UTV Presentation Thread

"The Seven Thirty Show" returns on Thursday with a new male co-presenter - Malachi Cush of "Fame Academy", er, fame.

And the returned Seven Thirty Show has got yellow titles which look urgh, and some yellow curved panels with target patterns - which don't fit the other elements of the set. The beige elements of Astons have been recoloured yellow, which makes them quite vile too.

First impression of Malachi as a co-presenter, he wasn't too bad or irritating, obviously his radio work has come in useful and still qualifies as much as journalistic experience. Nice to hear a Tyrone accent on local telly as well!

Oh, and all you Marcy Marc fans, he's now on Twitter

As if BrainDead wasn't enough, UTV are now running a new competition in tonight's links, "Celebrity Spotlight", with Julian encouraging viewers to identify the mixed-up face of a celebrity - then call an 090 number.

Meanwhile, nice to see Jackie Fullerton has his own series now.

Right, it sounds like the duty announcer's link into UTV Live at Six is performed live; are the duty announcers under some kind of duty to use the "Now from the UTV News Centre, UTV Live"?

Surely today, Gilly could have mentioned Clarky* was in Claudy and Jar-Jar Smirkface* was in Havoc House - this situation stretches the credibility of the "from the UTV News Centre" slogan slightly, at least to this anorak/pedant. There was ample time on the ident to mention this, and surely Gilly would have had access to this programme information before the junction.

As a viewer, it gives the impression the UTV announcers are under obligation to work to management-imposed diktats and takes away from the creativity of preparing and presenting personally crafted links. Which, in my definition of a continuity announcer's role, is unfair.

*Obviously, substitute for their real names.

Slightly O/T: It's bad enough you can't read the channel logo to start, but now that "TV at the Heart of Sport" logo on BBC Sport NI trails? It jars with the aesthetics of the trail end sequence it sits along with IMO.

I bet UTV would do a better job on promoting its sports coverage... oh, hold on.

And are my ears playing tricks on me or is Julian sounding quite slurred these days?

According to Digital Spy, UTV HD has launched on Virgin.

Has anyone managed to see it yet? Is it branded on-screen as UTV HD?

Yes, there is a UTV HD DOG on screen.

Anything more exciting than a DOG?

Idents or trail endboards with a UTV HD logo?
Separate continuity announcements name checking the channel as UTV HD?

I take it they are up-scaling the SD programmes from the usual 'clean-ish feed'...
but do they have a 'clean feed' of the HD network programmes? (I.e. - no network ITV1 HD branding)

In tandem with the launch of ITV1's Christmas presentation launch yesterday, and courtesy of DragonArchive's YouTube channel:

UTV's pleasantly impressive Christmas ident

And the festive IVC backdrop, no living room this year...

Pleasantly impressive? Did you link to the wrong video...

UTV are inserting content warnings about the graphic accounts featured in tonight's Insight documentary about Father Smyth - these, and the intro link, have been voiced by Gillian.

Also, is it just me or does the Christmas-themed part of the IVC backdrop look blocky and unrendered? There's been a few other graphics with a similar unrendered look that I've seen in the past day, mainly on PowerPoint-style local ads.

Two 'stock' looping backgrounds and the usual old music. 160 credits on iStock?