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UTV rebrand

New look to bring it in line with ITV (October 2016)

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GM
GMc
dbl posted:
Andrew posted:
One thing I've noticed from most of Julian and Gillian's announcements is how they announce as if they've taken the copy from the TV Times. Always heavy on the generalised descriptions.

Stuff like "In an hour we've the next episode of our drama about a group of fifty something's living in Manchester, that's Cold Feet tonight at 9pm"

"coming up at 7pm we've a celebrity special of The Chase, our big money quiz show in which a team of players tries to get past a quiz genius known as The Chaser"

Sounds like whoever is writing it, likes doing generic links, borderline no creativity.


Seems to be happening a lot on STV as well...
One of the best at the station, Maggie Lavender hardly ever announces anymore. 😯
BR
Brekkie
Andrew posted:
One thing I've noticed from most of Julian and Gillian's announcements is how they announce as if they've taken the copy from the TV Times. Always heavy on the generalised descriptions.

Stuff like "In an hour we've the next episode of our drama about a group of fifty something's living in Manchester, that's Cold Feet tonight at 9pm"

Isn't necessarily a bad thing - sometimes you can avoid spoilers all week only for the continuty announcer to give away a little bit too much. Granada used to be terrible for it.

Andrew Wood posted:
Production slide from the EY Entrepreneur of the Year programme last night...

http://tig.gy/?m=UTV-DUALENDCAP.jpg

The two logos actually sit side by side nice enough.
PC
p_c_u_k
I can't imagine that ITV would ever sell out UTV NI on its own to TV3. I'd imagine the prospect of the whole of the UK market being within ITV's grasp is the eventual target - in the current market a broadcaster not owning the rights to broadcast throughout the whole UK is an anomaly, and they'll just be biding their time to get STV for the right price.

As it stands, STV is doing quite healthily with its own channels and producing programmes for other stations, so there's no urgent need to sell, unlike with UTV. One ambitious move later and they no longer exist.

In terms of the announcements being generic and seemingly read out of the TV Times, is that since the new idents or beforehand? It strikes me as likely that UTV staff would record generic announcements to be played out on multiple days, rather than locking Gillian or Julian in a booth at the start of every day.
RI
Richard
Andrew posted:
One thing I've noticed from most of Julian and Gillian's announcements is how they announce as if they've taken the copy from the TV Times. Always heavy on the generalised descriptions.

Years ago they used to have the TV Tumes on their lap as if they were reading from it.
CO
Colm
Have UTV ever had access to the old BDS programme listings feed - I believe now maintained by the ubiquitous Red Bee? That would provide ample source material for a skilled announcer to create a varied collection of continuity links.

There are restrictions when you have a stripped-across-the-week daytime schedule where it's easy to be generic in introducing the programmes, but a good presentation team could, and should, plan well enough in advance to make links varied, and where possible, relevant to the content.

IMO The last announcer at Havelock House who seemed to show a degree of flair in composing such links - when given the opportunity - was Robin Taylor - who, being a physics teacher, is the closest UTV have had to a qualified meteorologist as a weather presenter - but that's a different discussion altogether Wink

In hindsight, Pamela Ballantine, particularly in her first stint in the continuity team, had a knack of combining information, authority and confidence in her links, as did Barbara Palmer.

On the other hand, there's been the likes of Aidan "Programme Y is on your screens in half-an-hour, that's coming up after Programme X" Browne. Mind you, I'd bracket most of the lacklustre current bunch of ITV network announcers in the same vein.
GL
Gluben
Austin Tatious posted:
Mr Kite posted:
kernow posted:

Given that there was a period when HTV News was on ITV1 Wales, they could have easily done something similar with UTV.


That was a bit random though and there was still no ITV plc at that point.


Exactly.

We were still somewhere along the messy road of consolidation at that point, with umpteen regional companies (and the two/three respective parent media groups thereof) involved. As there had already been no "LWT News" since 1993 and all other region names were words not initials anyway, there was no name-clash anywhere but Wales & the West. Sure, it was a less-than-ideal situation within the HTV area... But it was only ever gonna be temporary, as the inevitable Granton/Carlada merger was by that point bound to happen within a couple of years or so (and indeed did!)

An already-formed ITV plc acquiring a single solitary additional region around the time of its 12th birthday is a very different situation, and so things are sensibly being done differently.

Hasn't Ulster/UTV generally not really played the "ITV" card much/at all over the years & decades? If so, then any road to a full name change has to take into account that NI viewers may not find the network name to be "equally as familiar as the regional name" like viewers in various other regions may have done.


Sorry to go a bit off-topic at this point, but something that has always bugged me about LWT and TSW is that they were the only ones who used the word "television" in their name on-screen but didn't abbreviate it to TV. Why was there never a LWTV or a TVSW? All the others did (ATV, CITV, CTV, GMTV, HTV, TTTV, TVS...).
VM
VMPhil
I'm guessing because in both cases a three letter initialism is better than a two/four (delete as appropriate) initialism.
MR
mr_vivian
This is a very little thing I've noticed and it will only be fellow Belfast Media Festival goers that notice this... but the Belfast Media Festival is usually sponsored by BBC NI, UTV and Channel 4

But, this year it is only sponsored by BBC NI and Channel 4.... does anyone know why UTV are out of it this year? It must be something to do with the ITV takeover.
PF
PFML84
mr_vivian posted:
... and guess what? TV3 are planning to broadcast in Northern Ireland in the future....

Wait, what?
RD
rdd Founding member
No, they aren't really, and in fact I'd be surprised if their agreement with ITV allowed them to. There's an offhand comment by Virgin Media's Irish MD Tony Hanway in the below interview (only a few days ago) in which, while he says he wouldn't rule it out sometime in the future, he doesn't really rule it in either.

http://m.independent.ie/business/irish/virgin-media-boss-doesnt-rule-out-cuts-at-struggling-utv-ireland-35129422.html
WH
Whataday Founding member
GMc posted:
dbl posted:
Andrew posted:
One thing I've noticed from most of Julian and Gillian's announcements is how they announce as if they've taken the copy from the TV Times. Always heavy on the generalised descriptions.

Stuff like "In an hour we've the next episode of our drama about a group of fifty something's living in Manchester, that's Cold Feet tonight at 9pm"

"coming up at 7pm we've a celebrity special of The Chase, our big money quiz show in which a team of players tries to get past a quiz genius known as The Chaser"

Sounds like whoever is writing it, likes doing generic links, borderline no creativity.


Seems to be happening a lot on STV as well...
One of the best at the station, Maggie Lavender hardly ever announces anymore. 😯


And yet according to ttt these are independent powerhouses of creativity before they fall into the clutches of the evil corporate empire of ITV.
Last edited by Whataday on 19 October 2016 9:54am
MR
mr_vivian
rdd posted:
No, they aren't really


Excuse me rdd.. the way you've said that suggests I am lying. Here's one of the links...

http://www.irishnews.com/business/2015/12/12/news/irish-station-tv3-eyes-expansion-north-of-the-border-351505/

Also note, that I said in my post "Not saying this will happen of course"

Please read what I am saying more carefully.

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