UTV Presentation Thread

Looks like the "7.30 Show" which was talked about in the end of year programme report is coming soon judging by this breakbumper which was shown last night:

http://www.utvtoday.co.uk/videos/tvf/the730show_bb.mp4

It starts this coming Thursday.

And the show will be presented by Tina Campbell - no reprise for Pamela and Frank, then.

I spot the same background as the annoying U105 advert with Carolyn Stewart!

Marc Mallett will be resuming his partnership with Tina again as he will also be presenting the programme.

Here's a preview of the Seven Thirty Show

Thoughts on the Seven Thirty Show:

- It is, more or less, UTV Life.

- The set is on the other side of Studio 1 (with a reference to it being the same studio where Nuala McKeever's series were filmed); not sure about the backdrop of Belfast though, it looked like CSO in close-up shots and I don't know if it's based on a real image or not (can you get a shot of the Black Mountain and the cranes at Harland and Woolf that close together?). And they should avoid the camera angles that show the top of the set, it just doesn't look right.

- Tina seemed to be studio bound, with Marc as the roving reporter - and dressed down too in jeans and a nice selection of shirts with a few buttons undone at the top! They do make a good pairing though.

- The Astons remind me a bit of the info bubbles from Pop-Up Video. And the clock animation reminds me of the old Six Tonight headline sequence - a shame the Astons don't "explode" on screen in a similar way. And I notice the production slide has changed - and looks worse than the "UTV Productions" one IMO. They've changed Helvetica for Lucida Unicode or whatever has replaced News Gothic as UTV's favourite ubiquitous font.

Spotted a new ident on UTV last night:

http://www.utvtoday.co.uk/images/tvf/newidents_june2009_a.jpg

A new occurrence tonight which IIRC is something that used to happen in the past, is that after an in-vision continuity announcement an ident was played out into the programme. Julian was on duty tonight and towards the end of each of his links, the audio from the ident track was faded in and then a few seconds of an ident shown before the programme. Am I right in thinking that this used to happen in the past?

I have to say I really don't like the way the UTV logo is on the top left hand corner of the screen 24/7 now

And another today, I quite like this one:

http://www.utvtoday.co.uk/images/tvf/newidents_june2009_b.jpg

A third new ident:

http://www.utvtoday.co.uk/images/tvf/newidents_june2009_c.jpg

And an example of what I was referring to above with regards the in-vision continuity announcements being followed by an ident:

http://www.utvtoday.co.uk/videos/tvf/ivcident_june2009.mp4

How awful does Julian look in that clip? For God's sake, let poor Gillian (who looks fabulous at the moment) do it instead.

In the days when IVC links were followed by an ident, there was no trace of the station logo on the continuity set - but it seems pointless now with the current IVC backdrop where you already see the UTV logo - the brand is already reinforced (never mind the DOG) so it just seems repetitive.

Mind you, if it means less screen time for Julian, I won't object. And at least now, the idents don't run for 10 seconds before a video freeze so it doesn't look a complete mess, and if it means there'll be less chance of seeing idents cut to the network after about two seconds, I can live with it.

Remember the programme that was talked about two and a half years ago in December 2006 on Gerry Kelly's New Year's Eve Party? Well it looks like it's finally here!

Monday 29th June 2009
8:00pm UTV
Red Alert - Julian's On the Road