Identify the correct year for the Pres.

I think you'll struggle to find a clear date for that Central one, but 1985 is a decent bet for first on screen Cake appearance.

So by ident do you mean only the symbol shown at the start of a programme? Because I'm quite sure Central used the gradient blur right up to 1987 for that.

The first series of Boon (Jan - Apr 86) used the second globe ident, so the cake ident could have been introduced in late in 86 and used concurrently thru 87. I think WillPS has it spot on. Central had so many animations and devices to show it gets quite complicated (a good thing)

As far as the national ident goes, second moon was definitely in use by February 1984, as it was on Spitting Image.

This ident was used as a frontcap until the end of 1987, when idents were dropped in January 1988.

The endcap for Central Productions still used the moon until the end of August 1988, however the end cap changed slighly every year, either the background colour or the font size, or size of the "moon".

This led to the "cake" ident being used nationally, and unusally, at the end of programmes from September 1988 until the end of August 1989.

Two versions of this were in use in that year, one with the word "Central" at the end, often for regional programmes, but ususally for imported / independently produced programmes. The other with the words "Central Production" at the end usually but not exclusively for networked shows.

The "cake" logo itself had been around since 1985, as had been said, was the start of the end of IVC. It was shown in the background of IVC definitely still in the summer of 1986. A mix of IVC and non IVC began late in 1985, as has been said.

Central's presentation was refreshed continually once graphics were brought in, but very successfully.

There's a potted history of Central's cake 'lifecycle' here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R9NXxq_kzc

(Though quite why the commentary's been recorded in a bathroom, remains a mystery !!)

Wait, 'Moon' is the original launch Central logo, right?

The one in between this and the Cake (which I've called the gradient blur) is hardly a 'Moon'.

Sorry that it's not quite on the current topic, but I hope I can now put to bed the myth that BBC World re-branded with the new BBC News design and David Lowe's music in 1999. After constructing a complicated search strategy, I managed to get my list of results down to just 9 websites, one of which states that BBC World's rebrand happened on Monday 3 April 2000 : http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU0004/S00001.htm

Hope that clears that one up once and for all!

I did speak with some one who worked in the Pres department at central, I was told over 100'000 different piece of pres were created from 84-97, THAT A LOT!

He never included any dates etc, I cant found the email at the moment, but will get it up here soon. I have also found the master idents from 1986, Alas no dates but there are 86 because of the use of the library music, which come in to use in 1985. I think I may have found a very useful piece of information but I'll explain later once I double check it.

This is of course the second ident
http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/itvmidlands/itv_midlands_images/central/idents/central_ident1985a.jpg

Still sounds a lot better than Cwilliams though!

Those 'ITV In the Face' videos are well worth a watch if anyone hasn't by now... and you have a spare few hours

Who is this woman from Central? presenting I believe Central POST programme?

The woman above is from a short clip from Central post where, it being stated that it's the new Presentation package for central " ONE TO WATCH"

Thus the cake never started life as an ident, but more like press... which then went on to become an ident

The 'second ident' was used internally for about a year - a very very early digitised version seen internally on the news gallery monitors. There'd be a countdown then 'CENTRAL NEWS' in the legend.

Think it's Wendy Jones, more well known as an ATV Today reporter but did loads of other TV stuff. Died last year, sadly.