Granada taking tips off Carlton?

I loved the announcement into Granada Reports tonight..

'On ITV1, this is Granada, at the heart of the region, and now at 6 o'clock it's time for Granada News, with Lucy Meacock'

I think it was the young woman announcing, but anyway, it sounded really good for Leeds, definitely more like something Carlton would do. The usual formula used by GMG in Leeds would be 'Tomorrow on ITV1 <link to completely unrelated programme>, but now <programme name>', but this sounded good as it was actually saying about the preceding programme, giving the impression that the announcer is actually watching too.

Anyway, if this is how ITV1 are heading, then it's good news. Maybe this relaunch later in the year will turn out well? Anyone else heard good announcements on GMG stations to back me up here?

Tyne Tees did exactly the same, while Border just went straight from the Border ITV1 logo into Lookaround, without an announcement.

The 'coming up ... but now' announcement seems to be used mostly by Maggie Mash, and not just for local news!

We had the same sort of thing on YTV

'On ITV1 this is Yorkshire Television, now from the heart of the region, tonight's Calendar with Mike Morris and Christine Talbot'

I have to point out that these announcements were recorded about 2 hours previous, and this announcer often does this sort of thing

Do Border still have that programme menu before Lookaround? I always thought that worked really well, the anno talking about the programmes over the menu, then the ident (with the full hearts music - almost never used on GMG North now).

Nope, that was a Border thing and it seems to have gone now. I agree it's a good idea and I think they should make one for each region and show it at 7.00 before Emmerdale and after the late local news. One of the problems I have with continuity in general recently is that there's no cohesive device in place to tell you at a set time what's coming up on the station.

It's good when the young woman anno does the '**** on ITV1' thing, but I think they should have a set of tag-lines for each station and use those over and over like LWT (ang Granada Plus) do. In fact I think G+ is a very good example of what ITV should be looking towards, not so much their ident style but more the way the whole thing flows along, rather than the stop-start presentation which ITV has.

(Edited by jason at 4:35 pm on Mar. 28, 2002)