Carlton 1999-2002 Idents

Well the Carlton star was used elsewhere in the company, the cinema advertising branch, for years before 1999, and was repurposed for ITV.

An ident, I should say, that will never be topped by DCM or whoever manages advertising in your local cinema.

It wasn't the same star though was it, it was just a branding iron in the shape of a regular star. And the star wasn't part of the logo.

The star used on television had a little star cut out of a big star. However, in the background, they had regular stars that looked more akin to the ones used in the Screen Advertising ident. As far as I'm concerned, they're both stars.

Funny thing was that ident pre-dated the 1999 Carlton look and was still being used in the late 2000's before ITV sold off Carlton Screen Advertising.

Right up to 2014, when it (and the Carlton brand) finally bit the dust when Carlton Screen Advertising in Ireland became Wide Eye Media. An odd post-script to what was a big brand in the 1990s, but there you go.

At least Lambie-Nairn didn't just go with an adaptation of that for the TV idents.

That would have been dreadful.

Only for it getting very repetitive after a while. The ident itself is fantastic.

Oh that takes me back. In the early 00s, it was always Carlton Screen Advertising in the Odeon Cinema in Ipswich and Pearl and Dean in UGC Cinema in Ipswich. I'm not a regular cinema goer really, but was surprised to see Pearl and Dean still in action (as I'd heard that they weren't really around any more) in two cinemas I went to last year, with the more ubiquitous DCM at the Cineworld in Ipswich these days.

The only two Pearl & Dean cinemas I've been to are both local independent cinemas, which I believe is their main customer base.

Yes, although unlikely they would have as it's a pun on branding so obviously very specifically designed to accompany advertising

It never occurred to me that the Carlton idents were themed. As a viewer knowing little about this kind of thing, all that went right over my head. I simply assumed Serious News was the "official" ident, probably because it sounded most formal, and the others were just variants slotted in whenever they fancied (with the sports one obviously reserved for sport).

Another thing about Carlton presentation that this thread has reminded me of - how, towards the end of its time on air, Carlton started using the "from London" tagline that Thames used ("this is Thames - from London"). I simply assumed it was a personal choice from Mark Lipscombe, who worked on both, but the clips here show others using it.