26th Anniversary of the biggest shake up in ITV

I'm well aware, but the company name was Television South, and if you accept one answer without the TV or Television suffix/prefix, you have to accept them all.

This thread has taken an interesting turn, but to go back to this, the suggestions that UTV has been diminished because it's using rebranded ITV idents and it has the same set as the other regions doesn't seem much to complain about. It's not like UTV couldn't create appalling idents off their own bat and as for the set, does that matter? As long as the quality of journalism is good, what does it matter if it has the same set? I know this forum is about presentation, but those are such minor issues in the grand scheme of things.

I wouldn't have said it matters at all if UTV is part of ITV as long as ITV are prepared to invest in local news and maintain output that represents the unique aspects of Northern Ireland. What idents and sets they use is neither here nor there, even if it's renamed as ITV Northern Ireland it doesn't make any difference to the output. UTV probably benefit from the economics of scale of being part of the wider ITV infrastructure and back office functions. STV is independent, but to what benefit, really?

A counter argument is that 'economies of scale' probably = employs less people within the UTV region? (And the reverse may well be true of STV - who will employ more people from within their region than if they were an off-shoot of ITV?)

Whether that is an important issue I leave to others - but it is a significant one.

Another is that decisions about UTV, other than those to do with local news, are less likely to be taken by those who live in the UTV region than would be the case with STV?

Independent companies have, or had a tendency to exceed licence commitments, in terms of both scale and range. Often greatly.

When part of a larger organisation the very "economies of scale" lead to the contractual agreements being seen as the target, rather than bare-minimum. Especially when some regions are subject to stricter policies than others.

And over the years, those targets are eroded.

You're absolutely right, of course - and I'm certainly not rushing to celebrate increased consolidation and a diminished presence outside London. But I'm not sure we can suggest that being part of ITV is just relentlessly bad news for UTV, and its audience.

You're right to say that these economies of scale would mean that jobs that might have been performed in Belfast are now done in London (or Leeds, or wherever). But if (and that's a big if) the savings they make there are invested into the output and in hiring more creative staff, then that's good news. I'm not saying this is always the case, but that's not to say it can't be. Presumably this is the reason why companies like So and Big Talk have become part of ITV, and other indies set up under the auspices of a bigger company - so they can benefit from the infrastucture of a larger organisation in back office functions while allowing themselves to concentrate on the creative side.

STV is independent but in terms of the audience, has that been a great benefit? Yes, decisions are being made in Scotland but you also get situations like that dispute which meant they were showing no networked dramas for ages, and you could certainly argue that some STV programmes are hardly of the most spectacular quality.

In terms of the original post, if ITV have introduced the networked idents and made the set look like all the other regions, is it that great a tragedy? It's like in the hearts era, when Carlton rebranded all their stations as Carlton whereas the Granada stations kept all the regional identities. But the Granada continuity was bloody awful, and it was a better service for audiences when they introduced network continuity in 2002 because the Granada continuity was so crap. Yes, it was ostensibly more local, but it was wholly inadequate.

And as well as that ITV aren't in the business of annoying audiences and if there's a bit of goodwill to be had by keeping it as UTV, then presumably they'll do that. It's a trifling expense keeping that going. It's like when Granada took over Yorkshire Tyne Tees, pretty much the first thing they did was bring the Tyne Tees name back for some easy kudos.

STV isn't really independent though. It's just a company in the same position as many of the part-consolidated ITV companies were in the 1990s. Which, as you've pointed out, were already well on the way to providing a diminished service (not just in terms of presentation).

With all due respect you do view UTV with somewhat rose-tinted spectacles. The service that UTV was providing local audiences was diminishing for at least a decade before they were bought out by ITV. Whilst they never provided anything for the ITV network they did provide a decent amount of local programming. From the early part of the century this started to decline. What particularly hit UTV was the axing of News of Ten and the moving of ‘Kelly’ to a 9pm slot. A local chat, aimed at a very parochial audience, was never really strong enough to hold that slot. UTV was therefore left with no choice but to disregard whatever dramas ITV were showing in that slot, sometimes burying them in a Sunday afternoon slot many months later.


The rearranging of the ITV early evening news also had a negative effect on UTV as they had to shunt their lifestyle news into UTV Life at 5.30pm each evening, long before most people were home from work. The wholesale redundancies that UTV carried out in the mid 2000’s were a clear sign of a company more interested in the balance sheet than in serving the needs of their local audience.

The 1990 Broadcasting Act did not unduly affect UTV. The act allowed a small, regional ITV franchise holder to grow to become one of the largest media groups in the UK. It was the greed/hubris of UTV executives that eventually precipitated the company’s downfall.

The Kelly Show was the highest rated local programme on the ITV network from 1989 onward. So dismissing the show is not right. It pulled in the highest audience for a local programme.

The show had its merits, there's no doubt about that. Post 'News at Ten' it was quite good, late night filler with no pretensions. However once it was aired in the 9pm slot on a Friday night it was totally inappropriate. Gerry Kelly himself suddenly got into a media war with the Late, Late Show about which show was the most popular. The best thing about Sky Digital was the first time I realised that I could tune it to pick up other ITV regions, therefore avoiding Kelly.

Not really, because Anglia Television, Central Television, etc. were known as Anglia, Central, etc. and were branded as such.

Television South was never known/branded as "South", so the answer given should have been either TVS or Television South (or TVS Television).

Are you suggesting that, instead of looking for the South archive, I should have been searching high and low for the TVS archive? 🤔

Let’s not get Riaz started in that again 😉