I don't often watch UTV, but tonight made an exception for Dantes Peak. I see UTV is still maintaining its usual standard.
Before the ITV News update at 10:30 they played their ubiquitous and boring old-style generic ident... and then proceeded to cut from it to the ITV1 network ident/anno. After the news update they then joined Dantes Peak in the wrong aspect ratio (don't know if they rectified this as I switched to ITV1 London to see the rest of the film without black pillarboxing).
It really saddens and maddens me how their standards have slipped over the past 10 years.
Ulster may look like a dogs dinner on screen, but I bet the nice men upstairs at UTV don’t give a toss because............According to Media Guardian, they are better than the ITV Network at something!
From Media Guardian
Ulster leads the way at ITV
Annie Lawson
Tuesday September 16, 2003
The Guardian
Ulster Television, Northern Ireland's ITV company, has again outperformed the rest of the network as it shrugged off the effects of the advertising recession.
TV advertising revenues grew 1% in the first half despite difficult trading conditions that triggered a 5% slump in sales for the overall ITV group.
Ulster, which also has media interests in Ireland, recorded a 13.9% increase in group turnover to £25.7m in the six months ending June 30. However, pre-tax profit was down to £4.3m from £5.7m in the same period last year.
"We've been outperforming ITV for three years, probably because of strength in the Irish market - a lot of growth is driven from that region," said John McGuckian, Ulster's chairman.
Advertising revenue dwindled in July and August but rebounded in September. "We've seen growth in September up around 3% - but ITV is down 2%," he said.
"October is looking much stronger for us and we expect to be up 8% to 9%."
The short-term nature of the market has clouded growth projections for November and December. "There is growing optimism the market is strengthening but it's still quite early days - anecdotally, people feel we are through the worst of it," Mr McGuckian said.
Meanwhile, talks with Carlton and Granada about a new supply agreement are expected to be resolved in the next few weeks. The ITV broadcasters are awaiting the final verdict on their proposed merger, due next month.
Mr McGuckian said the positions of the the smaller ITV licensees would be protected under the merger agreement. He lamented the prolonged period of indecision. "I think the uncertainty is not good for any of the companies and it has made negotiations tricky."
Asked whether Ulster would be vulnerable to a takeover by an enlarged ITV group, Mr McGuckian said: "We would be no more vulnerable post-merger than before."
Yeah well, it should be easy enough to make money when:
1) They spend very little money making programmes
2) They spend no money on decent technical equipment
3) They broadcast to 3 times more people than their license suggests
4) They have consistently reduced the number of employees
5) They have reduced the pension contributions
6) They have an audience higher in C2DEs than most of the rest of the network better matching the appeal of the programmes on ITV1
Yeah well, it should be easy enough to make money when:
1) They spend very little money making programmes
2) They spend no money on decent technical equipment
3) They broadcast to 3 times more people than their license suggests
4) They have consistently reduced the number of employees
5) They have reduced the pension contributions
6) They have an audience higher in C2DEs than most of the rest of the network better matching the appeal of the programmes on ITV1
And they have NO continuity during the day ,lets face it they could put something on mini disk .
Yeah well, it should be easy enough to make money when:
1) They spend very little money making programmes
2) They spend no money on decent technical equipment
3) They broadcast to 3 times more people than their license suggests
4) They have consistently reduced the number of employees
5) They have reduced the pension contributions
6) They have an audience higher in C2DEs than most of the rest of the network better matching the appeal of the programmes on ITV1
And they have NO continuity during the day ,lets face it they could put something on mini disk .
Well that’s if they bothered to have an Ident at every junction. It really pigs me off having a Trailer frozen for ages while they wait for the ITV1 ident to end before the News Headlines or something.
Lewis C:
"And they have NO continuity during the day ,lets face it they could put something on mini disk ."
Do UTV even have such facilities?
And Marksi, you left out:
- Their profits are swelled by never ending "Watch to Win" competitions offering patio heaters and tickets to Westlife concerts as prizes and ridiculously easy questions a 2 year old could answer
- They use ARIAL on broadcast programmes and promotions...
Helvetica is nearly identical to Arial - web browsers use the two as substitution fonts. Which you have usually depends on whether you have Windows or Mac. An easy mistake. Still a very common font though.
Yeah well, it should be easy enough to make money when:
1) They spend very little money making programmes
2) They spend no money on decent technical equipment
3) They broadcast to 3 times more people than their license suggests
4) They have consistently reduced the number of employees
5) They have reduced the pension contributions
6) They have an audience higher in C2DEs than most of the rest of the network better matching the appeal of the programmes on ITV1
And they have NO continuity during the day ,lets face it they could put something on mini disk .
Still they are the only ITV company to have IVC in the evenings. SMG bought Grampian and scrapped IVC and now we have a presentation department with no mention of the station you are watching on the trails and only caption idents with still no voice mention of the station - dont knock UTV it could be much worse!!!!!!
This idea that the fact they have in-vision presentation makes up for all the other failings just doesn't cut it.
I only have to go back to their last junction to find a mess - all the ads were, as usual in UTV Blurrr-o-vision and then the weather was inexplicably arced from 16F16 to 14P16. We then had the generic ident which didn't have time to resolve before a V fade to ITN.
Still they are the only ITV company to have IVC in the evenings.
SO WHAT?!?!? I am sick to the back teeth of hearing this nonsense. Sadly, many people on this list seem to use this as a means of quantifying levels of local output.
UTV is merely a means of relaying ITV 1 Network programming to N. Ireland/Rep Of Ireland. People watch UTV for the ITV 1 Network programming. What litlle local content there is, is amateurish, cringeworthy, bilge. I would ask - how many people would watch local UTV programming if it were put on a channel of its own?
The technical quality of locally generated output is nothing short of a disgrace..and something which any decent regulatory authority would hammer them for.
