SMG Presentation

We all need to be clear, SMG aren't keeping the two brands running because it's nice or getting rid of them would upset people. It's because they make good commercial sense.

In a recent Scotsman newspaper article, Chris Masters - from the SMG board - revealed the strong brands are one of the biggest assets SMG has:

"Undaunted, Masters believes that more value can be extracted from all the brands, including the company's two television franchises - Scottish and Grampian - which are stronger in Scotland than the ITV brand, which is now more than ever associated with England.

Masters' argument is that in a multi-channel universe it will be the strength of brands that differentiate companies and enable them to grow.

He accepts that the Scottish and Grampian television channels will almost certainly lose market share as the competition intensifies, but will build on brand strength. Some 80% of the population watches one of the two franchised stations for at least five hours a week, and though this is likely to decline it still represents a huge marketing advantage for the company."

Sorry Martin, but the SMG TV brands are here to stay for the foreseeable future. As nice as it would be for them to disappear so your 'branding rules', housestyles and identity guidelines would cover the whole of the UK, it just isn't going to happen. For a design student, you seem to be more impressed with rigid logo rules and consistently than a bit of creative difference here and there. Not that STV's creative offering is worth much, but at least it's something.

But this would NOT happen.........Grampian and STV are part of the ITV network and pay for all those wonderful shows from down south!!

If you mean better branding for scotland then maybe yes, but scotland cannot really consider themselves a european or global player, and strong brands should be considered for the largest reach. ITV covers most of the UK, scotland is only a small part of it.

What difference does that make? is STV broadcasting to the world? No -- it broadcasts to Scotland. Therefore it should go with whatever is the strongest brand within its own patch.

Should my local corner shop adopt the Spar livery just because it's more recognised in Nottingham?

Oh for goodness sake.. six pages of some of the most turgid rubbish I have ever read on this forum!!

SMG are a public limited company with shareholders - one of those happens to be ITVplc with 16.9% (Granada buying out Trinity Mirrors stake several years ago).
There is little point in ITVplc buying SMG outright as they will be looking for too much of a premium on the share price.

The licences in England and Wales account for over 90% of ITV advertising revenues - approximately £1.6 billion. ITVplc currently sells advertising for the other licensees.

So what would they get if they bought SMG? Well they had turnover of £94.9m last year making £6.7m profit - not necessarily a fortune! - Particularly when you read the breakdown and notice Virgin Radio made up £2.6m of that.

Scottish and Grampian - well they already are sold by ITV Sales. Yes they would rebrand both channels as ITV1 Scotland but it's a heck of price to pay for just wanting to change the name of the channels!

ITVplc already is the owner of Carlton Screen Advertising which sells advertising on over 2,200 cinema screens which account for 63% of UK cinema admissions - buying SMG they would acquire Pearl and Dean which makes up the remainder of the market (not sure if there are any other players). I imagine the OFT wouldn't be happy with one company having 100% of the market and anyway ITV plc have already tried to offload CSA.

Virgin Radio would probably go... again, they may have to get rid by the competition authorities.

Charles Allen has said recently that ITVplc has to diversify from its core television business and this is shown by the recent purchases of SDN and Friends Reunited. Overpaying for SMG doesn't make financial or business sense.

As far as the renaming of the channels while they are still independant of ITVplc - I personally think its a good idea and makes the channel seem more part of ITV.. as someone before mentioned about the Jeremy Kyle example.

Look at ITV1 Wales - renaming the channel has hardly had them out beating the Welsh executives with leeks!? They still get Corrie and their opt-out programming. It will only be a matter of time before they take Network Announcements too.

A snickers is still a marathon - CIF still gets the dirt out like JIF once did. There may be such a thing as brand loyalty but in television that doesn't count.. as long as you have the products that people want to watch they will still come.

Going back the original post, I agree Scottish and Grampian need to refresh their look and I think it will co-incide with the move!

The thing that nobody seems to have mentioned is that there is no motivation for SMG to brand their stations as ITV1, as this would enforce the notion that they belonged to ITVplc's "family of channels". As far as SMG are concerned, ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4 are competitors, and carrying their branding is not something they would want to do.

The whole situation is complicated by the fact that ITVplc have been allowed to hijack the ITV brand and use it to launch ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4, aswell as to name their company. This leaves UTV and SMG unable to use the ITV brand themselves. UTV, Scottish and Grampian are part of the ITV network, but the name "ITV" has been tainted somewhat.

I seem to have missed a bit here. I've been distracted by ongoing discussions elsewhere about XFM Scotland taking over Beat 106 - now there's an example of renaming a Scottish station and making things better...

Anyway - it's Scottish. It's TV. It should be Scottish TV, right?

Well, my heart says yes. But my head says no. If I was in charge of SMG, I'd switch instantly. And sod what anyone in the Scottish Parliament says - you'll get a bit of heat for a few weeks, and then it'll die down.

Don't get me wrong - I'm proud to be Scottish and I'm proud that Scottish TV is still owned within this country. But the ITV1 branding is already seeping in, through constant mentions in programmes, 'accidents' with the clean feed and the appearances of numerous other ITV channels. And the station lost any crediblity with me the night they showed "England: A Celebration" after they won the rugby. I can't think of a greater example of a reason for their existence than to opt-out of that.

But more importantly than any of that, from a purely commercial perspective - no-one would notice . And of the very few that did (who aren't anoraks like us), no-one would care. As long as their favourite programmes were still there, they'd be fine.

As long as no significant changes were made without some prior warning (XFM anyone?), they'd get away with it Scot-free. Pun partionally intended.

There are only two reasons to keep the SMG brands on screen:
1. To try and get ITV PLC to buy you out - a good rationale for why that isn't the case has just been given. However, if they're not going to bother buying smaller stations, why go for Border?
2. To cover up all the cuts they're making by being able to say "Look, we're still Scottish". I believe this is known as the Granada route, keeping the regional identities on screen while cutting back constantly on the local stations themselves and delivering all northern continuity from one site.

I know you were probably writing your post at the same time as me, but you're missing:

3. What I said above.

EDIT: that sounds most big-headed and arsey but you get my drift.

I'm not getting into the Scottish arguement here, but this is true and has been proved many times. When the ITV franchises last changed in 1993 apparently Meridian did something asking people what they thought about their new ITV company and the main opinion (from Little old grannies) was that as long as Coronation Street and other programmes remain on the air, they don't care.

Same with 2002, only people in the Industry and us anoraks on here noticed and cared about the English and Welsh ITV identities being dropped in favour of a National one, very few people noticed, the average Joe isn't going to care that much as long as the programmes are there.

Most people talk about the programmes themselves no matter how good or bad they are, rather than the Identity and the presentation of the channel.

The rebranding of Scottish or Grampian doesn't matter. The point I was making is that the status quo prevails becuase it helps SMG sell advertising locally as the brands are much stronger in Scotland compared to similar regions in England (when regional names existed). The sentimentality doesn't come into it - it's just stong brand recognition.

Humpty said that ITVplc don't want SMG TV as it's too 'small time', and SMG know they are 'small time' and they're happy making the bit of profit they do. That's why things are as they are and unlikely to change very soon. I was kindof agreeing with you.

Turgid rubbish indeed...

But the brand will only be strong in scotland, whereas ITV is strong in the UK, in Europe and with all the US Sales, the World. Wouldn't it be better for scotland to adopt the brand, and make it strong in Scotland. As long as no regional content was ditched, it would have no adverse effects.

LWT was one of the strongest ITV brands (god knows why!!!) Londoner's don't miss it! Its almost like having Microsoft Windows XP in the whole world, except Scotland, where it is Scottish Windows XP.

Off topic slighty, but I have to disagree. Again Beat 106 probably meant dance to a lot of people but XFM Scotland?! It's a whole new brand and on-air they have failed to explain they have rebranded the station overnight. I know that they are probably banking on new listeners, but alienating your existing audience and having no external poster/short TV advertising campaign to raise awareness of your 'new' station seems bizarre.

Oh yes, the content too. Dominik 'Here's some more text messages' Diamond at breakfast. The cocky ass Stuart Webster in the evenings and the talentless Heather 'I got drunk again last night' Suttie. Hmm. It'll take more than a lick of paint for Capital to get this one back off the floor.