Best and Worst Regional Titles and Themes

Yeah I always thought the blue was cold and the shiny floor didn't work.

I liked the LDN look NWT tonight had before this.

Same great studio. but I wished they had new scenery instead of putting the red circles over the old ones

The prize for the simplest and cheapest regional news theme must go to Scottish Television. At some point in the 80’s or early 90’s, their peripheral bulletins and brief updates/weekend bulletins were introduced and ended with a very simplistic rendition of the “pips” in a morse-code type of rhythm.

In those years, only their prime time news programme (Scotland Today) at 6pm had a full intro and exit theme. Some good ones too.

But if you tuned-in after News at Ten for the 5mins update, you’d get the Morse-code over a static slide and then the same over a static end board at the finish.

Needless to say, that “look” didn’t last very long. I hope someone here can come up with a clip of said theme.

(I’m sorry if it’s already been mentioned in the preceding pages, and I can’t find a clip on YouTube).

The STV Footage Sales page on Twitter have posted some crackers over the last year or so.

The *really* sad thing is that I knew it was the "drawed" boy you were referring to before even playing the video clip.

Always liked the music, particularly the promo track


"then played wit' dinosaurs"

Those Newyddion titles were great. Although I believe Belfast is Belffast in Welsh.

I really loved the 2004 Channel Report titles. This was when they were still independent, but were taking ITV1 continuity most of the time and adopted the generic titles for their news. But they kept the music from their previous titles, which I think fits even better than the News at Ten derived theme that ITV plc regions used.



This was the start of Patrick Muirhead’s ill-fated tenure on the programme.

I liked the quirkiness of the “Time, Temp and Tide” check. Presumably it was a way to circumvent the news-sponsorship rules on what must’ve been a high-rating show.

The music was nice

I'm not sure I care TBF. Experiences I'd rather not recall.

Everything about that clip is a classic, from the “Housekeeping money - how do you spend yours?” massive top story, to the awkward clunky banter comparing the female co-host to an old fireplace, on his first day on screen

Did they keep that theme until the next generic look came around a couple of years later?

Of the generic ITV titles that is still probably the best, though the current look is pretty decent. Also thought it was much more interesting having regions take their own interpretation of the studio rather than use a generic look, and Channel's is one of the better efforts. Not too different to what Central did either.