HTV

I am sorry if this has been asked before, and I know it's acedemic now that it's known as ITV1 Wales. But was there a reason why HTV wasn't Carlton-fied when they took over? They had Carlton's ident but it remained HTV.

HTV was supposedly such a strong brand in the land of the Welsh that Cartlon thought it wasn't such a good idea touching it. But it seems they had a change of heart when the ITV 1 thing came along.

The Carltonising of Westcountry and Central happened at the height of the 'everything must be on the internet and recognised globally' hysteria. Carlton thought that through being able to promote their website more readily (although the existing Westcountry and Central idents did carry a www.carlton.com URL during their last couple of months of use). They also thought that having more things actually branded as Carlton would make them more money. Hence the rebranding was sanctioned at the time as being a good idea.

By the time they bought HTV they had realised that rebranding Central and Westcountry did nothing and so didn't ditch the HTV brand. The PR story they dished out was that HTV needed to stay on because it was a recognised Welsh national broadcaster but Central and Westcountry were merely regional names for which Carlton was fine. The small chink in that story which they never explain is that HTV West could have become Carlton West but didn't.

As for the Carlton versions of the HTV hearts idents, it was probably done for asthetics - the Carlton idents blew the official hearts look out of the water.

I dont think Carlton could have re-named HTV West without renaming HTV Wales as they are the same franchise I think, just they split them into 2 sub regions with different news and local progs.

I think they will take away the Carlton name in the Westcountry and Central regions as "ITV1 Carlton for Central England" and "ITV1 Carlton-Westcountry" will sound silly when its owned by the newly merged Carlton/Granada - so they will probabaly be ITV1 Westcountry and ITV1 Central.

I preferred the Carlton idents to the United Media/Granada hearts ones - they changed on HTV to the Carlton ones in July 2001.

They could have done anything they wanted with the branding. In fact, they have!

HTV is one franchise for two regions, this means that even though you only have one franchise you have to run two TV channels one for the West of England and one for Wales.

There would be nothing wrong with calling one region one thing and the other another. I suppose it saves changing names etc. on everything for the West region if Carlton left the HTV name intact.

Gareth

Yes but if HTV West had renamed to Carlton West and HTV didnt change their name then people would have thought they were a different franchise.

And I dont think they had much choice renaming HTV West to ITV1 West of England what with them deciding to reband HTV Wales to ITV1 Wales. The name "ITV1 for HTV West" would sound silly

Branding is no longer controlable by the regulator. On paper they can't go about shunting companies around (indeed, to this day the Midlands franchise is still held by Central Independent Television, Wales & West by HTV Group etc) but onscreen they can appear under whatever name they like.

Thats how Westcountry was able to be rebranded as Carlton and then again as ITV1 without needing any regulatory permission and indeed that's how they've managed to turn most of the ITV network into a single channel called ITV1 - because on paper it's still a network of separate companies.

They could therefore have rebranded HTV West. As for people thinking that the franchise has been split well they may have done (if they care), but since when does what people think get in the way of Carlton's decisions?