ITV Rebrand 2013

As someone that grew up in Somerset I would say that Avon & Somerset are the west country and Devon and Cornwall are the South West. I never did quite understand why Westcountry TV served the south west.

That said the terms west country, west, and south west are very interchangeable in these parts. For example on the radio here in Bristol we have Heart West Country, BBC Radio Bristol, the voice of the West and The Smoothest Sounds in the South West on the The Breeze (Ok they dropped that tag line a Christmas but you see my point)

I guess ITV West Country is the most generic option. I would have gone for Bristol and Plymouth as the identifying areas.

Okay, apologies.

I think you misunderstand. I was asking whether you considered Devon & Cornwall to be primarily south of you or west of you. I would personally bet that you primarily think of it as south of you and that Wales is to the west.

You're idea of the West County is strange to me. So, you consider the the Bristol/Somerset area to be the West Country but Devon & Cornwall to South West, as separate thing? I've always thought, outside of ITV, the South West and West Country were fairly intechangeable.

This is getting a bit boring now, it seems like "whataday" has some big issue with Granada's Region keeping Granada Reports??

Also I'm sure I heard somewhere before that more of the north west watch Granada's news then the North West Tonight? so maybe that's another reason they kept reports, but get over it people the name is staying!

But the point is, why not keep, say, London Tonight? If Granada Reports and Calendar were to stay (and I'm fine with that), why bother renaming the others? And I still don't get the inclusion of 'Cymru' in ITV News Cymru Wales.

I still sometimes think in terms of the traditional ITV region names, e.g. the first time I went to the Roller Coaster Club of Great Britain Blackpool Bash in April 2008, I saw it as my first ever time of staying in the Granada region, and put the TV on at my guest house the Friday evening around 6:20pm in time for the Granada weather forecast (I wanted to know the Saturday weather as I was to spend Saturday daytime in Blackpool Pleasure Beach that weekend). Likewise when I went to Great Yarmouth for a weekend at the end of June 2008, I saw that as my first ever visit to the Anglia TV region.

I even still think of the Devon/Cornwall area as Westward region, largely because during the first 10 years of my life it was Westward, when I was little I had a cuddly Gus Honeybun.

Again, younger generation, not childhood stories.

ITV3's overall look is, I would say, the most solid - in style, and especially in the way the idents complement each other. I can understand a few of the early comments ranking ITV3 highly because of this.

But, to give it its due, I think ITV2 comes close to tying... It's got a real 'fun factor', very decent direction given the scenes, and the extra identifying use of bright red. That last point makes all the difference in linking the set together and appearing visually coherent (not my fave word, but couldn't think of a better one)...

That sort of aspect is where ITV(1) falls down; logo notwithstanding, they look comparatively like just a bunch of clips with no visual identifier, no connection. If they have a sufficient range of idents, perhaps the best they can do is to give priority to the most appropriate ones at time of broadcast, really try to play off of the idea of reflecting the nation. But honestly, I don't know how strong that can be; it's not the best idea... And to put it mildly, I'm struggling to really like the idents.

However, the big surprise: very impressed all-round with the approach to the rest of the pres - the endboards, bumpers, and the like. They're all very well-considered and designed, and it bumps up my overall view of the entire rebrand by a great deal - kudos for those aspects.

Perhaps the whole rebrand could have been an outright success. It has certainly got closer to the mark than I expected... It's a shame that arguably the biggest, key piece - the main ITV idents - let it down so much by being wholly unremarkable and without any collective sense of identity. They are idents, but only just.

Don't forget there is a good chance we'll see an new ITV Sport sting at 8pm, if it hasn't been seen already. I'd assume the graphics will be much the same as before as they had some new ones just a few months ago, albeit with straight swap of the logos.

I would guess (and it's only speculation) that this is something that's come from those at ITV Wales itself rather than those doing the ITV News rebrand - all of BBC Wales's English-language output has been branded 'BBC Cymru Wales' for the last few years and the organisation is always referred to as such in adverts and trailers. Like the BBC, ITV Wales does produce Welsh-language material for S4C so I'd assume it's an attempt to emphasise the breadth of what they do - either that or Welsh political correctness. Think it's branded as ITV News Wales on the EPG though.

Not sure if it's been mentioned yet, but Sky have begun using the new ITV logo on their adverts for Sky Catch Up - I'm not connected to the broadband here so can't say if they've changed any logos on Catch Up itself yet,

Though I don't agree with leaving the regions just to the BBC (I personally think ITV should be making Regional News and a 30 mins Magazine programme about Politics/Lifestyle etc), I do agree ITV need to look at some of their more outdated Region names...I do believe using the ITV News brand plus Region is the best way to go.