UTV and SMG in dispute with ITV plc

Did any of you people ever actually see UTV2? If it was on air today it would make Friendly TV look professional. UTV2 had NO presentation of any sort. Well, one ident, which was looped continuously during all commercial breaks as they did not show adverts. They did not show any ITV2 exclusive programming, instead they had a library of 3 black and white films (and some old cookery programmes) which they replaced it with. On one occasion after a prolonged period of black they played out the ident back to back about 30 times with every variation of "contains strong language", "contains sex and violence", "programmes are running late" etc. Ironically this was the only time these annos were ever played out to the best of my knowledge as the rest of the time it was just the generic one. By the way that particular mess was not played out in the middle of the night, it was a Sunday tea-time during the Emmerdale Omnibus, which went to a break and simply never came back. Widescreen switching did not happen and the only time UTV2 was promoted on UTV was for about two games of the Rugby World Cup.

UTV2 was apparently run by "work experience" crowds, and was controlled by a simple flicking switch and running a Beta SP tape which eventually ran out.

However, their break bumper was actually, for UTV at the time, quite well produced graphically.

Even if Our Price logo did decide to de-blur itself in the UTV2 era!

It was, however, the ONLY thing that was well produced, graphically or otherwise.

oh bugger off you prat, you haven't got a clue what you're talking about. Just what have UTV and SMG done wrong?

On DTT, each analogue broadcaster has access to half of a multiplex (the BBC got a whole one because they have two analogue channels). AFAIK, that means that SMG and UTV still have the right to kick ITV2 off of DTT if they want to - ITV plc are broadcasting their channel under licence in someone else's space; they don't have a right to it.

On other platforms, they've had to arrange their own carriage.

They could do it, but I don't know that it would work.

An interesting tool at SMG's and UTV's disposable however is that they could threaten to kick ITV2 off of DTT in Scotland and Northern Ireland if they don't start getting what they want.

Oh, and you do have a clue I suppose. Oh, so because I’m a new member I haven’t a clue right, you stuck up prat. I’ve seen the true colours of this group and want to cancel my membership already (moderators please note), for the sake of my sanity.

To elaborate on my point, obviously Ofcom would wait until franchises are next due for renewal, or offer to pay both UTV and SMG to give up licence, but I think anyway it would be the best option all round given the way things are going. THAT’S MY OPINION!!!

A question: just what did Thames, TV-AM do wrong? Underbid? My point precisely – it’s not personal. It’s business, something I do know about from good and bad experience, certainly a lot more than ‘cwathen’ despite what he wants people to believe.

Well OK nebe, but kindly explain to all of us your reasoning for stating that UTV should be stripped of their licence. Or SMG for that matter.

If you are going to come on and say something as controversial as that, you have to be able to back it up.

Any ITV franchise holder would have to do something fundamentally terrible to be stripped of its licence. As I see it, UTV and STV/Grampian are complying with the terms of their licence agreements to a higher standard than most others. They aren't the ones constantly demanding that the terms be changed in their favour. So, why should they be singled out? Because they do something that ITV plc might not like?

Some people, ITV plc among them, need to be reminded that broadcasting on the terrestrial bandwidth is a privilege, not a birthright. If the regulator had any teeth, it would have been several of the Granada/Carlton stations that would have been thrown out over the years, not UTV and SMG (although there is a case for re-advertising the Grampian franchise after SMG effectively destroyed it).

But taking your sentiment with regards settling the current situation (for that part does have merit). Surely the answer is to wait until the current contracts are up, or have an act of parliament to have them anulled, and readvertise the whole shooting match as a single, national franchise. If ITV get kicked out, so be it. Bring out a new licence, to last ten years, with whoever offers the best service getting the franchise. If at that point ITV don't want to commit themselves to public service any more, they can always bugger off onto satellite.

I refer to Thames/TV-AM, amongst others, who lost out in 1990 simply because they were outbidden. They did nothing against the licence rules (even if in their day they would not have been allowed to do otherwise). The regulator’s say is final, fair or foul, as history testified.

As it is itv plc already effectively broadcast to Ireland (TV3) and part of Scotland (Border) so it would require little more than providing a few more regional news services. Then itv plc could run the franchises more cheaply than UTV/SMG (from Leeds), and with it the current arguments are resolved.

THEN Channel 3 could be advertised as a national franchise.

Does less money spent = a better regional service?

This would make UTV and SMG bad in the eyes of the public though.

What people forget is that people in Northern Ireland watch Pop Idol and I'm a Celebrity just as much as the rest of us, but UTV seem to think that all viewers want is UTV Live Features and all network stuff is just in the way. I can't imagine viewers would be impressed if ITV2 was removed from Northern Ireland

You didn't say that. You joined a board, and your first post said 'Ofcom should now kick UTV and SMG off the network' - nothing more, no elaboration, no qualification. What I (I think quite reasonably) got from your post is that because of the current argument, you proposed to settle it by kicking off the smaller party. That's like saying that a school playground fight should be settled by letting the bigger antagonist beat the smaller one to death.

You may now have returned and offered some qualification for your argument (even if I don't agree with it) but the fact remains that your original 'argument' was a stupid, one line post which implied (and I don't see how you can fail to accept that it did imply) something very different to what you are now arguing.

The reason I reacted with hostility was that this board has a large number of registered members who are barely out of nappies and make sweeping, blase statements without offering any qualification for them - because they don't know why they hold the opinion that they do. If you've read this board for any length of time you'd be able to see it. As it is, your first post only makes you look the same as the rest of them. Let me remind you again of exactly what you said:



If you're going to post that, in a thread discussing what imo is a completely valid argument from UTV, offering no basis or explanation at all for it, just what sort of response did you expect?



I don't believe I've ever claimed I know much about business, and your attempts to now qualify your argument after the fact by bringing Thames and TV-am does not alter the stupidity of your opening post - as I said above, your debut was a completely unqualified 'argument' which implied something very different to what you meant.

Hmm, let recent experience of what happened in UTV-land when UTV Live at 5:30 was dumped for 24 Hour Quiz. Complaints and (presumably) drop in viewing. Result: 24 Quiz dumped after a week...

Presumably, UTV learnt that its viewers do indeed want UTV Live Features ahead of network stuff...