Someone buy ITV 1 a spellchecker for Xmas!

[size=7] The current set up is mainly ex-LWT and the dept is run I believe by a lady who was once an announcer at Grampian and, yes, Granada.[/size ]

Fraid not . All LWT's broadcast dept were made redundant 3 years ago. Network Centre runs presentation . Promos are responsible for the ECps etc - and they work seperately at the South bank. The lady in question is still oop north I believe.

OK, I clearly had duff information. So is presentation now based in Grays Inn Road or is it just run from there but played out from the South Bank? Your comment about the NPC working "seperately at the South Bank" seems to imply that presentation is no longer in that building at all.


Doing what exactly? Not much to do up there now is there?

Spotted last night on UTV advertising a spin-off cookery book:

Jenny Bristow: A Taste of Sushine

]OK, I clearly had duff information. So is presentation now based in Grays Inn Road or is it just run from there but played out from the South Bank? Your comment about the NPC working "seperately at the South Bank" seems to imply that presentation is no longer in that building at all.

The lady in question is still oop north I believe. [/quote]
[size=9]
Doing what exactly? Not much to do up there now is there?
Forgive delay in reply. Presentation is based at the Network Centre. It was moved there when LWT and Carlton's presentation departments were wound up in 2002. Transmission is based at the London Televison Centre, Southbank as are the Promotions department and Continuity .
The aforementioned ex Grampian announcer was last heard of based at the Northern Transmission Centre i.e. Leeds ( ex YTV)

Errrmm.... the word "Presentation" refers to the combination of Promotions and Continuity. That's what presentation is. Not a separate thing.

Roy, forgive me if you actually work there, but your version of events and terminology differs from all other recorded accounts of how ITV presentation has been dealt with since the late 90s.

It has been clearly documented, and indeed web and press advertisements for work in said departments has borne this out, confirm the following:

1. ITV Network Centre is based at Gray's Inn Road, not the South Bank. This may have changed, granted, but Network Centre = Promotions does not necessarily follow;

2. LWT's Presentation and Promotions Department was NOT wound up, but was re-named the Network Promotions Unit in 1997 when it took over work for Carlton London's Presentation and Promotions, following a 9-month stint of producing trailers for weekday, aswell as weekend ITV programmes, initially for use by Granada's northern stations, but extended to the entire network, thereby negating the need for Carlton in Nottingham (i.e. what used to be Central's Promotions dept.) to design separate graphics for promotional use; initially Carlton's own announcers would continue to sit in the (very same) announcer's chair at the South Bank Monday - Friday 5.15pm, and announce over Carlton trailers playing from the same bank of VTRs as the ones that would playout LWT trailers at the weekends, the same bank of VTRs that would play out commercials all week; it was in October 2002 that the need for separate weekday/weekend announcers was done away with and LWT announcers (under the guise of LNN) would take over the duties full time;

3. Transmission from 1993 was handled by LNN, a consortium co-owned by Carlton and LWT as was (and later Carlton/Granada through their LWT ownership) and remains to this day as ITV transmission albeit without the LNN name; before and after being based at the South Bank;

4. Presentation was never part of the ITV Network Centre, but part of LNN. As has been previously documented, ITV Network Centre is a 'Head Office' as it were, not a playout or transmission facility. The fact that the NC may have moved to the same building complex as presentation and transmission is surely incidental.

OK Mark . Here's how it works. Presentation in old school terms is indeed the old generic name for transmission, promotions, and continuity. You are correct. However ,many stations now refer to these 3 elements as Broadcast departments. And the ITV network, having gone through a 'big bang' has been set up rather differently. And Presentation is indeed a seperate department to promotions, transmission and continuity at ITV.

1. Presentation has been set up seperately to the NPU ( Network Promotions Unit) and the NCU ( Network Continuity Unit). It is only responsible for planning and preparing the transmission schedules and is based at Grays Inn Rd. The dept grew out of various redundant pres departments around the network. - although largely Carlton and LWT.
Transmission ( seperate dept with seperate management but working in conjunction with the Presentation dept ) ) is the old LNN transmission -now employed by ITV, based at the Southbank.

2. The ITV Network Centre is indeed at Grays Inn Rd . I never said otherwise. When I said that the NWC runs presentation , I should have been clearer. What I mean is that Presentation is based at the NWC, Grays Inn Rd.

3. The NPU ( promotions unit ) is based at the Southbank and always has been since the late 90s.

4. I'm afraid LWT's presentation and promotions departments were indeed wound up. Ask the people who were made redundant at the time.
The NPU was set up with staff and managers from both LWT and Carlton- who had to apply for the jobs.

5. LWT's announcers did not take over continuity duties full time in 2002. The entire network's announcers were made redundant and invited to apply for the ITV1 national team. LWT's team did not apply although some continued to freelance while new people were being trained in from other regions and elsewhere. The ITV1 team was a new team comprising regional ITV announcers, one from radio,one from a BBC region and only one announcer from London joined it full time - from Carlton.

6. LNN no longer exists. ITN have the contract to supply regional news for London ( London Tonight) and Transmission are now employed by ITV.

7. Presentation was never part of LNN transmission. LWT and Carlton maintained seperate presentation departments and LNN transmission was their service provider until ITV's Presentation dept was set up at the Network Centre . Once again - many redundancies around the regions and all had to apply for jobs .

8. I did not state that the Network centre was a TX or playout facility. It isn't . Transmission is at the Southbank. The Transmission schedules are prepared by Presentation at Grays Inn rd.

Hopefully that makes it clear. And yes. I do know .

and PS. You are quite right. The ITV1 announcers team was originally employed by LNN. But as LNN no longer exists they are now employed by ITV.

Thanks for clearing that up - I guess I was led astray by the use of the word "presentation" which it appears is now used to refer to the departments that would previously have simply been referred to as "scheduling".

I was aware that LNN no longer existed, but what does surprise me is that people had to reapply for their jobs when the NPU was set up. I thought it was only when the NCU was set up.

Surely though I am right in the belief that the NPU was set up as a direct result of LWT promotions showing the ability to make promos for the entire week; a requirement which was added to them after Granada took them over and wanted better promos than the ones made by Manchester (which were BADLY needed). Not that Leeds ones were bad because they were actually very good, but no sense making "ITV" branded promos for Manchester in London (by LWT) if you're not going to dish them out to the other stations your parent company owns, and at the point Granada Manchester became TXed from Leeds, it made more sense to deploy the same promos to Border, YTV and Tyne Tees too.

I still remember the 3 or 4 months or so when you had the strange situation of this (happening at the same time):

Trailers for Mon-Fri programmes being made by LWT but branded 'ITV' but containing LWT's background graphics (red/silver whirlygigs) for showing on Granada North in the week;
Trailers for programmes all week being made by Carlton in Nottingham, branded 'ITV' but using snaking white lines and colour washes, for showing in the Midlands all week and London during weekdays only;
Trailers for weekend programmes being made by LWT, one version badged 'LWT' for London transmission and one version branded 'ITV' for showing on Granada North in the weekend.

LWT's trailers would share the same design but have a different bug (LWT or ITV). Carlton's would always just have an ITV bug. So ever though by this time trailers were no longer promoting Carlton as a station (hiding behind the ITV name), LWT's and Carlton's trailers were of different designs, overlapped the same programmes, therefore was costing the parent companies of LNN twice the necessary amount to promote the required number of shows on their 'networks', and of course in London this would have clearly led to the situation where the playout servers would end up containing two sets of ITV branded promos, of different designs, for the same programmes, at any one time (if showing during the week). A rather lunatic situation and one which inevitably required a response similar to what happened - i.e. merge all promotion making into one department.

Yes Mark you are correct. Presentation used to be the way you state but is now more specific in terms of planning and scheduling for on air.

Re the NPU - yes you are also correct . The NPU was formed largely out of LWT's promotion dept for the reasons you state but also because David Liddiment liked their promos the best at the time.
Employment law required that an application procedure had to be followed . Staff were also joining a 'new employer' (ITV) . Although it was biased towards LWT, representation from Carlton had to be included at their request.

Overall, we were both on the right path!

well in the yorkshire region around the beginning 1998 when we started getting ITV branded promo's, I remember Yorkshire producing the weekday trailers, as their had a yorkshire announcer speaking on the trailers themselves, the only difference was we didn't have those swirly backgrounds that was on the ITV weekend trailers, which were definitely produced by LWT, also CARLTON produced seperate ITV trailers which had the ITV logo on the left, which we in the north only saw during GMTV, in the CARLTON regions it was replaced by their logo and presumably a background as well, and I am pretty sure Leeds had to produce a different ITV trailer when promoting Emmerdale etc by changing the transparent ITV logo on the right to a white and light blue on put on to the left.

It has to be said the only trailers I liked were the ones coming from LWT complete with their swirly backgrounds, it was initially used by Leeds but then it was dropped you could then tell which trailer came from Leeds and which one came from LWT!

No the Mon-Fri trailers were produced in Leeds with a Leeds based announcer, it had the transparent ITV logo on the left, and didn't finish with the swirly background, the weekend ones were produced by LWT and finished off with a swirly background.

I remember this strongly, as I hated the trailers that were being made in Leeds as they didn't use those swirly graphics.

[size=9]
Doing what exactly? Not much to do up there now is there?
The aforementioned ex Grampian announcer was last heard of based at the Northern Transmission Centre i.e. Leeds ( ex YTV)[/quote]

Well, most of my questions were answered there eventually, and many thanks to Mark and Roy for doing so. But my final question remains - what exactly is there to do at the Northern Transmission Centre, other than insert commercials to the north and midlands, which surely can be done remotely from London?