Networked ITV - 1990s and before...

Fairly standard ITV clock that -- I think LWT used something very similar.

You want an ugly clock, look at the YTV (and occasionally TTTV) clock from 1993/4 (Taken from TTLP -- not 1992 as stated on that site):

http://www.transdiffusion.org/tmc/cityroad/images/320clock1993.jpg

(And yes, those horizontal lines were present on original broadcast) This rather nasty design was also used on the "Next" slides, and IVC in the NE (for some reason continuity from this era doesn't seem to come up much on the net -- it coincided with the mountain of technical problems when YTV first opened the joint continuity centre).

Oh -- and yes, that logo is superimposed -- YTV would have been showing the same clock with a small chevron in the same place. It would fade in and out at a slightly different time to the rest of vision.



Yes. This era still featured locally-originated continuity, so was effectively the same as any other part of the day.

Watch It started in 1981 to give a generic feel to ITV's kids show, but there were a lot of regional variations. The Watch It brand replaced in the Border region an ident of a marionette with JUNIOR TELEVISION in Playbill font.
However, the launch of Children's ITV in 1983 saw regional variations ditched in favour of a networked schedule and an invis announcer that really scared the BBC. ( At times ITV's idea of junior television was a boring family film or one hour Lassie episodes).

Wasn't the odd bit of 'Children's ITV' still regional occasionally?

I seem to remember one occasion when they still had the celebrity presenters, Sandi Toksvig(who was doing No 73 at the time!) was on location on a beach for some reason, & they had a link of her looking through the TV Times(presumbly) & saying something along the lines of 'I can't find the next programme', then they cut to a locally generated slide & continuity, then something that wasn't networked. (This was as remembered in Central land of course!)

Derek Griffiths once introduced a Children's ITV regionally varied junction by saying " And now a surprise "

Indeed - awful design. The last clock on this page looks far superior:
http://thetvroom.com/itv/itv-yorkshire-01-40.html
Not sure if the dates are correct - but note how it uses the "incorrect" version of the ITV logo ("incorrect" in as much as I thought YTV had replaced it with a revised one - displaying all of the chevron - almost straightaway in 1989).

Did TTTV use this clock design as well as YTV, do you know?

YTV kept the awful 1989 ident until mid 1990 and then it was replaced with own version.

No, TTTV didn't use that clock design -- that was from the spring/summer of 1993, while Tyne Tees still had control of their own output (although most of it was just piped from Leeds, they simply opted out of the YTV-branded stuff). They did use the design in some TTTV-branded promos, however.

BTW my last post was inaccurate -- the blue-grey clock would have had the ITV/Y logo on it rather than the chevron. They used this logo on non-ident presentation material right up until 1994, despite having changed the ident back in June 1990.

Most of YTV's clocks were pretty good -- that blue-grey one, and the Channel 3 one (which was also very poor) notwithstanding.

I think the blue-grey clock would have looked OK had they made the logo the same size and position as that used on TTTV IVC (top-left, and about the same size as the TTTV logo nearly always was in the studio).

I have a feeling that that clock was hardware-limited to a certain size and position on the screen, The same clock had been used from early 1989 right up to around 1999 with the same clock dimensions -- some, like the above, in a jarringly bad position (too far up the screen for the rest of it). The C3 one (with chevrons all around) was in exactly the same position as the ITV one, the same size, and with the same hands, just a different background. I think it was the same hardware.

Coming from the Border region idents and start ups were quite basic. Going back 30 years you had a blue background, the DY ident on the right in white and BORDER TELEVISION to the right in white Arial. Border's start up consisted of this ident with the voice of Alan Cartner doing the IBA announcement, followed by some sixties style instrumental and then Keltic Kavalcade, that rousing Scottish march which was sometimes called the Border Television March. Then either Clive Champney or Allan Cartner would wish you a very good morning.

I always found Border's approach quite puzzling really.

Most of the smaller stations (my own Tyne Tees included) had rather basic, rough-and-ready transmission facilities, but the majority of them made up for this by creating personalities of the on-screen announcers, and doing a lot of stuff live rather than pre-packaged which made for a station that seemed much more 'alive' than some others. All done very cheaply as well.

There was no reason Border couldn't have gone the same way. Instead they seemed to be stuck in an early 70s Granada/YTV timewarp, with very slow, deliberate presentation, graphics that didn't change for years on end, very little engagement with the viewer that I could see, and an emphasis on professionalism rather than friendliness. An interesting choice given the lack of budget.

Then fast-forward to around 1988, and the station suddenly comes to life -- at the exact moment the rest of the network is starting to go back the other way.

Both Allan Cartner and Clive Champney were very much of the 'old school' of presentation. However, when John Myers joined the announcing team in 1984 it did pep Border's continuity slightly (especially when John did the Border Birthdays spots). I think the change of direction in 1988 may have been down to both Allan and Clive leaving Border that year, Allan moving to Tyne Tees, while Clive retired. A certain Derek Batey also left Border's employ around the same time, IIRC.

They were poor and the national ITV strike in 1979 and two Border only strikes in 1978 and 1982 caused huge financial damage to Border. I think they moved forwards when they jazzed up their idents, retired Keltic Kavalcade( good though it was, marches were a bit old hat by 1988) and hired in announcers like Craig Austin. I certainly would never class Clive Champney as more professional than friendly, he was both and often cracked jokes on air.

There never jazzed up the idents until 1993. The one in 1989 was given to them. Unless you know of another ident used in the late 80s?