Granada

Yes these are used on the YTV regions, very-very-very-very rarely.

It can go weeks between the times I see them, and I watch quite a lot of prime-time ITV1! (But then again I didn't see tonight's airing)

Well I've only seen that graphic once on Tyne Tees! It's on fairly often on Meridian/Anglia though.

The one on tonight was silly though. Two seperate announcements, one using a graphic so rarely used that it would give most people watching a surprise... It just wasn't necessary, especially as no announcement was made before the news (which has been happening again recently before news at 10, the trailer into the late regional news is a new thing for the GMG North stations and the first time I've seen such a thing on TTTV since the early 90's!!!)

I saw this on Anglia about a month back and meant to mention it on here. Also I noticed Meridian were still using Coming next captions, not the static ones but the type with the filmclip playing of the program and the announcer did a voice over. I remember YTV breifly did something similar to this just before C3NE came into being

That glass style hearts thing has quite often been used by GMG when giving info to the viewers about something related to the programme just shown. You know the type of thing I mean.... e.g, 'If you have been affected by the storyline in tonights episode of Coronation Street, you can.......'

They tend to use them only for programmes made by GMG, with the GMG North announcer making the statement and heard across the whole network.

It's interesting as to what the purpose of using it this time was though! And I have also been noticing more of the 'itv1' brand being mentioned, and a rather lack of regional identity. Maybe there are gearing up for a generic look after all?

Which must mean, when Anglia and Meridian join the GMG Noth continuity set up, that's when we will see this new ident!

Really?? I would say the absolute opposite. Previously, it has been really hard to get regional names mentioned over the idents but this week has been great! I've been watching a fair bit of ITV1 junctions chopping and changing between the GMG North regions and they seem to say the regional name all the time!! It was great to hear 'And on Saturday night here on Border...' for the first time.

Nup, I think they *are* saying more regional names.

Cheers, Asa

Alright Asa, maybe they are, I just haven't been watching much itv1 recently, it's just the things I have heard have always mentioned 'itv1' and not the region name. It's probably just coincidental though.

There certainly are more namechecks at the moment.

'Now on Granada...' was said for the first time in ages during the primetime period, oddly this ident also had the hearts music playing over it, instead of the usual bed with just the lines ident.

id like to know, at GMG north, do announcers work like:
a)at 8:30 lets have a regional, by recording 3 intros and do 1 region live or
b) do they say at 7:30 granada can have a local intro, tyne tees at 8:00 etc....

and do border get equal treatment - or are they in local announcing terms, neglected?

Does it matter, at the end of the day, the continuity from Leeds is crap, plain and simple and of course Anglia and Meridian are to suffer too!

Has there actually been anything confirmed as to Anglia and Meridian continuity being moved to Leeds though? My contact at Leeds says Southampton is alive and well and GMG have no plans at present to close it down.

Well I hope so too, I hope that Anglia and Meridian, don't have to suffer the continuity we get here in the North!