Official: ITV scrap the Hearts

One of Jim Hytner's first moves as ITV's new marketing director has been to decide to scrap its heart-shaped emblem and 'TV from the heart' theme.

Channel 5's former marketing chief said a new theme would be introduced in the new year.

John Hardie, Hytner's predecessor, introduced the theme and a new ITV logo to sit alongside redesigned regional idents.

Hytner said: 'I've only been here for a couple of weeks and am busily trying to discover the essence of ITV1.

'I'm not going to criticize the ‘TV from the heart' theme at all. At Channel 5 we couldn't believe the ITV shareholders had agreed to a common ident. It was fantastic they had recognized the need to get as close to a single brand as possible.

'Although I'm not yet sure what is going to replace it, I will be working on making ITV1 the hero brand in a family of brands.'

The heart theme was given a mixed reaction by advertisers. David Peters, Carat's broadcast planning director, said: 'The heart logo was fine when it launched three years ago, but looks bland now. It's hard to know exactly what it stands for. ITV1 needs a stronger identity as there are so many different regions.

Another industry insider said: 'I don't think ITV1 has a very strong identity at all. I'm sure most viewers haven't even noticed the heart.

'I hope the new branding will be as strong as BBC2's or Channel 4's – something a lot more modern is needed. It is hard to brand ITV as it tries to appeal to the masses, so the new image can't be too cutting edge or it will alienate older viewers.'

From http://www.mediaweek.co.uk

(Edited by square eyes at 3:52 pm on Oct. 6, 2001)

Phew! Thank god for that. Apart from the fact that we have firm evidence new idents will appear - the whole 'tv from the heart of life' theme is to disappear. Great news. Wonder if Mr. Hytner has an email address?!

Cheers, Asa

I wonder what they're going to have in place of the hearts? Chris Tarran'ts head spinning round on a spike?

Yay the hearts are dead, and he recognises the basic ITV problem, of it being made up of regions. I think the best we can hope for is a range of generic idents with regional names, and a proper regional ident(like TTTV) for local problems, I think they should look to UTV or Scottish because, they are both nice modern sets of idents, and will be the only way to get ITV looking generic.

at last! i always thought the heart was a cheesy idea - bit of a fad in late 90s - people like walls ice cream etc adopting hearts as logos.

does this also mean carlton's idents will become defunct... as they are all made up of hearts? perfect opportunity to return the central and westcountry names if theyre gonna be making new idents.

i think the bbc 1 balloon concept is would fit itv1 perfectly! although they couldnt use a balloon - they could take it round each region and make a set for that region - but the object in them (instead of the balloon) would be recognisable all over england and wales (as SMG and UTV would probably keep their own branding)

mind you if this bloke was responsible for the current c5 idents im not so sure he'll be any good.

The current lot are OK now they've removed the people, a little plain, but their best set yet.

Although Carlton's idents use a heart somewhere in it, the backgrounds are stars, so maybe they will only *slightly* change them..