UTV Presentation Thread

UTV haven't done that with announcing staff since around 1993 - I remember in the Ulster Television days, the announcers got a lower third from a good old Riley 2 on some of their links, not necessarily their first link of their shift:


Image source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLH3C1TrDKA

According to a comment somebody just left on YouTube her name is Jenny. No surname though. The person who commented seemed to know her.

EDIT: A little bit of Googling brought up her Twitter. Her name is Jenny Gouk and according to her Twitter she did her first link 57 days ago! I didn't think she'd been there that long!

P.S. I'm not a stalker...honest!

Just seen Jenny do in-vision for the first time on-screen myself, and I must say, she is certainly promising, comes across as pleasant and friendly and doesn't have that manner of speaking many young ladies at Havoc House have these days. Also makes a change to see and hear someone else than Aidan "not on your screens" Browne who's done most of the evenings week. Are Gilly and Jules off for the whole of July or what?!

Even better, Jenny namechecked Ali and Marc going into UTV Live at Six and didn't mention the "UTV News Centre", which puts her quite high in my estimations.

With Rose mainly on UTV Live cover presenting duties this week, is she no longer part of the announcing team? And how about Pamela Ballantine?

Seems that UTV have reinstated live daytime continuity at weekends again, I believe it's been like that since Jenny Gouk did her first shift, but I wasn't sure if it was a one-off just to introduce her to viewers.

Now they just need to find people who are willing to cover daytime shifts on weekdays live...

Ooh that's a strange one, Tina Campbell on IVC duty tonight.

Surely it's more to do with UTV not wanting to pay anyone to do weekday daytime continuity, than an inability to find people willing to do the shifts.

Where has Julian gone? He hasn't been on duty for a few weeks now and he's not been active on the @UTVonAir Twitter account for a while. I do hope he's not in bad health.

Wonder if this is a one-off like her daytime duties on the day of the Assembly election results in 2003 - which I'm sure was covered in her regular wages I imagine Tina will be reading the 10.30 news as well.

I know that well enough, but surely if there was willingness among UTV employees, whatever their contract terms, to work on daytime continuity shifts on a long-term basis, and not just on one-off occasions, they'd at the very least keep that option open?

A few years ago, UTV at least had the excuse that most, if not all, of their staff announcers had daytime jobs (teaching, hairdressing, flogging holidays...). But, when they had Marc, Sarah Dobson and Lynda Fulford seconded from the newsroom a few years ago, they could amply have made use of them in Studio 3 during the day - but instead. UTV stuck to its usual routine, and it led to a situation where you had seven to eleven duty shifts for grabs among eight people, the lion's share going to two out of those eight.

Surely if someone is already a UTV employee they'd already be busy doing their job, and wouldn't have time to sit in Studio 3 all morning and afternoon doing another job. If an existing employee was willing to change jobs and become an announcer instead, then UTV would need to get someone in to replace them. It would still cost UTV more money.

Probably covered earlier in the thread, but I'll quickly ask if I may:

What's actually on the screens/video wall seen behind the announcers? Just random images and videos? I've noticed sometimes they appear still and other times moving. I thought at first it was a live gallery shot. which would bring up some interesting bits and pieces from ITV1 etc!

Are the announcers actually sitting when they do their links? Doesn't look very comfortable for them! They *appear* to be standing in some shots, and if that's the intention, it can give the impression of 'I've just nipped in here to announce into Corrie on my way to the pub'!

http://www.tv-live.org.uk/wb/media/utv/2011/utv11094.jpg
Image courtesy of TV Live

The IVC backdrop is a virtual video wall with images of of UTV shows (the one which stands out is the Seven Thirty Show logo on a red background, in the second window in the second column) and an IVC clip (the first and fourth window in the first column and the fourth window in the third column) you can make out a presenter and the backdrop) - so it's a gallery of sorts. It's also very similar to the "hall of mirrors" concept used from 2002 to 2006, except with video in the windows instead of still images.

Regarding announcers sitting or standing - I suspect it's up to the announcer. Gillian Porter seems to prefer standing up (see above) while the others appear to do links seated. The green screen studio used for IVC and short news bulletins has areas allowing presenters to sit at a desk or to stand.

http://www.tv-live.org.uk/wb/media/utv/behindthescenes/julian_01.jpg

http://www.tv-live.org.uk/wb/media/utv/behindthescenes/julian_32.jpg
Images courtesy of TV Live/UTV Today

When the studio first came into use in 2002, Julian Simmons began with a stool and table, then he abandoned the stool but he kept the table to lean on, then eventually he seemed to be sat at a desk - also see above.

I've noticed recently that this has been getting a few outings on UTV:



Most of the times I've seen it, it's been used a kind of breakdown slide when a trailer or something has failed to play and this has popped up instead for a few seconds. A few weeks ago though it was used as a static ident into Lesser Spotted Ulster as the junction was only about 8 seconds in length. Haven't seen UTV use a static ident in quite a few years until that.