End of the road for UTV?

UTV was a polished t**d from October 2016 until 6am on the 2nd April 2020 when they ditched UTV branding/dog/promos and now we have this mish mash of ITV branding for most of the day with sloppy pre-recorded UTV opt out announcements and UTV promos with an out of date/brand style endboard.

When everything was just UTV branded under ITV's ownership (Oct 16 - Apr20) the idents/promos/continuity from Belfast, the ITV version/vision of UTV was fine. Infact rather well done! Yes even I did pick up on some of Julians/Gillians pre-recorded errors, and the same 4-5 idents on loop all day every day....but still this incarnation of UTV is/was miles better than what we are getting now from ITV.

What do Northern Irish viewers want - A complete ITV branded network version from London with no regional continuity and just UTV Live News the only regional programme made or the current half hearted approach to UTV regional identity?

I would like to know? As I watch ITV London region, and rarely ever watch UTV region anymore.

They want to watch all their favourite shows just like all the other viewers in all the other regions do.

We (I) want what we had from Oct 16 - 2nd April 2020. A polished and professional looking UTV, clearly linked to ITV but still "feeling local".

I can accept times have move on from the Julian in vision days...but I can't accept the mess we UTV viewers are forced to accept these days from ITV (i.e. sloppy regional continuity from London and poor looking/made promos for regional programming which dont match the rest of what we are seeing). This weeks Utv (lower case) promo for the New York special being a prime example...

Itv wales set up could be used here obviously substituting itv wales for utv when appropriate. It would still work better than the last utv attempt did with old idents and dodgy pre recorded announcements etc

Luckily the Northern Irish public are usually famously united in what they want.

I think the reality is they don't particularly care - the branding was all but ditched overnight last Spring with barely anyone noticing. How ITV goes on remains to be seen but I see no issue with keeping the UTV brand alive in the short term with it being viewed as "UTV on ITV". Perhaps they could have a sting before local programmes like the BBC do with BBC Cymru Wales.

Except, UTV’s local promos are made by UTV themselves... (hence why the endboard is a little out of date)

UTV’s new weather presenter has been announced as Louise Small:

I am delighted to be appointed as the new Weather Presenter for UTV. I am well aware I have massive shoes to fill as I follow in the footsteps of 'the man, the myth, the legend' @frank_broadcast. I can't wait to get started next month.

— Louise Small (@Louise_utv) March 4, 2021

Isn't Louise currently 2nd in command (so to speak) after Frank? So if Louise is now gonna be UTV Weather No1 Presenter then who's gonna be the deputy?

No titles

Looks to be a few technical problems on tonight’s UTV Live. No titles or headlines sequence and presenters reading off their script.

Just heard Gillian Porter's voice over for the Census advert during the Evening News.

Its the first time since 2nd April last year I believe we've heard her!!! Great to see shes got work again since ITV did the dirty on her and Julian.