Scottish TV to ITV1 Scotland - The Petition

Ohh yes SMG are going to take notice of a few petitions asking them to sell out to itv - I think NOT!!!!

Barney Rubble, the point I was making to Jonnie03 was that the angle his petition was coming from was very unrealistic. But, I wasn't necessarily condoning any petition at all.

I'm not so stupid as to think that any decision by SMG to sell off Scottish/Grampian to ITVplc would be influenced by petitions. Don't insult my intelligence.

My "suggested petition" was merely a means of illustrating my point to Jonnie03. Of course it wasn't a "serious/actual suggestion", for f*cks sake!

I agree that people in rural areas are more likely to know the channel as 'Scottish' or 'Grampian'. But you have to be reaslistic - how many times, really, do we actually ever hear these names.

If a guest is on a chat show plugging their new programme, they tell you to tune in at Wednesday 9 o'clock (or whatever) on ITV1 . They don't say, "By the way, viewers in Scotland can catch it on Scottish and Grampian aswell." Even on Scottish programmes, when they mostly only ever refer to it as the infamous "this channel". Even on promos and idents. Infact, the only time I can think of the Scottish and Grampian names being used regularly is on the idents, in a tiny blue box in the corner of the screen.

There's hardly any point in having Scottish and Grampian being separate regions anyway. Whether you think it's right or wrong (and personally, I don't care), Scottish and Grampian's schedules are almost completely identical, and any difference is purely cosmetic (infact, it isn't even cosmetic any more, what with idents and whatnot being the same).

Perhaps it's just because I'm young. Regional television just doesn't exist in the way it did, so the regional branding simply doesn't matter. I can't remember the exact quote, but I'm sure I read when the ITV1 celeb idents were first introduced and SMG were initially not going for them - an SMG bigwig said, "Scottish and Grampian are really strong brands amongst older viewers." I think that says it all.

People aren't fools. They all know exactly what ITV1 is. Clinging on to the 'Scottish' and 'Grampian' names seemingly just for the sake of it is simply pointless.

.[/quote]I agree that people in rural areas are more likely to know the channel as 'Scottish' or 'Grampian'. But you have to be reaslistic - how many times, really, do we actually ever hear these names.

SMG use the station names after GMTV every morning .At 1pm again the station names are used as Grampian sticks with the network and STV have lunchtime Scotland Today .

Every night at 6 Grampian and STV have their own announcements for the regional news.

At weekends announcements for Grampian and STV into the local headlines.

Also on a Thursday night at 7.30 both stations do have diffrent announcements for their regional shows .

Sometimes announcers will do a prerecorded Grampian announcement and a live one on STV for the same programme .

Just listen a bit harder for them

I agree that people in rural areas are more likely to know the channel as 'Scottish' or 'Grampian'. But you have to be reaslistic - how many times, really, do we actually ever hear these names.

SMG use the station names after GMTV every morning .At 1pm again the station names are used as Grampian sticks with the network and STV have lunchtime Scotland Today .

Every night at 6 Grampian and STV have their own announcements for the regional news.

At weekends announcements for Grampian and STV into the local headlines.

Also on a Thursday night at 7.30 both stations do have diffrent announcements for their regional shows .

Sometimes announcers will do a prerecorded Grampian announcement and a live one on STV for the same programme .

Just listen a bit harder for them [/quote]

Quite right - into Emmerdale last night is an example of that! It would be nice if they did it a wee bit more often though!

Scottish TV is more unique to Scotland. Why would you want it changed? I'm sick of British television programs generalising Scotland all the time. You can be from Croydon or Wiltshire or Norwich - but usually we're just from Scotland. Even the British weather broadcasters call Newcastle "The North" because we're not the north, we're Scotland. Lets keep the very last bit of identity we can, please??

I couldn't care less what they called it . They show nothing but tripe on it these days.

Maybe it's a regional thing, but most people I know call Scottish either "ITV" or "Channel 3"

It won't matter anyway as SMG probably won't exist in a few years from now

I think calling them ITV Scottish/ITV Grampian would work. Not much of a change and it makes all the regions look neater. Scotland Today and North Tonight should stay as it is but with new logos and studios etc.

It's a bit of a mouthful ITV 1 Grampian / ITV 1 Scottish viewers will simply continue to call it STV /Grampian .ITV 1 and ITV 2 will never be in the same league as BBC 1or BBC 2 both channels are very diffrent in style.Turnover to ITV 2 it's full of crap re runs from ITV 1. ITV have tried to copy BBC to much and they should have stuck best to what they know .Even ITV news is just has gone down hill .

I like the fact that North Tonight and Scotland Today have their own look and not the uniformed bland style like the ITV news .

I don't know - if they dropped the '1' and just called it ITV Grampian that sounds ok!! Remember one of Grampians longest used idents was the generic ITV 1989 one. It was used for 10 years so I think they could incorporate the itv brand into a logo and say on the odd announcement ' ITV for North Scotland this is Grampian'. We need to keep the Grampian brand though. North Scotland knows of ITV but we all still call the channel Grampian.

Shame on Grampian for using that awful ident for a decade.I remember the STV one very briefly they ditched it very quickly although i must admit i liked them when they first came out .