I'm sure everyone here has seen the unused hearts before (and still can't work out how what ended upon screen was deemed to be better!) but I'd never seen these Millennium Idents for Granada, Tyne Tees and Yorkshire which (allegedly) never made it to air.
I'm sure everyone here has seen the unused hearts before (and still can't work out how what ended upon screen was deemed to be better!) but I'd never seen these Millennium Idents for Granada, Tyne Tees and Yorkshire which (allegedly) never made it to air.
there was a whole range of idents created around the same time that never got used. They were designed by Ballistix which was owned by Yorkshire I believe.
Basically, in 1999, the GMG stations, despite having introduced the genreric purple hearts in Novermber, launched their own regional Christmas and Millenium package, which had no ITV branding. I can only assume that GMC North weren't aware of the generic ITV hearts package until late on and had already created these idents and so were going to use them no matter what. Certainly, there was an official Christmas hearts ident used that year that HTV, Anglia, Meridian, Border and LTW used which involved a robin flying about on the standard hearts ident.
They had to be aware. Yorkshire's 1999 regional ident has a spinning chevrons background, and the font on the Yorkshire generic ident matches the corresponding endcap. Thus, the local idents have to have been designed before the generic one (otherwise, the generic ident would've used the font from the previous YTV ident), and the spinning hearts background, the final element of the generic package to be added, is based on YTV's.
Certainly, there was an official Christmas hearts ident used that year that HTV, Anglia, Meridian, Border and LTW used which involved a robin flying about on the standard hearts ident.
It was the 2D Christmas fairy I believe, and the robin the following year.
The Yorkshire local ident had many many versions made, about 20 or 30 maybe?, therefore they must presumably have intended it to be used full time, as that was far too many to be restricted to a few junctions per day.
I think the confusion on that page is that they need to remember that Border wasn't part of GMG North at that point.
The Yorkshire local ident had many many versions made, about 20 or 30 maybe?, therefore they must presumably have intended it to be used full time, as that was far too many to be restricted to a few junctions per day.
I think the confusion on that page is that they need to remember that Border wasn't part of GMG North at that point.
What was going on in the presentation department of GMG North at the time is still a bit of mystery and that era interests me a lot. Clearly, ITV had been struggling to agree on a common ident design for well over a year with little to show for it. From what I've heared from others, the style of ident below was supposed to air along with the generic ITV trailers and logo redesign on 5th October 1998...
For whatever reason, it was pulled very late on, perhaps even mere days before it was supposed to premier. It'd be interesting to know what went on behind the seens during that era and I'm sure there's tons of hearts idents and materials that never made it that we still haven't seen on the internet.
There were other hearts idents that were on the old Continuity Booth website. These were similar to the final design but the spinning hearts were a deeper purple and faded in and out, looking less vivid than in the final design. They worked largely the same, with a live action sequence which formed a heart shape and then transition to the spinning hearts with station name. However, the transition wasn't a mere instant flash transistion. There was an Anglia example on that website. From memory, the film was a café setting with clinking cup sound effects. I could be wrong here but I seem to remember that the screen splits into four quadrants a bit like the BBC Four idents, one was an overhead view of a teacup, can't remember the others but similarly themed but the four shapes made out a heart outline. Then the 'ANGLIA' word sort of came in with different parts of the letters arriving from different parts of the sceen. Once the word forms, the hearts appear, with the Anglia flag above it, like in the final versions. However, the flag is purely yellow and not in full colour unlike in the final versions. What stood out was the music. It was very dark and moody, menacing even.
There was also a Carlton version, no star of course. It featured the welding scene that made it into the final package, again, in four quadrants showing different angles of the work which makes out a heart shape. The transition is different though. The 'Carlton' logo appears instantly formed but with a sort of green residual glow that disappears after a few seconds, as if it was a type of magic. The music was more abrupt to match the more sudden transition but still very dark, as was the whole colour of the idents, dark purple with very grey and dour live action sequences.
Considering these idents were a lot more like the final versions, I think these were being worked on in the early half of 1999. Carlton was still on board at that time and I'm guessing they may have been aiming with an Autumn season launch. Clearly, as the months passed, disagreements over the design continued and Carlton gave up, doing their own thing with their own (imo superior) idents where appeared for the Autumn season. As September came and no generic idents arrived, the presentation department of GMG North themselves must have been getting frustrated and probably became sceptical that it was ever going to happen. Also, I'm pretty sure they weren't expecting to be having to deal with three different station idents for so long. Indeed, transmission and continuity for Granada moved to Leeds around the very time that the generic idents were supposed to arrive in October 1998. So, I reckon they set to work on their own look.
Chances are, when the finalised design finally arrived, GMG North probably didn't have much prior notice. It would seem that the Yorkshire regional idents were supposed to be full time idents. What's interesting though is that whilst they made so many of them, they hadn't got around to making any for Granada or Tyne Tees. Maybe the Yorkshire ones were to be released first and then they'd move onto one of the other stations. In a way, having all that work undone by the genric idents finally arriving, it is understandable that they still wanted to use them, albeit for regional junctions. Clearly, the spinning chevrons were based on the network hearts and not the other way around. For a start, the GMG presentation department will have seen the prototype hearts and knew the spinning hearts was the direction network were going. What I find weird though is that Tyne Tees kept its current ident for use in regional junctions. Granada, however, despite have lots of different idents before the generic idents arrived had to make do with these new idents no matter whether the junction was networked or regional. I don't understand why Granada was treated differently here.
Of course, it seems that the Christmas and Millenium presentation was already in development by November of that year, so GMG North were naturally going to use their own efforts rather than the network's offering. Weirdly again, a few months later, they made a new Tyne Tees ident that was really good quality and far too good just to be used for only regional junctions. It beared no resemblence to the Yorkshire or Christmas presentation and seemed totally original. Why GMG North deemed this necessary, I've no idea. It was a nice surprise, yet Granada still got nothing. But it was a very interesting period for ITV presentation in the North and actually ITV no the whole, even though it was all part of the demise process of regional ITV.
I feel I must apologise for the length of that post. I didn't realise it was so long but there's so much about that presenation era that fascinates me and so many loose ends that I'd like to know the answer to.