ITV's regional announcements

I've noticed that the ITV plc regions now seem to "plug" regional programmes prior to network programmes - I noticed one last night before the network news - is this commonplace now?
Since the regional name no longer appears, it seems the annoucements have improved to "fill the void" - the ones last night mentioned the word "Granada" and "North West" in the same announcement, although the announcer pronounced it as "Granadder". Is more emphasis placed on the announcements now?

I don't think that those sort of announcements are happening before general network programmes (or are they, now?). Those announcements are only before the 10:30pm news on Thursdays (owing to the non-news regional programmes later that night), surely?

ITV's regional announcements are tripe compared to the vintage ones we've had for over a decade. Back then when LWT was around I would enjoy listening to Trish Bertram's announcements before all the weekend glamour.

Now we have some stranger that is heard every thursday and says "This is ITV1 for the London area." Obviously West Kent, Surrey, Essex and other counties are always missed out.

There was one before Emmerdale a couple of weeks ago plugging the 7.30 programme, and there was one on Tuesday too

They seem to crop up occasionally on ITV London but not regularly.

Network programmes that go out before regional programmes do tend to have regional annoucements in Wales. e.g. Corrie on a Monday at 7.30pm often has an annoucement saying "in half an hour on ITV1 Wales its Wales This Week "