ITV Discussion Thread

ITV have had more rebrands than programmes haven't they?

Indeed -- pretty much unique among the larger companies.

Even Tyne Tees made their own trails on-and-off throughout the 70s and 80s (mixing them in with the ITV trails). YTV only started doing their own when the fully produced ITV trails started to disappear due to C4 not taking them any more.

Even then they weren't ready -- most trails in 1993 and 94 were made by YTV but ITV-branded so they could be shown on both YTV and Tyne Tees. YTV were most reluctant to bother making their own trails -- have you seen some of the cheap tat that came out in 95 in particular? No two trails made in the same way, hideous massive text on some of them and they couldn't even be bothered to superimpose the TTTV logo properly on the Tyne Tees variants, hence a clear diagonal bar right through the middle of the logo where the black line should have been. Tyne Tees were actually making a fair few of them at this stage -- and somewhat ironically these were, in the main better-produced than the YTV offerings.

It's actually quite embarrassing to watch clips from this era -- TTTV in particular looked thrown together (which of course it was) and YTV were little better.

This at a time when, yes, the rest of the network were extremely regional -- even the tiny stations had their own well-made packages. I think this is probably what led to the dismantling of the old continuity structure in the first place -- regions were spending fortunes on presentation (even YTV come 1996 with their "3" packages), and it was unsustainable so the axe fell.

Go back ten years to when stations were spending 42p on their presentation with a few slides, an announcer's camera inherited from the news studio the last time it was upgraded and trailers thrown together in five minutes and the whole thing scaled so much better.

Can't say watching ITV2 (as rare as I do) I've thought they were in need of a revamp. And ITV4 only changed their idents last autumn.

It's definately ITV1 that needs any revamp the most.

I was thinking mainly that era from 1996ish when the chevron would fly down the screen from top left with the word 'Yorkshire' at the bottom on the endboards. I imagine Tyne Tees trailers were identical except with either a "3" or a "TTTV" logo.

I have very little memory of any ITV trailers prior to this era

Yes, in September 1996 YTV did considerably clean up their act in this regard. As I say, prior to 1993 trails for the vast majority of programmes were made, principally so they could be cross-promoted on Channel Four, overnight (shared across regions) and on TV-AM. Prior to 1983 or so few of these were produced, and so it was after 1993 when most of the cross-promotion ended.

Throughout the whole time (and continuing pretty much to the present day) a 30-second tape was made up for each programme and sent to the regions to be packaged locally. Many programmes did not have ITV-branded trailers made for them -- YTV tended to make ITV-branded trails to fit in with the rest of their output; most larger stations would make a complete set of local trailers; the smaller stations employed a variety of techniques. TTTV's approach was to put basic graphics over the top of the unbranded tape and present the clip as part of a larger mixed IVC/slide/clip package in much the same way as a news report would be put together.

I always much preferred this latter approach as it had an immediacy to it which TV stations almost universally lack now.

I remember some regions used to use the ITV branded trailers whilst others used their own or adapted the ITV one with their own logos etc. Certainly HTV used to stick their logo over the ITV one I think?

I agree. If anything ITV2 & 3 just need a refresh, working with the same sort of ideas. Such as for ITV2 having a 3D version of the logo in the centre of the screen, and have the action taking place around it, intergrate the logo. They could have always just done something more interesting with the logo on their current idents, especially when you look at what they did with XXL Thursday.

I think that was after the national promotions unit was set up around the same time as the 'tv from the heart' launch. All the United Media regions added their own logos either on top of or along side the ITV logo. Granada north regions aired them as intended though

From Youtube, here is a promo from Yorkshire circa 1997 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3y-ZlrWJzY and one from Tyne Tees in the same style http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoTfbi_Vj-k although the Tyne Tees one obviously isn't from a well liked era

Did they still use this style on Tyne Tees after they went back to being called that?

Some good pres there, a decent interpretation of the chevron, albeit from the '3' era of Yorkshire TV, when it all went insane, Yorkshire TV, YTV, ITV, Channel 3 all could be heard.

The days when you'd get a full run down of trailers for a whole evening, rather than now where it's just programme specific.

"Your watching Yorkshire Television on Channel 3" Exactly how long did it take for the 3 to be dropped by Yorkshire ?

No -- the day YTV got rid of the 3s from its ident was the same day that Granada, YTV and TTTV started to once again use ITV-branded trailers (March 1998) with locally-branded trailers that closely matched the ITV ones being used side-by-side. At this point, TTTV were still called C3NE and local trailers had the italic "3" in a grey box. These trailers didn't have any real branding on them -- they were locally produced by YTV (and a few Granada ones V/O'd by the like of Colin Weston and Charles Foster) and programmes were referred to as being "on ITV". At this point we had a curious situation where YTV had their own, live anno, and TTTV received a recorded Granada announcer rather than the YTV one. Colin back on Tyne Tees -- bliss! Sadly that didn't last...

About two months later (May 1998) the C3NE name was finally dropped, and the aforementioned "3" was simply replaced with the TTTV.

A few months later Granada's continuity department closed. At that point we started getting some (very good) Central- or Carlton-sourced trails during the week (these had a plain white ITV logo rather than the grey one YTV preferred), alongside LWT- and YTV-sourced ones (these still had the grey ITV logo for a few weeks before changing) -- anyone know if the Carlton regions also got these?

Then finally in August these finished, and all trails came from the new London-based centre.

EDIT: post compiled before SE's -- but I think I covered that post's questions.

Thinking about it, YTV only started locally-branded trails in late 1994. This means that they only actually produced them locally for a little over three years.

After Carlton replaced Central I can't remember ever seeing a Carlton trailer, even local trailers were named as being on ITV or subsequently ITV1 in my mind.

I think that YTV ident lasted around 3 years, pretty much half of that time with the 3 and half without

Probably one of the best eras on Yorkshire. The chevron looks great compared to many of the flat plain yellow ones that had been used earlier or later. The Calendar opening titles that were used around the same time matched the ident fitted in well too