Neil Jones' posts, page 617

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NJ
Neil Jones Founding member

Refreshing the ITV1 Schedule

Jez posted:
I think the following schedule would be good for a Friday

5.00 Shortland Street
5.30 Evening News
6.00 HTV News with Jonathan Hill and Juliet Piper
6.30 Regional Prog
7.00 Quiz
7.30 Coronation Street
8.00 Drama Series
9.00 Film
11.00 ITV News
11.30 HTV News with Juliet Piper
11.45 Film


And that's only by virtue of the fact of the need for variety in the schedule. Chuck that out the window and Jez's schedule would go as thus:

5:00pm-6am: Shortie Street

Very Happy

Anyway, my turn:

5:00 CiTV Gold
5:30 Regional News + on slow days something regional at 6
6:30 ITV News
7:00 General Interest/Quiz/One-off Extended Corrie or Emmerdale
7:30 Coronation Street/Emmerdale
8:00 Quiz Show/Film/Special Interest/Sport
8:30 Current Affairs/Documentary/Comedy
9:00 Comedy/Drama/Continuing of previous show
10:00 News At Ten
10:20 Regional News Roundup
10:35 Sport/Late night comedy/Drama continuation/Documentary
11:05 to finish time of previous item: Late night chat or whatever
Midnight onwards: Usual mix of night-time programmes
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member

ITV to trim programmes

cwathen posted:
Quote:
If it causes that many problems, why not just shorten the opening titles of the programmes, the titles in and out of the breaks and credits at the end. I know it would probably mean redoing the theme tunes, but surely that's not beyond the realm of possibility.

They've allready pulled that trick - end credits now have strict maximum running times of 30 seconds for prime time programmes and 20 seconds for daytime programmes.


I can see a day coming where we won't have *any* end credits at all. I mean, CiTV used to chop them off altogether at one stage although they do seem to let them run now albeit squashed. Look at the official site for "My Parents Are Aliens" - there's a link to the Series 4 Credits on there! How long before main network starts taking this approach and all we see is a "to view the credits for this programme, please visit itv.com/coronationstreet. Next on ITV1: The Bill" type voiceover/caption?
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member

CiTV & Ministry of Mayhem thread

fanoftv posted:
believe the last full time puppet was scally the dog, as shortly after that (after the stint by tommy & glenn) came the CiTV town. Though they have had weekly stints by sooty and co and roland rat and friends guested with Leah at the start of the year.


Not really the same thing as Scally presenting though, although I do have to be honest, I don't think any presenting puppet comes close to Otis the Aardvark on CBBC. Especially not that Emlyn the Gremlin who is now clearly extinct. There is a God after all Smile

Quote:
Still unsure about the studio. They have got too tight angles at the moment. Hopefully they will free them. The way it looks is that they have built different sections of the set for presenting from. Still a bit plain for me. At least in the old white studio we had the CiTV massive logos and the character 2D cut outs for colour (and the purple & orange/red & blue tiled carpets).


Seems to me that the set wasn't completed in time and now they're having to "hide" it as it were with all these tight-up shots. And as it's still in 4:3 as well, looks even tighter. Still, lesser of two evils I suppose - go 4:3 and show widescreen stuff in 14:9 letterbox, or go the CBBC route.

Quote:
Compared to the old use of charcaters like the oval characters and the bouncing letters, this look, looks a bit soft. Though it is going for a whole different look since the logo was introduced.


Shame really, I liked it where the C, I, T, V all had their own personalities and voices and things. Still at least they're keeping the main essence of the logo that they started using in 1998 when it came out of the disembodied voice era and back into in-vision. It's not a bad logo really, it hasn't really changed *that* much since the original design in 1991. Okay its changed colour and font and size and stuff but it's still essentially the same logo when it comes down to it.
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member

Alright On The Night

Steven O posted:
I'm sure that in the early ones - plus a great chunk of Cockup Trip - Denis sat down to address the audience. From the two clips I've seen of the early ones, which were featured in later editions, I don't think there was even a set to start with!


I take it one of those clips is the one where a "young me" (Denis said that Very Happy) is explaining the setup, which is basically the TV company has an expensive satellite link-up to a racetrack and they want to film some reaction to the race but nobody there talks English and there's loads of problems and when they finally get somebody to start an interview, the satellite airtime runs out.

If so, you can see quite clearly in that archive footage of Denis that the audience is behind him as he looks to camera.

Quote:
The use of a new set and new opening titles for each edition is an "Alright" trademark, though it's mostly used the same title music since 1990 (IBAOTN 6). Hard to believe that the current theme tune is in fact 13 years old...!


13yrs old? Shocked Well it fits in, you can almost sing the title of the show to the last few notes of the theme. Very Happy

Sorry, I'll get my coat...
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member

CiTV & Ministry of Mayhem thread

Very surprised to see in-vision signing on Art Attack...

I saw more blue in the CITV set today, which is good, although I'm sure that on-screen DOG is bigger than it was yesterday.

As for MPAA - the one shown today is from the 4th series with the canned laughter track. It's the second series which stars the non blonde Sophie (the actress has some unmemorable name) so I suppose she'll turn up in the new 5th series that comes to CITV, I think, next month after these from Series 4 run out. I wouldn't say its inferior as such, although matter of opinion of course.

fanoftv posted:
A puppet back to CiTV, this may be an improvement after all!


When was the last time we had a puppet on CiTV? Or do we have to go all the way back to 1989 (the so-called Stonewall years) and Scally the dog to answer that question?

fanoftv posted:
I hope both Michael & Leah are on. Though the way he said that "SHE will have this guy (holding up spongebob toy) spongebob squarepants and jimmy neutron too" gives me the impression that its just her on her own. They do need more presenters. If anybody's off on CBBC they just call on one of their many substitues.


Well it's okay for CBBC as they could just nick somebody off the CBBC channel to fill in instead. CiTV have, for as long as I can remember at least, mostly had only two "main" presenters. I mean, look back: 1987 was two-headed: Gary Terzza and Debbie Shore as was 1989: Jerry Foulkes and I suppose Scally counts as well. Then Clive Warren got involved when Jerry left. Then Jeanne Downs. 1991 saw Tommy Boyd and Glen Kinsey on solo presentation ala yesterday and today.

1998 saw only two new presenters again, Stephen and Danielle. Tom and Andrea were added in 2000. She lasted six months, Tom disappeared last year sometime. There was another guy as well who came onto CiTV presenting wise along with Leah (not Michael, the other guy) but he's vanished as well.

CITV never was good at retaining anybody for presenting for more than about 30 months tops, were they? Smile

This is interesting (if a little out of date): Children's ITV Presentation off the Watched It site.
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member

Alright On The Night

Andrew posted:
I do like the way he refers to the adverts. Stuff like "We have to move out of the way of another commercial break..." etc


It's very original, I'll give him that. Better than "see you after this" or "see you in three" at any rate. Has he used this through most of the Alright on The Night/Laughter file shows then?
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member

Your likes and dislikes of ITV1

The new ident set is an improvement on the previous set, I'll give them that. I like the new "rotating squares" look as well on the endboards and the break bumpers (are they squares or just "things"?). Plus CITV's own break bumper (I can just see somebody somewhere playing that instead of the normal ITV1 break bumper outside 3:15-5pm...).

Not too keen on the ECP though, looks a bit cramped. Do they still have those coloured backgrounds from last time in use on this ECP? I've yet to see a proggie using them (Des & Mel don't bother, neither does its following proggie, the 3pm News doesn't have credits, CITV don't use those coloured backdrops...)
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member

CiTV & Ministry of Mayhem thread

Looks a bit basic really, the studio in the grabs there, I have to say. Apart from on the logo, do they have any other colours anywhere at all?

See Michael's taking over all the programmes now like Steven did before him. Is this in their contract, hijack all the shows? Mind you Chris Jarvis was the wrong guy for last year's Jungle Run, I've never forgiven them for dumping the funky theme tune from series 1 of that show in favour of bongo beats.

I still think the on-screen DOG is too big. I don't know why they don't make more use of it as opposed to just having it sit there. Even if it's just having "Subtitles" slide out of or under it or something. Maybe they could "turn it over" towards the end of a proggie to say what's on next like Challenge do.
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member

Alright On The Night

Steven O posted:
DAS posted:
Perhaps he enjoys the nice drive down there?


You could be right......
<enters Denis Norden mode>

"If you're one off those people who enjoys a nice long drive down the motorway, then why is it most of that nice long drive is spent in a traffic jam?">

<laughter>


How very true! I can just see us when Mr Norden passes on (hopefully that won't be for many years yet, touch wood) doing all these quotes from his shows off Alright on the Night. My fav for the heck of it, can't remember which show this one came off:

*DN*

Hello, or for those of you who videoed this show and fast-forward through me to get to the funny bits, goodbye.

<laughter>

*end DN*

Um, anyway, they do have some nice backgrounds over the end credits though, I must admit (although I didn't like that fireworks one on the All Stars special especially when it went into ECP mode).

Anybody catch that Mr Norden said that they're seeking out material for Alright on the Night 17? Busy busy. Nice to see a Bob Hope clip as well in light of his recent death.
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member

Your likes and dislikes of ITV1

Corin posted:
Which brings me on to another issue -- infomercials. Why in this day and age of enlightened capitalist free market thinking, ITV-1 is not allowed to carry paid programming is beyond me. It is about time that people were given what they want and allowed to watch quality entertainment covering such educational and informative topics as "Helsinki Hair Formula for Men", "Garden Weasels", etc.


I hate infomercials, especially the ones that are shown where they are not appropriate to be shown (the ab flab toner one for example keeps turning up at lunchtime on Challenge). Perhaps they should launch "Infomercial TV" instead and stick them all on there with a +1 channel in case you missed the number first time round Smile

No, infomercials should stay off of ITV1 full stop. Surely ITV would want to run two or three commercials (for three lots of money) instead of one long one for one lot of money.
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member

ITV to trim programmes

marksi posted:
Quote:
A radio station I used to work for used to speed up the songs. The speed change was so slight you didnt really notice it, but it would shave about 20 seconds off the song to allow for sponsorship tags, ads etc.


Radio stations do not speed up songs for timing purposes - they speed them up so that their station sounds faster paced, bouncier and livlier than others. People won't notice that the song has been speeded up, but if they get used to that version and then hear it on another station unmodified they will think it's too slow.


Didn't Atlantic 252 (before it turned into SportsTalk and later vanished altogether) use to play songs at a faster speed? I'm sure it did.
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member

Your likes and dislikes of ITV1

The Big Show posted:
No I won't. Hymagumba argued that ITV was bad because they cancelled Crossroads. He cannot see why Crossroads was cancelled so I am telling him why Crossroads was cancelled.


But you go on and on about it, you make it sound as if you can't leave it alone and that Matthew Maude is the worst person in the world ever just because he replaced Kieran Hardcastle as Scott in the show. Frankly that's really what disturbs me more than your other thoughts on Xroads.

Quote:
Given that he looks at Neil Jones' site quite a lot and helps out with compliancy issues over there, Neil's written it all down himself, I shouldn't have to explain.


Only made nine changes, not as if he's redone the entire site.

Quote:
EDIT: Quick reminder that I didn't spout out my "anti-Crossroads" babble and "Crossroads is crap full stop" spiel again. I've seen the argument mostly from ITV's point of view and backed my arguments up with facts and figures, most which can be credited to Planet Crossroads, namely Neil's "biography" of the show and the news articles hosted there.


But this is it - see above.

Quote:
My new name, Neil is because when I thought better of my rant the other Saturday night I found my username deleted. I was feeling low, depressed, lonely, fed-up, pathetic and I felt like my life was going nowhere. Now that was most certainly not over the forum, believe me, that was over my own life. The way I was treated on TV Forum just tipped it for me. I made a mistake, I'm sorry. I'm not asking for forgiveness but don't dismiss something I write out of hand when anyone else writing it would have it taken seriously.


It wouldn't be so bad if you could let the Xroads thing go for a few posts here and there. You're the only one now who still goes on about it every chance you get. Just let it rest, do some talk on other topics without mentioning Xroads, you'll get your respect back. Go and post some useful comments on the new CITV look for example, or the new ITV1 idents, or the new Skateboard ident on BBC One.