Why do they keep using the UTV Live background....
Maybe UTV want to finally have a cohesive presentation package?
All they need to do now is work it into the idents - although to be honest, the scenery thing is a bit tedious now, and to the in-vision continuity - unless there's a reason why it won't be changing...
A few questions from me about the current state of UTV:
Is Eddie the English-sounding voiceover guy now the only trailer voiceover on UTV? When I go on to the UTV website, none of the trails on any pages seem to feature the voices of Hendi, Laura Hughes or any of the announcers.
Also, are UTV still making programmes in Studio 2, or have they mothballed it? I notice they no longer list Studio 2 on the broadcast facilities page on the corporate website, and I don't think any programmes have been made there since the last studio programme Gerry Kelly made, whenever that was.
A few questions from me about the current state of UTV:
Is Eddie the English-sounding voiceover guy now the only trailer voiceover on UTV? When I go on to the UTV website, none of the trails on any pages seem to feature the voices of Hendi, Laura Hughes or any of the announcers.
Also, are UTV still making programmes in Studio 2, or have they mothballed it? I notice they no longer list Studio 2 on the broadcast facilities page on the corporate website, and I don't think any programmes have been made there since the last studio programme Gerry Kelly made, whenever that was.
Eddie does do
most
of the trailers now and it had been [l]only[/l] him up until about a week ago when Hendi and Laura reappeared. Laura's voice is on the Marco's Great British Feast trailer which is airing at the minute. Robin also voiced a couple of trailers a few weeks ago.
Re: studio 2, it featured on UTV Live a few months ago when Gerry Kelly's sofa was up for auction. From what I could see it was completely empty; you could see the studio walls and there were a few items to the left of the shot covered with sheets IIRC.
Since Thursday night, UTV have also been promoting their radio station U105 on their ECP menus. This is a new design which has been introduced and on these versions the menu is on the left instead of the right!
In other news...Julian Simmons has now, as the Belfast Telegraph put it let the worst kept secret in Ulster showbiz completely out of the bag — by confirming he's gay. Here's the full story...
I'm a bunny boiler who never found Mr Right, says Julian
Popular UTV presenter Julian Simmons yesterday let the worst kept secret in Ulster showbiz completely out of the bag — by confirming he's gay. The flamboyant personality also owned up to being a "total bunny boiler" in relationships and says he's given up looking for Mr Right.
Simmons talked publicly for the first time about his sexuality in an interview with an national newspaper. "I'm gay, everyone knows I'm gay and they don't care," he said. "It's not what defines me, it's just part of who I am." But he admits he never told his beloved mum Pearl who died on Christmas Eve 2006. "She never asked about girlfriends or settling down," Simmons told the Daily Mirror. "I used to appear in her bedroom every morning with a cup of tea. I'd be draped in a feather boa and do a song and dance routine. She used to laugh her legs off." Simmons thinks his mum possibly knew he'd "never marry the girl next door" but said it was never an issue between them and it was never discussed.
He doesn't have a partner at present and says he recently decided relationships are just not for him. "I've had two or three loves in my life but being in a relationship makes me go crazy. I go mad with jealousy. "When I'm in a relationship I become a total bunny boiler. I need to know everything. "It doesn't work and it never has and now I know my limits... so I've stopped looking for Mr Right. If it happens, which I doubt, then I'll be delighted," said Simmons, who says he's 42. He loves to socialise and has a close circle of loyal friends, many of them in TV and showbiz. But he's sceptical about marriage saying he's attended 38 weddings in 10 years and nearly all the couples have broken up. He says he's "had it" with marriage, adding: "People are just mad and I'm out a fortune in bloody wedding presents."
There's no way Julian could be 62 or 63!!! I thought he was late 40s, early 50s at a push, I think he was quite young when he joined UTV and still looked relatively young in any early off-airs I've seen from the mid 1980s.
Mind you, in an interview he did for the News Letter (which is online, I'll dig out the link shortly) he mentioned he started off announcing at HavHo doing the afternoon shift (ha!), mentioning The Cedar Tree, an ATV production. Now, according to the BFI database, the series was produced in 1976, and repeated in 1978. I can't find any record of UTV repeating this in the 1980s, and I doubt it was repeated post-1982, so can he have been at UTV since the late 1970s?
One thought - if Julian is that age, could that mean he's plum for retirement soon - and hence the end of IVC at UTV?
Second thought: Is it too late for Iris and her doctor friend to save him?!?
There's no way Julian could be 62 or 63!!! I thought he was late 40s, early 50s at a push, I think he was quite young when he joined UTV and still looked relatively young in any early off-airs I've seen from the mid 1980s.
Mind you, in an interview he did for the News Letter (which is online, I'll dig out the link shortly) he mentioned he started off announcing at HavHo doing the afternoon shift (ha!), mentioning The Cedar Tree, an ATV production. Now, according to the BFI database, the series was produced in 1976, and repeated in 1978. I can't find any record of UTV repeating this in the 1980s, and I doubt it was repeated post-1982, so can he have been at UTV since the late 1970s?
One thought - if Julian is that age, could that mean he's plum for retirement soon - and hence the end of IVC at UTV?
Second thought: Is it too late for Iris and her doctor friend to save him?!?
Make no bones about it the lovely Marc Mallett is waiting in the wings to take over weekend in-vision continuity.
