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Old Announcers

Where are they now?? (February 2011)

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SO
Steven O
jjne posted:
This is something I've always wanted to know -- I only ever saw one night of Border presentation, around 1985.

The three or four links I saw were very perfunctory -- Allan Cartner was on duty that night, and on each occasion all I saw was ITV trailer -> completely unbranded holding slide -> ad break -> another ITV trailer -> maybe a menu voiced by Cartner -> straight into next programme.

No IVC that I saw, no enthusiasm, fairly long fades to black after each presentation piece and not even any effort to quicken up transitions using cross-fades/screen wipes etc.

It was, as you say, pretty grim. (As an aside this is pretty much what Tyne Tees turned into whenever Cartner was in the seat in Newcastle as well).

Was this typical of Border's output at the time (the one or two scraps available on the net are similar) or was I just unlucky to see a particularly boring night?

Made me so happy to get back to the friendly but clunky and wobbly presentation back on the other side of the pennines Laughing


Mmm, that was pretty much it, they didn't have their own end of programme slides, so just used the programme slides supplied by the network, no astons on the clips. The only announcer that did IVC was Pat Doody, he usually did Tuesdays and was in vision at 6.35 and that was pretty much it.

Promo wise, until they got the ITV promos, it was a programme clip with a voice over at the top, that cut to a slide and voice over at the end.

To introduce programmes they used either the Border Television caption, the programme slide supplied by the network, or a slide with the day of the week written on it, or Now on Border Television.

They did more in vision in 1986/87 when Isabel Jarrett, Daphne Neville, John Myers and Lesley Cairney joined the announcing team, not at the same time. Alan, Clem and Clive hardly ever, if at all, did IVC, but presented the news bulletins in vision.

They were phased out in 1988, and a new team recruited, who were in vision in peak time.

Transmission beefed up in 1987 ish, and started using cross fades and wipes, with the occasional aston on promos, they also introduced more of their own branded slides.


Allan Cartner was Border's chief announcer, IIRC, with Clive as his deputy. One of the few other times Border's announcers appeared in-vision was for the birthday greetings slot. (John Myers joined Border in 1985.)

The reason the new team, Craig Austin, Jenny Farish and Sue Radford, came in was because both Allan and Clive left Border during 1988 - Allan moved to Tyne Tees, while Clive retired. Craig went on to beef up Border's image quite substantially during his time at the station, culminating with the animated idents used during the mid-nineties.
CO
Colm
Would I be correct in thinking the bigger companies (ATV/Central, Thames, LWT, Yorkshire, Granada) solely used their own branded trailers on screen, while the smaller companies took the ITV branded trailers?

I never saw ITV branded trailers on Central, & on the odd occasion I went elsewhere(TSW land) I saw ITV branded trailers.

If I'm wrong, how did it work?


Many of the larger regional companies produced their own-branded trails - HTV, TVS and Scottish certainly were by the late 1980s, along with Anglia as Jase mentioned.

And like LWT, Yorkshire also went through phases of running ITV-branded trailers, especially in the early days of the 1989 ITV generic era.

In terms of the smaller regional companies, I believe TSW really started replacing ITV-branded trailers with the launch of the "Four Seasons" package in 1989, and from my neck of the woods, UTV only dropped ITV branded trailers after the 1993 relaunch.

Speaking of 1993, the ITV trail design used at the start of the year was adopted by some of the regional companies, where the local station logo replaced the network logo. Here's an example from Tyne Tees; TTTV logo at the start and ITV logo on the promo end board, I've seen a version with the Border logo somewhere online and I remember Ulster Television adapting the trail design in the last few months of the waveform logo.

Following this, Border began producing their own promotions later in 1993 - and am I right in thinking they also produced trails for Grampian?
JJ
jjne
Of course if you really want a schitzo trailer, try this one for size....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8HKn0ww3HE

Produced by Tyne Tees with both TTTV and ITV branding, and not just a cover-up either. There are a couple of regional ones like this on the net as well.

The aforementioned TTTV/ITV trails that Col pointed out were around for about six months in 1992-93 -- before this Tyne Tees had produced a series of trails/promos with the tagline "one reason more people turn to Tyne Tees", hence the remote control graphic. But again, a lot of these (voiced either by one of the announcers, or Tommy Vance no less!!) actually had some ITV graphics, and they were interspersed with other trailers, some with TTTV branding only, some ITV only, and some both.

It was only in 1994, 18 months before the Newcastle presentation ended, that fully TTTV branded trails started, and even then 3/4 of them were made by YTV (with conversely a small number of YTV promos being made by TTTV).
Last edited by jjne on 8 March 2011 1:43am
CR
ColonelRed

Following this, Border began producing their own promotions later in 1993 - and am I right in thinking they also produced trails for Grampian?


Yes that's right, from 1994 to 1996
SO
Steven O

Following this, Border began producing their own promotions later in 1993 - and am I right in thinking they also produced trails for Grampian?


Yes that's right, from 1994 to 1996


Odd to think that just a decade earlier Border's trails and promos were rather on the basic side, yet by the mid-nineties they were up there with the best of them. I can remember Bill Steel voicing some trails for Border around 1997 (probably because he was working for Century Radio, who were owned by Border at the time). Now if only Bill had been able to do some continuity at Carlisle - that certainly would have been something.
CR
ColonelRed

Following this, Border began producing their own promotions later in 1993 - and am I right in thinking they also produced trails for Grampian?


Yes that's right, from 1994 to 1996


Odd to think that just a decade earlier Border's trails and promos were rather on the basic side, yet by the mid-nineties they were up there with the best of them. I can remember Bill Steel voicing some trails for Border around 1997 (probably because he was working for Century Radio, who were owned by Border at the time). Now if only Bill had been able to do some continuity at Carlisle - that certainly would have been something.


Mmm, that era was their best presentation wise, seemed to all go downhill post 1997...

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