I believe these changes are part of the dumbing down of television. You only need to look at the names to see that simplification and reality style programming, is leading UKtv's hand!
UKtv is conformed to replace the UK from the channels. I am glad this is the case, as Telewest Gold and Telewest Style is a really bad idea.
I'm really not surprised at this, as the channels have been moving towards the UKtv brand for ages. There was no visible on-screen presence of the UKtv name a year or two ago, but now UK Gold and UK G2 show a rather large "Part of UKtv" at the end of each ident, and at Christmas every UKtv channel had it. I couldn't see that arrangement carrying on for ever, as it looks messy, so this was bound to happen.
It reminds me of the Olivio --> Bertolli change - the Olivio tubs started having "make with Bertolli olive oil" printed on them a couple of years ago, which gradually got bigger in size and nearer the main logo, until they changed the name completely to Bertolli!
I have to say I'm not particularly bothered about the 'closing' of UK Horizons - they're basically just splitting it in 2, so the documentaries and docusoaps each get their own channel.
As for the rebranding, it doesn't sound too great - 'UK Gold' is a very well-known brand. And 'UKTV Documentary' sounds like a bit of a mouthful!
Why can't they just add "Part of UKTV" to the existing UK and Flexitech channels, and maybe drop the 'UK' bit from the existing channels. It simplifies things a bit.
I image with this merger / takeover (not sure which) that some of the channels will eventually close, as the programming is likely to have similarities. Who know???
Its not a take over, just changing the channel names from UK something to UKtv something.
Flextech who owns 50% of the UKtv channels and 100% of Bravo, Challenge etc, was brought a few years back by Telewest. They recently spoke about bringing the channels closer together to promote Telewest, like Sky promote their channels alongside Sky Digital.
Any ideas what the presentation or logos will look like for UKTV Doc and UKTV People ?
The post above by "martinDTanderson" looks close to what they will probably look like.
According to Ariel, "On March 8, the whole UKTV network will unveil a simplified new look". The new graphics are being designed by Dunning Eley Jones - anyone heard of them?
