ITV Discussion Thread

That's been the problem with ITV's branding, though, they never bother using them to their full effect. I only saw them use that promo option a handful of times and then for the next year it was just dully animated onto the screen with a dull jingle. In addition when they did special idents, like for the Champions League and, lest we forget, Celebrity Wrestling, they were completely different with the horizontal version of the logo.

The same was true, certainly in Granadaland, with the hearts idents at the turn of the century, because Granada stopped using the little films very quickly and then for most of the run of that ident they used the boring one with the logo already formed, no jingle and the swirly background, presumably as it was so easy to leave on the screen for however long they needed. But it was unbelievably dull, not helped by Granada's hopeless announcers.

Yeah that was awful. Did the other Granada owned stations scrap the short films as well?

I wasn't a fan of the pre-2006 range, especially the rip off the the BBC's logo. And don't forget the first ITV3 package, especially the logo, which didn't suit the channel at all.

I think central in the 80s had the best ones, they used the cake logo in so many different ways, certainly every one in he region new it was central.

http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/itv_studios_to_close_production_business_in_norwich_1_1176265

Norwich production office closed down.

Maybe a bit of nostalgia always makes things better but those hearts idents (in full) were pretty damn good - though the unused versions were much better IMO, but I guess they ditched them because on the local versions you had the local logo, the name, the ITV logo and the heart emblem - a bit too much really. For just "ITV" with the heart emblem they looked brilliant though - and I'm sure they could have tweaked the end to incorporate regional logos better too - and certainly could have kept the music for the on air versions.

Having a logo doesn't seem to be popular across the board thesedays. BBC TWO, Channel 4 & Channel 5 are the nearest you get to that and even then it is just the number of the channel. Pretty much every other channel uses their name in a font.

ITV did use the 4 blocks device prior to the current look but it was scrapped, probably as it wasn't obvious enough unlike just using the logo of the channel like everyone else does.



Obviously the hearts were generally hated at the time because of what came before. Simiarly the celebs idents were disliked because they occurred at the same time as the regions being dropped, even though they were probably more upbeat and more suitable to lead into ITV's main entertainment programmes like The X Factor than many of the idents used since 2006

The Granada North ones certainly did -- "Granada's hopeless announcers" were actually YTV's by this point. It's a pity that Manchester didn't take hold of the Eastern side of the Pennines earlier as the like of Colin Weston, Jim Pope and Charles Foster would have been a much better compensation for the old regional annos than Maggie's mob.

The whole look and feel of this era of ITV in the North was bad enough for the closure of 'regional' continuity to come as a blessed relief quite honestly.

Broadcast reporting that ITV is to close its production unit in Norwich, putting 35 jobs at risk.

Well, the other problem with the heart idents as well is that they also used to cross-promote ITV2 and ITV Sport by fading up their logos in the corner of the screen as well, the entire screen just looked a mess.



Yes, the announcers they used were all dull and they never even seemed to know what they were introducing either, they always sounded bemused, the one I really remember is them going into Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned with "football chat now, with Baddiel and Skinner", despite the fact the entire point of that programme was that they didn't talk about football. That, combined with the dull background muzak and static idents, just looked like a channel that didn't know what it was doing. It was certainly awful compared to the Carlton idents around at the time with their quick cuts and strident jingles, which I always liked.

But then ITV's presentation has always been a problem because there's so much detritus in the schedules. I can't remember where I read it but just before they axed News at Ten the first time, ITV said they had to move it as everyone switched off at 10.30, and someone said that it was obvious why because from 10.30 to 10.40 the channel was an absolute mess, with national and local weather, the local news, often something else as well like the pollen count or the travel news (I remember Central used to do that in the nineties), all with their various opening titles and sponsor bumpers, plus a load of trailers and adverts, there were about ten opportunities for viewers to switch off. I only end up watching ITV News on FA Cup weekends when it's before the highlights but it seemed far more logical and flowed a lot better when I watched it this weekend purely because there's no sponsor on the weather.

Carlton were great, had it not been for the unpleasantness with the rebranding etc they might have been better remembered. Certainly their presentation was miles more slick than Leeds ever was. I think YTV was suffering from the legacy of the fact that they (and TTTV) had been just about the only stations that faded every piece of presentation to black rather than cutting. Tyne Tees had an excuse -- they were using knackered equipment from the 1970s -- but YTV really should have known better. The Northern stations still looked like 80s throwbacks in 2002, and that wasn't really good enough.



The sponsorship and ads messed the whole thing up. TTTV cut to the local news almost before the national had finished -- there was no room to mess with the remote -- but all this news-break-weather-trailer-news-weather again-break business meant that if you weren't really interested in the following programme it tended to be forgotten about.

Yipee! Bring it on! I've always hated the current idents and music. To be honest since ITV1 went 'National', their idents haven't really done it for me. I think the 2004 package was about the best of a uninspiring batch. Let's hope for something stronger.

As for those wishing the 'Regional' days back, I'm afraid them days are gone. If they keep Regional News (and maybe added a 30 minutes Regional Politics/Current Affairs/Regional Interest programme as part of an amendment of Contract Rights Renewal) we should think ourselves lucky. I do however propose the separation of the West and East Midlands Regions as they are separate Government Regions.
I also agree with one of DS's members that they should reintroduce Regional continuity by allowing a regional Producer/Reporter to read an announcement before Regional Programmes.

So for me Strong National Package with a hint of Regionality.

I remember a spoof listing in one of the Spitting Image books read "10.00 News at Ten, 10.30 More Bloody News" - it did feel as if that block went on forever, even if it was basically identical what the BBC and ITV do today at 2200 content-wise but far, far less tightly formatted.