regional ITV a UTV programme on the mainland was an extremely rare sight. Very few people on the mainland would even recognise the UTV logo unless they had seen UTV in real life. Is it justified to say that UTV only existed for local news, a handful of low budget local programmes, and a conduit for Coronation Street et al? Even Grampian and TSW had more presence on the ITV network than UTV did.

A work colleague once travelled around Britain experiencing several ITV companies in the process. He says that he wasn't very keen on UTV from the perspectives of both the local programmes and presentation style. Was the lacklustre side of UTV more a result of a lack of talent available in Northern Ireland or failure of the management to invest in talent? The regular presence of IVC on UTV is a controversial feature. Some viewers enjoy it whilst others see it as old fashioned or not moving with the times and technology. I have wondered if ITV franchise auctions still existed whether UTV would have lost in 2014. Has it become another Southern TV?

I like the way you didn't say if haha!

Well, Really the viewers are used to the 9:25am finish so unless there's a really good reason to change it I don't think it will change.

It probably gives them a little more advertising time too and advertising time is valueable to ITV so I'd guess it will never change.

They were involved in the production of the sitcom The Irish RM for Channel 4 in the 1980s, but I don't know what the extent of their involvement was - it was filmed in the Republic.

School around the Corner was an interesting one. It was a format that belonged to RTÉ, and was one of their earliest TV productions. The show was revived in the 1990s hosted by the late Gerry Ryan. UTV became involved as a co-production partner on the last RTE series, which featured schools from both north and south, and then continued the show for a good few years as an NI-only affair and hosted by Frank Mitchell. (RTE has since revived the format again).

After 1993 I think UTV only produced one show for the network, which iirc was a one off documentary on Irish dancing.

Because viewers being "used to" one particular scheduling/timing pattern has stopped TV bosses from ever changing any scheduling/timing patterns in the whole history of television?

I must have imagined the era(s) when telly didn't even start up until after 9am each day. Or when ITV's main early evening news was done-and-dusted before 6pm (and variously started at 5.40pm/5.45pm). Or when different ITV regional news programmes were variously 30/35/60 minutes long, each starting at either 5.55pm, 6pm, 6.25pm or 6.30pm. Or when the last programme on BBC1 before the Six o'Clock News started at 5.35pm (Neighbours) rather than 5.15pm as now (Weakest Link/Pointless)...

The short answer is no.

The long answer is unless there becomes a point where scheduling dictates moving from that junction I see no reason for it to happen - indeed arguably less reason now than when ITV didn't own the breakfast licence. ITV seem to have no reason to change the scheduling of Lorraine or Jeremy Kyle, although if one of the two did quit in the next few years rather than find a replacement they could rejig the schedule and extend GMB and This Morning to cover the gap left, which might result in the 9.25 starting point being moved.

And the longer answer would be if we get to a point where ITV Plc own the entire network rather than moving the end time of the breakfast franchise I think OFCOM would be under pressure just to abandon it completely and role it into the ITV licences.

Is there any way to watch a live stream of UTV tonight? I don't have a satellite dish. Do I have to sign up to ITV Hub with a NI postcode?