Granada presentation

Why did Granada have such dull presentation?
Just slides - no animated idents.
Was always frustrated as a kid and especially when holidaying in other regions who had what I thought was quite ‘showbiz’ presentation - TVS, LWT.

Even more annoying was the brilliant ident Granada had for their 30th anniversary, but was dropped soon afterwards

Management of Granada decided early on that their idents and frontcaps would be silent as they wanted their programmes to speak for themselves.

As an example, early Coronation Street episodes had the first few bars of the theme song playing over a static Granada frontcap. Most everyone else on the network used music and animation in their frontcaps (yes, even in the late 60s/early 70s!)

I also felt incredibly let down as a child that Granada just didn't make any effort, except during their 25th and 30th anniversaries.

This was the era of front caps, and I was quite insanely jealous of people in some regions who had proper idents.

I think it seriously damaged my childhood.

Border also had a static ident.

That might have been more out of financial constraints than pure choice like Granada.

Not online anywhere but there's that wonderful (late 60's?) closedown animation with music and a screen full of multicoloured G's, so they did feel like making an effort when it suited them!

edit (shhh!)

Yeah, considering said static ident lasted right up until the 1989 generic launched, that does seem to be the case. They would've been quite pleased to get an animated ident for free - they kept the soundtrack on their next one too.

The only time i believe Granada had an animated ident in the 80's was for their 30th anniversary:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60cS0BJ6I38

The lack of visual pizzazz is surely made up for by Granada’s excellent in-vision continuity team?

Sure the in-vision continuity was great and professional, but TVS, LWT and others had that and the ‘showbiz’ around it.

Lets not forget that the BBC channels also had silent idents during that era and Granada very much thought of itself as the BBC of the North.

Silent, yes, but at least they were animated.