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ITV Rebrand 2013

Open from 6am Monday (January 2013)

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CF
CatsFast101
All remaining regional brands removed?
They've kept Meridian, Central, Granada etc etc they could just as easy have been South, Midlands, North West. Meridian in particular is a product from a bygone era. Which would have been the same thing as scrapping Calendar and keeping Yorkshire.

Tyne Tees has actually come back replacing North East. They've kept Lookaround.

I agree. Only real casualties are London & West. West has ended up with a ridiculous name in West Country (East)!


To be honest I think all the old ITV Regional names should have been scrapped (with special half-hour tribute shows in each Region before the rebranding). Out with the old, in with the new...I feel the new ITV Regions should be something like this...

ITV London
ITV South East (with sub-region of old ITV Thames Valley area, made in the South East studios.)
ITV Channel Islands
ITV South West (with sub-region of old ITV West area, made in the South West studios.)
ITV Midlands West
ITV Midlands East (as an a Government Region, surely the East Midlands deserves it's own service?)
ITV Wales
ITV Eastern England
ITV North West
ITV Yorkshire & Lincolnshire
ITV North East and Border (with Scottish viewers now receiving STV)


Government Regions are not culturally significant. Also, removing established names like Granada and even Meridian (it's been around for 20 years now) offers no real benefit; particularly as the BBC regional news programmes in most corresponding regions reference these compass points. Thus, in most regions, the old station/programme name allows the ITV service to be distinctive from the BBC service. And ITVplc just handing Selkirk over to STV? Never going to happen.

I do find the inconsistence of the naming convention bonkers though. Most regions go "ITV News [insert region]" and that's how the presenters refer to it on screen. So, the news in the Meridian Region is called "ITV News Meridian" and the newsreaders call it so. Yet, for the Yorkshire Region, it's called "ITV News Calendar" but from the Daybreak opt out I've seen on the internet, the newsreaders just call it "Calendar", as they always have done. For Granada, it's a mouthful onscreen "ITV News Granada Reports", yet, although I haven't seen the news today, I assume they're just calling it "Granada Reports". Then we have "ITV News Cymru Wales". Why? It's not a billingual programme. Totally unnecessary. And lastly, we have "ITV News Channel TV". It's totally weird, as it's the sort of thing I'd expect if Channel TV were still independent but largely taking the network branding but that's no longer the case. Surely "ITV News Channel Report", along the Granada Reports/Calendar route would've been more appropriate, if not go for the more dull "ITV News Channel Islands" option. Really, there's three different variations from the supposed standard format and this lack of consistency makes me wonder why they bothered renaming the likes or London Tonight or Meridian Tonight - unless it's super lazyness so that they don't need to name the bulletins differently, depending on what time of day it is, i.e. London Today/Tonight, Meridian News/Tonight etc.

And as a footnote, yes, the "east/west" subregions for West Country are wack. Surely, if there's to be no separate regional name, then "north/south" would be more appropriate. I also like "Westcountry" as one word. It just looks better.


Dreadful idea!! Don't go renaming the region, no point and that wound well and truly kill the regional brands!! Tyne Tees is a brand has been around over 50 years!!

And many regions are East & West is depends how the regions split! Central East & Weat and now Westcountry East & West! Look at a map!
GE
thegeek Founding member
GMc posted:
The ITV+1 legal message, for those interested:

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/2787/itv1legalmsg.png

Gah. "If you can see this" is such a meaningless phrase. Everyone who's reading the message can see it, so you may as well not have that line there.

(It's one of my bugbears - up there with "Polite notice".)
WP
WillPS
"polite notice" is worse - I'll be the one who decides if it's polite thank you very much.

"if you can see this" is a playful error/message introduction. Better than "well this is embarrassing" which some web developers think is funny for some reason.
CH
Chewy
The writing used for last nights director/writer credits on Corrie seemed to be the new ITV font, rather than the Coronation Street font.
http://i48.tinypic.com/28wcied.jpg
JO
Justice Once
"polite notice" is worse - I'll be the one who decides if it's polite thank you very much.


I have always understood that the idea behind "Polite Notice" signs is that "polite" is only one letter different from "police", and that they are hoping that at-a-glance it might be mis-read as being a Police-enforced instruction, thus theoretically making people more inclined to obey rather than ignore it.

Many such signs I have seen are done in a very "police" colour scheme (white writing in what looks like the standard Highways Agency roadsigns font, on a rather "police-y" shade of blue background), reinforcing this implication.
MK
Mr Kite
Dreadful idea!! Don't go renaming the region, no point and that wound well and truly kill the regional brands!! Tyne Tees is a brand has been around over 50 years!!

And many regions are East & West is depends how the regions split! Central East & Weat and now Westcountry East & West! Look at a map!



Err, I wasn't arguing for that?

Also, no one considers Bristol to be the eastern part of the West Country. In terms of longitude, it may well be more easterly than Exeter or Plymouth, but people going down the M5 from Bristol to Exeter/Plmouth would generalyl consider themselves going southwards.
Last edited by Mr Kite on 15 January 2013 3:20pm - 2 times in total
LL
Larry the Loafer
If you rename the regional news, some regions will lose fairly iconic names like Calendar and Granada Reports. A lot of people in Granadaland won't feel comfortable with "ITV News North West". If anything, the "North West" references are for North West Tonight.
MK
Mr Kite
Like I said, I wasn't calling for that. I was actually disagreeing with someone who was.
TT
Tumble Tower
Continuing the discussion about ITV West and Westcountry, I too have noticed the new set-up:

Former HTV West area: West Country (East)
Former Westward/TSW/Westcountry area: West Country (West)

What better names could they have come up with though? This is a rather awkward case ITV News Westcountry would be fine for the former Westward/TSW/Westcountry area, but could they really say ITV News HTV West for the former HTV West area?

The only possible hope would be to use the same region labelling as the BBC, i.e. have ITV News South West (former Westward/TSW/Westcountry area) and ITV News West (former HTV West area).

Alternatively, how would you have liked ITV News West Country (South West) for the former Westward/TSW/Westcountry part and ITV News West Country (North East) for the former HTV West part?
LL
Larry the Loafer
Like I said, I wasn't calling for that. I was actually disagreeing with someone who was.


I know. I was just saying in general that scrapping regional names isn't a good idea.
AM
amosc100
It's A pity that 12 Yard didn't get a refesh as well, considering that they are part of ITV Studios
MK
Mr Kite
Continuing the discussion about ITV West and Westcountry, I too have noticed the new set-up:

Former HTV West area: West Country (East)
Former Westward/TSW/Westcountry area: West Country (West)

What better names could they have come up with though? This is a rather awkward case ITV News Westcountry would be fine for the former Westward/TSW/Westcountry area, but could they really say ITV News HTV West for the former HTV West area?

The only possible hope would be to use the same region labelling as the BBC, i.e. have ITV News South West (former Westward/TSW/Westcountry area) and ITV News West (former HTV West area).

Alternatively, how would you have liked ITV News West Country (South West) for the former Westward/TSW/Westcountry part and ITV News West Country (North East) for the former HTV West part?


I'd go for North and South. It's not great but better than East and West.

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