It doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that Carlton said no. It took LWT a little while longer (internal politics no doubt) but at least they got there in the end with the impressive videowall ident.
The videowall idents were less of a response to the ITV hearts, more a response to Carlton's package. The story goes that LWT argued they needed their pres to stand up against that of their weekday rival. After all, they were still competing for attention (advertising) at that stage.
You get the feeling that they, ITV knew had selected the wrong ident package in the first instance, when a flagship station gives up on the Network identity, makes its own to compete and is an improvement.
I’m sure the filmed sequences had disappeared from GMG North within about 18 months of its introduction. But like ITV at that time it didn’t seem to know what it was doing or where it was going. Funny too that for GMG North’s in Christmas 1999 the package designed by the team in Leeds was far superior than the network idents.
If it wasn’t for the fact ITV2 was launching with a new logo in 1998, then would the 1998 ITV logo launch been postponed?
Whilst undoubtedly most of us share the same opinion about Carlton’s output it always excelled at selling itself, and Michael Green was clear what he wanted (if the article is anything to go by) and was willing to pay whatever price.
That is surprising . . .
