ITV Regional Identity

If a merged UTV/STV did decide to introduce a single channel name across the whole of its Scotland/NI patch, I can't imagine what that name could possibly be though. They'd probably just have to give up, and plump for "ITV1".

Why do you need an ident before regional news? The programme is (in most cases) called 'ITV <name of region> News/Tonight' etc. Why would they need to identify the region twice?

He's Chief Executive of the company, not really in his remit

The bbc have regional idents into the news, however bbc regional news always follows the main bulliten.

although most itv regions news states the region clearly a regional ident at 6pm would make it appear more professional.

Even though the BBC does regional idents, the announcements aren't made by real continuity announcements. They're just voices run off a tape, which really annoys me - they could pick anyone up off the street at 6pm every evening to do the announcement if they wanted. Surely a little identity and warmth from the continuity booth is worth the extra few thousand pounds a year?

ITV's regions are in a mess at the moment. You're not even sure which region you're in because there's no branded ident (whatever will deaf and dumb hitch hikers only able to recieve ITV on their portable televisions do now? ), and I wouldn't be surprised if they were using taped continuity as well.

And whoever had the stupid idea of merging Central South and Meridian Thames Valley? Now on ITV I get news from somewhere completely irrelevant in the Midlands and I can't even see quite a lot of Surrey on the weather map.

(FYI, I'm within ten miles of Sandhurst on the Surrey side - so, as I'm on the border with Surrey/Berkshire/Hampshire, instead of getting lumped in with BBC London via terrestrial, I get South Today - where I can actually see the weather where I am! Yippee! (Of course, Virgin Media gets something from a hub a few miles down the road, which gets BBC London... grrr...))

The national news is called "ITV News". Why the need to identify the station twice?

It's not the lack of regional ident at 6pm which is the issue, it's the lack of any ident at all.

They should provide a generic one at 6pm with an announcement something like "More drama in Coronation Street .... tonight at 7.30 and 8.30, here on ITV1"

Getting London to record regional ones didn't work as they were often read really dull "You're watching Yorkshire on ITV1 with tonight's Calendar"

They might say that the focus groups say that it is too formal to have a big announcement at 6pm, as it is more friendly (just like they do at 6.30pm on BBC1) to have the presenters introduce themselves and the programme

Where exactly in the Midlands do you get your news from?! Thames Valley is presented from Whiteley (Hants), and I believe the newsgathering centre is in Abingdon, Oxfordshire-- officially in Southeast of England. I'm confused

Of course, as there are no sources, I can't vouch for its credibility. I think I get a signal from Hannington or one of its relays. The latter is more likely as I still can't get a Freeview MUX.

i.e. Central South (which is mainly in the Midlands, in my opinion) and Meridian West merged to form Thames Valley.

As much as I would love to see Thames, LWT, Central, TVS, etc. reappear on our screens again I think it's time to move on, afterall this october will be the 5th anniversary of the "death of the regions".

Plus also most of ITV1's successful programmes are made by indies now

What's more is that this is the *second* shot at this concept, and they're still no better than the originals.

The celebrities and even the spinning blue hearts before them had an easy to understand purpose to be the way they were, however gimmicky or poorly executed the results might have been. The dull repetitive music and the poor ITV corporate brand itself are only part of the reason these idents are so poor; the real problem with the current effort is that there is no obvious purpose at all for the action depicted, and it just doesn't work.

The only way to have idents which do nothing other than identify the station is for them to be graphical (like the pre-logo change set).

Pretty graphics always work (they just need to be kept up to date with the times) - but they don't command multi million pound rebranding tags because no marketing speak b*llocks can be attached to them, which is why they've fallen out of favour. But live action needs a *true* purpose, or it'll look awful, just as these do.


The problem is that Michael Grade won't look at anything and comission new presentation from an in house department. Michael Grade (if he does anything) will pay a branding agency to do it for him. They will come up with some rubbish which he will have to publically endorse because of the amount it costs, and out another disasterous presentation set will roll.

It's not all bad commisioning a branding agency to do it, he just has to choose the right agency and give them a proper set of guidelines. For example, the agency that created Sky Movies current branding also created the amazing SF1 idents (with the help of The Hive 3D design company, who ITV have used many times in the past for promos and their 2003 Xmas Idents). Lambie Nairn are also a very good branding agency. The worry is that Michael will continue using Red Bee.