Thames Endboard Question

My apologies in advance if this is considered a stupid question.

I have been watching Australian released DVD's of 1993 episodes of The Bill.

The endboards at 1st showed the image here but obviously with 1993 as the year.

http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/itvlondon/itvlondon-thamesmain/endboards/end1978-pearsonlogo-quatl.jpg

sometimes followed by the distributed by Freemantle ident.

They have now moved to having to the river ident endboard

http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/itvlondon/itvlondon-thamesmain/images/thames-ident1971as.jpg

with the end credits music still playing and the distributed by Freemantle ident as the music ends.

I was wondering if there is a reason for this. This is something that has puzzled me for a while as I know on my Minder DVD's the 1993 and 1994 episodes open with the River Ident.

I can't imagine this is something specially done for DVD's so was it done for distribution purposes? As I would imagine the newer endboard would have continued appearing on the original screening,

It could possibly be on International copies of the broadcasts, I have Minder on DVD with some of the 1990s episodes and all of them have Thames frontcaps, even I think the last series that was made after 1993. As for why they did it, I don't know, but I get the feeling that in the late 1990s they were trying to phase Thames out in favour of Pearson, as it wasn't too uncommon to see Pearson encaps (ala FremantleMedia ones) at the end of old Thames programmes, indeed some Thames shows on DVD come under the PT Video banner, after Thames Video ended.

It was only reversed when they decided to rebrand in 2001 and called the UK production arm of Fremantle, Thames, as research then found that the brand was still very strong. Not really sure why they modified the caps for international use though.

That's odd. Wouldn't programmes from 1993 have the blue triangle endboard?

In the UK the Thames Triangle would've been the first endboard visible - ' A production for ITV ' legend

For international purposes Thames used the old Skyline ident - so what this suggests to me is another source for some of the episodes, some taken from later sales maybe? About 1998...

Which was changed to "for Yorkshire Television" from Jan 1993.

Wasnt the last series of Minder, Euston Films for Central?

Sounds about right, but Euston Films was part of Thames so it was a Thames programme

According to Wikipedia*
*Add your own comments regarding the veracity of the site

That is correct.

Just like the rest of Thames did at the time it made Minder as independent production for an ITV company

I think it was just Thames Television Production, followed by A Yorkshire Television Presentation For ITV. Minder will have been the same but with Central instead of Yorkshire.
http://tv50.org.uk/stills/thames/thames-15.tv50
http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/itvyorkshire/yorkshire_images/gallery/ytv_presentation_93_t1324.jpg

I know on all The Bill episodes up until the end of 1992 they were Thames productions for ITV on the endboard. Like I say just seems puzzling to start with showing the new endboard for episodes in Jan 1993 and change in what look to be March/April episodes to the old river ident endboard.