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End of the road for UTV?

Split from UTV - From City Quays 2 onwards

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BR
Brekkie
This Is Granada posted:
Really disappointed to hear this news today.
Well ITV have wanted rid of UTV branding/Julian/Gillian since October 2016 and it's felt like the UTV continuity airplane has been in a holding pattern since then with the whole pre-recording of Julian & Gillian instead of bring 'Live', and from today the plane has finally run out of fuel and come crashing down....

If anything there is little proof of that considering how long it survived and if anything removing the UTV branding due to COVID reasons have just shown the UTV brand, and Julian and Gillian, just aren't as loved as some people here, and indeed at ITV, believed.

Surprised Julian Simmons had only been there 30 years considering how dated his continuity style is. Would have been dated when he started too.
CO
Cold Open
Brekkie posted:

if anything removing the UTV branding due to COVID reasons have just shown the UTV brand, and Julian and Gillian, just aren't as loved as some people here, and indeed at ITV, believed.


Indeed. I've not heard of *any* viewer backlash during these past several months, and the world has not gone spinning off its axis.

New signage for the City Quays building is probably being manufactured as we speak... Laughing
AN
Andrew Founding member
Well the viewer backlash would have come after Julian stopped doing in-vision.

There isn’t anything that distinctive about Julian doing out of vision recorded announcements, and some could argue rather than distinctively good, it was worse than taking ITV continuity (some announcers excepted)
TI
tightrope78
Brekkie posted:
This Is Granada posted:
Really disappointed to hear this news today.
Well ITV have wanted rid of UTV branding/Julian/Gillian since October 2016 and it's felt like the UTV continuity airplane has been in a holding pattern since then with the whole pre-recording of Julian & Gillian instead of bring 'Live', and from today the plane has finally run out of fuel and come crashing down....

If anything there is little proof of that considering how long it survived and if anything removing the UTV branding due to COVID reasons have just shown the UTV brand, and Julian and Gillian, just aren't as loved as some people here, and indeed at ITV, believed.

Surprised Julian Simmons had only been there 30 years considering how dated his continuity style is. Would have been dated when he started too.

There's video on YouTube dated 1982 with Julian reading the then Ulster Television news. So it's fairer to say he's been air almost 40 years. Also, until not that long ago he worked in the travel industry. He worked in some capacity at Belfast International Airport and more recently at Knock travel agents in Belfast. His UTV work was always a sideline.
Rexogamer, denton and DE88 gave kudos
CO
Colm
If the clip you're thinking of is the one with Julian presenting a sport bulletin, that's from the summer of 1981, making his time at UTV 39 years at least.

Based on interview anecdotes down the years, Julian could've done over 40 years plus, as he's on record saying he was trained by a staff member who moved to RTÉ in 1980; and one of the series running when he started was last broadcast on ITV in (pre-strike) 1979.

Which places Julian as the longest-serving announcer in ITV history, surpassing Redvers Kyle by at least two years.
TI
tightrope78
Colm posted:
If the clip you're thinking of is the one with Julian presenting a sport bulletin, that's from the summer of 1981, making his time at UTV 39 years at least.

Based on interview anecdotes down the years, Julian could've done over 40 years plus, as he's on record saying he was trained by a staff member who moved to RTÉ in 1980; and one of the series running when he started was last broadcast on ITV in (pre-strike) 1979.

Which places Julian as the longest-serving announcer in ITV history, surpassing Redvers Kyle by at least two years.

Thank you! Just found it there. Julian was so young! Hard to believe he may have been already presenting for two years at that point.
Rexogamer and Roger Darthwell gave kudos
PE
peterrocket Founding member
Inspector Sands posted:
Andrew posted:

Apparently Julian is 68, so is around retirement age anyway

If I was in charge at BBC Radio Ulster I'd snap him up for a weekly show, reckon he'd be great


I wouldn’t be surprised if he moves one floor down in City Quays and gets a slot on U105.
RI
Richard
tightrope78 posted:
Brekkie posted:
This Is Granada posted:
Really disappointed to hear this news today.
Well ITV have wanted rid of UTV branding/Julian/Gillian since October 2016 and it's felt like the UTV continuity airplane has been in a holding pattern since then with the whole pre-recording of Julian & Gillian instead of bring 'Live', and from today the plane has finally run out of fuel and come crashing down....

If anything there is little proof of that considering how long it survived and if anything removing the UTV branding due to COVID reasons have just shown the UTV brand, and Julian and Gillian, just aren't as loved as some people here, and indeed at ITV, believed.

Surprised Julian Simmons had only been there 30 years considering how dated his continuity style is. Would have been dated when he started too.

There's video on YouTube dated 1982 with Julian reading the then Ulster Television news. So it's fairer to say he's been air almost 40 years. Also, until not that long ago he worked in the travel industry. He worked in some capacity at Belfast International Airport and more recently at Knock travel agents in Belfast. His UTV work was always a sideline.


Think he was a flight attendant, wasn’t he? Think it was Air Canada and then British Airways.
Last edited by Richard on 26 November 2020 10:50pm
MO
Mockah
nwtv2003 posted:
To be honest considering ITV plc acquired UTV five years ago, I’m amazed it’s branding and local continuity lasted into this year without change since 2016. A shame, but inevitable. Clearly the removal of the UTV branding in continuity since Spring hasn’t done any damage to the point where they’re happy to remove it permanently.


UTV is too recognizable, it'd be weird for ITV to have rebranded them as 'ITV Ulster' straight away
SC
Si-Co
Personally I don’t think COVID was used as an excuse to ditch the branding, but it did present an opportunity to see how NI viewers reacted to ITV branding. Although it appears the viewers adapted to it like ducks to water, this might in some cases be because they understood the exceptional circumstances and considered the branding temporary. The acid test may be yesterday’s announcement.

As for the announcement itself, we are assuming that the UTV name will be gone altogether, but that hasn’t specifically been stated. UTV Live, UTV Life etc may continue for the foreseeable future (a bit like the HTV News on ITV1 Wales situation that existed for a while), and I suppose region names continue to this day in the names of local news programmes in most cases. We are assuming the local news in NI will be rebranded, but ITV News may just get added to the name -“ITV News UTV Live” is the same principle as “ITV News Granada Reports”, for example. Not that I’m a fan of these cumbersome “double-barrelled” titles to be honest.
TH
Thinker
Cold Open posted:
Yup. The subsidiary / legal entity previously called ITV Anglia Ltd was at some point renamed as something like ITV Broadcasting Ltd, with umpteen Channel 3 licences being transferred to it. All (I think?)* of the other "ITV (region name) Ltd" subsidiaries therefore became Dormant Companies.

*I'm not sure whether ITV Breakfast Broadcasting Ltd (formerly GMTV) and/or UTV Ltd remain functional, or if their respective licences were also transferred to "Anglia"?

As others have noted, the now ITV plc-owned Channel Television company itself (whatever its legal name now is) remains the direct owner of the Channel 3 licence for the Channel Islands.


For those interested in knowing what was consolidated when as regards to ITV Broadcasting:

Anglia Television Ltd became ITV Broadcasting on 29 Dec 2006. (It swapped names with another company called ITV Broadcasting, which itself became the now dissolved Anglia Television).
Most broadcasting assets (presumably including staff) of the ITV plc-owned ITV companies were transferred in two chunks on 1 Jan 2007 and 1 Apr 2007, as detailed in the annual report: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/00955957/filing-history/MTgyNzM3NzE5YWRpcXprY3g/document?format=pdf&download=0 Production assets were consolidated into ITV Productions.
The broadcast licenses were consolidated into ITV Broadcasting in October 2008: https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090904002603/http://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv/ifi/tvlicensing/tvupdates/monthly/200811
RI
Rijowhi
I really don’t agree with Wales/Northern Ireland not having separate announcements/idents (even if not live) especially for ‘National’ programming. They are separate Nations to England.

I thought we were supposed to be “levelling up” in the UK?

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