ITV1 to be rebranded as ITV

I was just about to suggest maybe its your region, but I've heard people call it Channel 3 and I'm in the same region! I guess its just down to who you know. I've even heard 1 or 2 people refer to it as BBC3 .

Exactly. It's examples like this that make me think of the News 24 to BBC News rebrand. How long before we hear on the ITV Channel? It doesn't matter if people call it ITV1 or ITV so long as people know where to go to watch the channel. ITV1 is a good name to differentiate it from its sister channels.

Ha-ha! What an odd idea.

ITVplc seem to take one step forward and three steps back with every decision they make regarding their brand identity. No wonder the public are lost as to who and what they are trying to be.

They employ someone who assisted in the development of C4's channels, and think they can suddenly take on their ethos of "having a 4 somewhere in the name" and adapt it for ITV's channels. It doesn't work like that, and even the most basic market research will tell anyone that brands take time to establish themselves.

ITVplc abolished regional names a decade ago: that damaged their reputation and annoyed the public as they felt they had lost something. Since then ITV have tried two or three attempts to establish a national identity (for England & Wales). I actually thought it was working: I was repeatedly told in promos that they had 4 channels (although ITV2 didn't fit - but not aimed at me). ITV1 fits with that concept, a channel called ITV doesn't.

This isn't the US: most of us watch the same thing at the same time, albeit with different adverts, on ITV1. Renaming it as ITV will make it look like a (semi) national channel, and the others look like odd subordinates, just at the time when analogue ends and everyone can receive all of them.

It's possibly the craziest decision to come from ITV in the last 10 years: but we've yet to see the re-vamped Daybreak on Monday!

Perhaps this is a UKTV-style revamp of the other channels, where:
ITV2 becomes 'Chantelle'
ITV3 becomes 'Hercule', and
ITV4 becomes 'Gazza' ?

This feels like a backwards step to me - and badly timed. Some forumers may never really warmed to "ITV1" and most viewers may not have noticed the "1" - but we've only just switched over to digital and so it's going to become more and more important for ITV to differentiate between their channel and their "umbrella brand".

The BBC have just finished promoting "the Olympic Games on the BBC" - but ITV now wouldn't be able to say "The Champions League on ITV" unless it was exclusively on ITV1. They'd have to say "The Champions League on ITV, ITV2, ITV4 and online" and that just becomes sloppy.

Not really, it'd still be on ITV regardless, just stick an ITV 2 graphic on the promo

But will they keep it just like it is just now though, ie ITV1 Tyne Tees & Border?

What about "The Champions League from ITV Sport"?

So presumably this means ITV1 +1 will become ITV +1. I wonder whether they plan to rebrand or even rename ITV2, ITV3, and ITV4 at the same time.

I think the article says they are being rebranded but not renamed.

This sounds like the idea of someone scratching in the dirt for justification of their salary, and has come up with something so 'retro' that they can sell it to the Board as 'radical'.

The intention, of course, is for the perpetrator to be long gone when everything hits the fan and this has to be back-tracked in 2015 with another rebrand.

It's probably the result of the most useless drunken 5 minutes ever spent in the pub on a Sunday afternoon when they had to present something to the Boss at 8am the following day!

I don't get quite why ITV have decided to dump the 1 from it's branding, yet it's not as radical as bringing back regional brand names for the regions.

They appear to have learnt NOTHING from the tinkering that went on with the name for Channel 5/five/FIVE

In the multichannel age, identity is everything. If your main channel doesn't have one - then you're lost!

There has been endless debate on here about what people call it, in the end ITV1 is what it is: the primary channel of that network. To rename it is pointless and laughable in the face of previous attempts.

This is beginning to look like desperation, if true!

Perhaps ITVplc intend to give up their seemingly unjustifiable grip on PSB licenses and admit they are no better than BBC Worldwide's part-owned commercial operation (UKTV)?