It was advertised as the “younger side of ITV” or similar.
It really wasn't. Its launch slogan was "A Different View", followed by things like "2thrill" and then "flip:side" and as has been said, didn't really become a younger channel until many years later.
Obviously it wasn't the same as what it became later on. But from the start it was advertised to a younger audience. The more casual in-vision continuity also points to this.
I took "younger, fresher etc" to be a reference to it being a new channel that was comparatively younger than ITV and therefore a bit less stuffy, rather than that it was aimed at the "yoof". But I take your point - it's open to interpretation.
Obviously it wasn't the same as what it became later on. But from the start it was advertised to a younger audience. The more casual in-vision continuity also points to this.
Brian Barwick was the controller and he said in the Radio Times in the week of the launch that ITV2 would be "TV from the heart (which was then ITV's slogan which never caught on) but skipping to a younger beat".
Gabby seems to be trying to affect an estuary accent in the opening show.
Seems the decision to do in vision continuity was a very late one. This from the London TV Studios History website - http://www.tvstudiohistory.co.uk (the 'original studio 4' it refers to is the old LWT continuity studio)
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The original studio 4 was rebuilt into the new LNN Transmission area in 1992. Several years later, just weeks before ITV2 launched, they announced to LNN that they wanted to do two handed in-vision continuity, at this point the new transmission area had been completed and the associated voice over booth built to a fairly lavish standard. The booth couldn’t have been more than 120 sq ft.
Promptly the booth was stripped, a perimeter of scaff fixed around it and some lights nicked from other departments. There weren’t many widescreen capable cameras around LNN at this time, I recall Sony lent us one to demo (it was later stolen). There were no dimmers, just some hastily run hot power, so you just went in and turned the lights on. Studio 4 was reborn. Over the next few months a proper installation was done with 12 dimmer channels and a selection of “Day” and “Night” cues. It was completed shortly before ITV2 dumped in-vision continituity and it was all removed again.
I uploaded the clips here to YouTube of the launch, the first ad break and the first junction after the It Takes 2 programme, hard to believe it has been 20 years since launch.
The launch programme barely registered with BARB despite the hype and promotion at the time. Certainly the ratings never fully picked up until it was made available on Sky.
The clips I recorded were from ITV2 on Cable & Wireless, who I believe took a DTT signal for the channel. It was not uncommon in the early days to see a digital break up on the picture often leading to a black screen with a red square on air for a few seconds before the signal became fully reinstated.
The channel was placed onto our Cable system about two hours before launch, to which the A Different View programme was being played up to the last hour. The next morning the GMTV2 prelaunch fishtank loop began, however for us we never saw GMTV2 until it was officially added in July 1999.
S2 and TV You/UTV2 didn’t launch until a bit later, did GMTV2 broadcast on LCN6 even though the local services hadn’t launched at this time...