What was your favorite regional ITV station growing up?: A question asking which ITV station you grew up watching. - Page 51 - Post 1237898

IS

Inspector Sands 9 June 2020 7:50am

Anglia brought one in during 88, then London and YTV in 89 for the ITV generic look, then Tyne Tees in 90. After that I don't think any of them did until the late 90s.

Thames were quite lucky in that they changed their logo to be triangular so the break bumpers worked after they ditched the ITV branding

IS

Inspector Sands 9 June 2020 7:56am

Colm posted:

'Opticals', I guess, fell out-of-fashion as more adverts became sourced from videotape, so almost all companies just stuck with black space into commercial breaks.

Some companies also used 'flashes' between any ads played off telecine - e.g. the LWT squares, the Westward/Channel revolving hexagon - that idea was revived on *some* region's breaks between 2002 and 2004 with the blue/yellow squares.

The idea was revived for Channel 5. When that launched I remember how odd it seemed to have a bumper in between every advert.

Carlton originally had a break bumper with sound, that didn't last long. I assume they realised how annoying it was

MA

Markymark 9 June 2020 8:06am

Inspector Sands posted:

Markymark posted:

I don't think even the 90s tape based cart systems, had the processing ability to insert in opticals/break flashes. I recall late 90s a request from a European broadcaster to have flashes, and it wasn't possible (I can't remember the detail though)

Surely if it was wanted in front of every advert you don't need the cart machine to play it out every time, you can just edit it onto the front of the ad?

Well, you know what, I suggested exactly that in a meeting, the client looked at me as if I was mad 🤷‍♂️

BL

bluecortina 9 June 2020 9:38am

Markymark posted:

Inspector Sands posted:

Markymark posted:

I don't think even the 90s tape based cart systems, had the processing ability to insert in opticals/break flashes. I recall late 90s a request from a European broadcaster to have flashes, and it wasn't possible (I can't remember the detail though)

Surely if it was wanted in front of every advert you don't need the cart machine to play it out every time, you can just edit it onto the front of the ad?

Well, you know what, I suggested exactly that in a meeting, the client looked at me as if I was mad 🤷‍♂️

It does sound like a very inefficient use of resources.

SC

Si-Co 9 June 2020 10:59am

Inspector Sands posted:

Markymark posted:

I don't think even the 90s tape based cart systems, had the processing ability to insert in opticals/break flashes. I recall late 90s a request from a European broadcaster to have flashes, and it wasn't possible (I can't remember the detail though)

Anyone else remember that odd campaign online years ago about the removal of the black gaps between ads? No trace of it now and we all survived and got used to it. I'm sure that part of their argument was that the broadcasters were trying to save money by not needing a machine to put the black between the ads

When did ITV1 remove the black second between the ads? Did it coincide with a rebrand - possibly the 2006 one? I assume the four square flash was discontinued when ITV1 rebranded in 2006, as it would no longer match the on screen look - but perhaps it was dumped earlier? The flash was definitely still around when YTV/NTC took over playout of the Central region, which I think was 2004/2005, because the flash disappeared overnight in that region. I personally saw it for the first time when I was in London in March 2004.

IS

Inspector Sands 9 June 2020 11:07am

bluecortina posted:

Markymark posted:

Inspector Sands posted:

Surely if it was wanted in front of every advert you don't need the cart machine to play it out every time, you can just edit it onto the front of the ad?

Well, you know what, I suggested exactly that in a meeting, the client looked at me as if I was mad 🤷‍♂️

It does sound like a very inefficient use of resources.

Depends what the existing workflow is, if you're having to dub off ads to put in the cart system then it's not that much more resource heavy, just more time consuming

BL

bluecortina 9 June 2020 11:30am

Si-Co posted:

Inspector Sands posted:

Markymark posted:

I don't think even the 90s tape based cart systems, had the processing ability to insert in opticals/break flashes. I recall late 90s a request from a European broadcaster to have flashes, and it wasn't possible (I can't remember the detail though)

Anyone else remember that odd campaign online years ago about the removal of the black gaps between ads? No trace of it now and we all survived and got used to it. I'm sure that part of their argument was that the broadcasters were trying to save money by not needing a machine to put the black between the ads

When did ITV1 remove the black second between the ads? Did it coincide with a rebrand - possibly the 2006 one? I assume the four square flash was discontinued when ITV1 rebranded in 2006, as it would no longer match the on screen look - but perhaps it was dumped earlier? The flash was definitely still around when YTV/NTC took over playout of the Central region, which I think was 2004/2005, because the flash disappeared overnight in that region. I personally saw it for the first time when I was in London in March 2004.

Under the original broadcasting regulations adverts were required to be seen to be distinct from not only the programmes but also from each other, the black (or whatever) performed that function. Perhaps this requirement changed when the IBA became the ITC? With regards the 4 flashes in the LWT optical (if that is what you are referring to?) that would have disappeared in the late 80’s when comms playout moved from telecine/ACR to Betacart. That Betacart being eventually moved to GMTV in 1993 when they started transmission for the provision of taped inserts into the main programme.

IS

Inspector Sands 9 June 2020 11:38am

The black gap disappeared in the last 15 years or so, as I say I remember there being a bit of an Internet campaign against it happening when channel 4 started doing ads without it

MA

Markymark 9 June 2020 11:40am

Inspector Sands posted:

The black gap disappeared in the last 15 years or so, as I say I remember there being a bit of an Internet campaign against it happening when channel 4 started doing ads without it

I've got a feeling C4 did it as an ITC (or was it Ofcom by then) experiment ?

BL

bluecortina 9 June 2020 12:47pm

Markymark posted:

Inspector Sands posted:

The black gap disappeared in the last 15 years or so, as I say I remember there being a bit of an Internet campaign against it happening when channel 4 started doing ads without it

I've got a feeling C4 did it as an ITC (or was it Ofcom by then) experiment ?

C4 was certainly the first UK channel I saw the practice on. I just assumed they were trying to be trendy by following the American way of doing things? Having said that we only tend(ed) to watch the major UK channels apart from TPTV nowadays.

CO

Coronavision 9 June 2020 1:58pm

Was there supposed to be a standard length of that black space between adverts? I noticed it seemed to differ between different companies.

TTTV used a very consistent 0.75 second gap between each advert (and that space lacked any audio or video noise so looked to be inserted somehow), but I think Central's was a full second, YTV's was probably half a second and others seemed all over the place with inconsistent spacing.

NJ

Neil Jones Founding member 9 June 2020 2:05pm

Coronavision posted:

Was there supposed to be a standard length of that black space between adverts? I noticed it seemed to differ between different companies.

TTTV used a very consistent 0.75 second gap between each advert (and that space lacked any audio or video noise so looked to be inserted somehow), but I think Central's was a full second, YTV's was probably half a second and others seemed all over the place with inconsistent spacing.

It seems so odd now that there used to be a period of black between each advert. These days any period of black for more than two nano seconds seems to imply half the viewership will disappear, and of course every second of black adds up which could possibly squeeze one more advert in.

I think out of the five terrestrial networks Channel 5 was the first "main" one to stop doing this when they launched with a break flash in place of that period of black.