ITV1 introduces national continuity from London for all Granada and Carlton-owned regions in England and Scotland. Regional logos before networked programmes are replaced with a set of about seventy idents featuring ITV1's celebrities. Wales keeps its own announcers and uses the same on-screen look as the other regions, with the addition of a new ITV1 Wales logo. Except for the news, the HTV name is dropped and the ITV1 West of England brand is introduced. ITV1 London replaces the Carlton and LWT brands, but Carlton continues to be used before regional programmes in the Midlands and the South West.
:-(
A former member
Yet this year, ITV had reinstated local ident before the local news, ( this has yet to be recorded online)
The problem is We can't have 15 different CA speaking out the same script for each area, its just not cost effect, I would say, having a CA for Wales and maybe Northern England could solve some of the issues,
I miss the old ITV. Can't believe it's been 10 years. That said, the few years leading up to the uniform presentation were pretty dire in the northern regions anyway. Granada actually died in 1998 rather than 2002, so far as I'm concerned. Weirdly, as much as I didn't like the new brand, not only because it removed regional identity but it featured idents with celebrities eye-balling you before programmes, the continuity itself was mostly live and fresh; and the announcer could at least mention the name of the channel 'ITV1'; something GMG North couldn't do with the regional brands, most of the time.
RS
Rob_Schneider
I'm used to it now and actually, I think it was an incredible bit of foresight. Can you imagine now having a TV channel called something different depending where in the country you happened to be? Especially with the family of ITV channels we have now.
I don't think they exactly got it right in 2002 though, mind you. If you look at what networks like Seven in Australia were doing at that time - who also had celebrity idents - it was very dull. They should have been bolder and louder about establishing the new brand. At least with Carlton, the ident package made losing the Central and Westcountry brands worth it. The celebrity package was such a come down from those excellent Carlton idents.
If you really want to take it back further though I think Bruce Gyngell's Channel 3 thing was truly a massively missed opportunity. With a strong ident package and a good logo, I think the concept would have taken off.
I've always thought the little introduction film they showed at 9.25 was well done. Imagine ITV making a minute long video to launch a rebrand nowadays (with a song from The Jam no less).
I think the 13 or 14 year old me would have no doubt ranted on this forum at the time about the loss of the likes of Carlton and LWT, but Rob's dead right above - as things moved into the digital age the old ITV wasn't going to be workable anymore and indeed had been steadily broken down for the best part of a decade.
Saying that my Grandad, based up in Birmingham, still called it 'ATV' right up until he passed away last year.
I missed LWT at the time of the rebranding exercise, but as the years have gone by after getting rid of the silly ITV1 nonsense, ITV is more of a coherent national brand than ever.
The only things I miss from the regions are the regional non-news shows, although some of those country based ones came over as tick box lazy programmes. Carlton Country anyone?
I don't think they exactly got it right in 2002 though, mind you. If you look at what networks like Seven in Australia were doing at that time - who also had celebrity idents - it was very dull. They should have been bolder and louder about establishing the new brand. At least with Carlton, the ident package made losing the Central and Westcountry brands worth it. The celebrity package was such a come down from those excellent Carlton idents.
I think when people talk about this kind of thing they're obviously doing it through rose-tinted specs. It's obviously not cost-effective, or effective full stop in a multi-channel environment, to do things they way they were done in the 70s. And it would be really silly to insist otherwise, because you're doing it from a position of emotion rather through logic.
Personally, when it comes to the quality of a channel, its programming is where you should be looking.