Nope. See, every Sunday, a group of TV Forumers used to gather in a marsh in Grimsby and chat for 7 hours about ITV, nicknamed the 'Maggie' Marsh for obvious reasons. It was reasonably fun until the police cordoned off the area two years ago after a heated argument as to whether the 1971-78 LWT ident was better than the 1978-86 LWT ident.
Pre-1993 for me. For obvious reasons - each company was its own separate entity, some stations still used IVC etc., the schedules weren't centralised and had a stronger sense of regionality, less soap operas or trashy documentaries and a proper mix of serious and entertainment shows.
I agree, and they didn't get annoyingly squashed!
I miss the hearts era and Maggie Marsh.
I wished you hadn't mentioned Mama Mash i miss her.I realy liked it when Border had their own announcers and was annoyed when continuity got moved to Leeds.However when i heard Maggie for the first time i just loved her style.Bob used to crease me up with those pauses i don't like any of the ITV announcers these days the girls are just the pits apart from the older lady with the husky voice who does the promos and five.
1998-1999 were my favourites.I know Grampian used the same tune as 1989 and Central were the same as Carlton but they were good idents. [especially central,which did the best!]
The Best Era on ITV was from about 1999-Mid 2002 presentation wise.
The best era programming wise was the 1990s as ITV didnt take the easy way out and keep scheduling soaps all the time in peak time. I like soaps but not 5 and 6 times a week (yawn)
I really am pleasantly surprised to see how many people loved the so-called 'Hearts Era' of 2000-2002. I didn't think many thought it was that good before this thread was started. I thought it was great - both the idents and the ECPs.
For me, it was because ITV had the overall balance just right here, before they lost the plot in 2002/2003.
The overall presentation was somewhat modern, but at the same time had a 'quality', viewer-friendly feel to it. We also still had reasonable regional programming, perhaps not as much as before, but still an adequate amount.
I really am pleasantly surprised to see how many people loved the so-called 'Hearts Era' of 2000-2002. I didn't think many thought it was that good before this thread was started. I thought it was great - both the idents and the ECPs.
I thought the two main problems with this era were that the Granada stations dropped the live action sequences from the idents, so all we were left with was a rather boring ident with not much happening.
There was also a serious issue of clutter on the idents...