UTV teletext (600s)

The last time I had a good look around UTV Plus, the front page hadn't changed since around 1994, it still retained the 1993-2000 logo...

...And never mind the out of date advertisements, I also stumbled across a page with a "Police Six" banner - UTV scrapped the name "Police Six" back in 1994!!!

I think only once was there potential for UTV Plus to be a regularly updated service with a generic-style look, as there was a preview page for the Kelly show, that featured a yellow colour scheme and a plus-sign logo (very similar to the old RTÉ St. Brigid's cross) - although it looked stylish and too good for the likes of UTV, I had a hunch that the potential to use UTV Plus as a proper ancillary text service would never be fulfilled.

Yorkshire's text service seems to be a bit better than some already mentioned, with some up to date info as well as some pages that haven't been updated in years

I've had a quick look through the 600 magazine and YTV Text looks like this at present:

600 Front Page
601/602 Today and Tommorow's listings
603 Children's Programmes
604 Inside ITV
605-607 Subtitles/Films
608 and also 626 Calendar "Christine Talbot presents the half hour programme bringing viewers the latest news from around the region", 626 used to be the Tonight page
610 Regional Index
611 User Guide
612/613/615/616 Out of Tragedy/Deep into Shark Alley/Jobfinder/Community Link
614 Have your Say on the Big Story which is a new series starting January 2003
617 A-Z Index
619 Regional Programmes this week - Fully up to date
620-625 and 627-629 Network Previews
631/632 IT's for Life/That's Your Lot
635/636/637/638/639 YTV Merchandise Sales
640-649 GMTV's pages
650-659 Network Pages - Don't Drop the Coffin/Survival Special/That's Esther/This Morning/
Brian's Boyfriends/Wish You Were Here?/CITV - Not updated/I Want that House/Being Terri
665 Advert - Carcraft - Junction 33 M1 Follow the signs for the airport
680 Advert - Knowsley Safari Park
687 Advert - United Carpets and Beds
689 Advert - Snetterton Park Market
690 Transmitter Information - fully up to date
691 Yorkshire Television Address
695 Yorkshire's PDC/Startext Information
699 Clock Cracker

Westcountry Text (sorry, 'Carlton Plus') used to be reasonable, it's still updated but it's no longer very good at all, with a number of pages (including the index for the engineering section) disappearing.

They now have:

P600 - Front Page
601/602 - today/tomorrow listings (which have only recently re-appeared after over a year of a page directing you to go to 113 instead)
604/605 - today/tomorrow film information - although it permanently says that 'There are no films showing today'
607 - Tide Times
608 - Duty office contact details - for Central's duty office.
610-619 - regional programme information - up to date if depressing to see the pap which Westcountry makes under the banner of providing a regional service.
620 - programme preview index for ITV network programmes - up to date
627 - Westcountry News pages (still listed on fastext links but the pages are no longer there)
630 - merchandise index - not any actually Westcountry/Carlton merchandise but purchase details for various Carlton-owned videos/dvds. But some of those pages link to (unindexed) charity appeals rather than the merchandise that they are supposed too.
640 - GMTV
650 - ITV network preview pages.
670 - regional advertising contact details
680 - network advertising contact details (page doesn't exist).
690 - transmitter work
691 - '16:9 info' (page no longer exists)
697 - analogue transmitter information (up to date)
698 - DTT transmitter information (only recently updated - still referenced www.ondigital.com until a couple of months ago)
699 - Clock cracker.

One thing I do notice though is that even amongst the bang up to date pages, it's all still 'on Carlton' and 'ITV Network'. The only pages where 'ITV1' is mentioned is on the network programme pages.

Well, well. At least someone saw some of the test pages

The page you saw was designed by me. I spent a couple of days at UTV back in 1996 and keyed a few sample designs directly on to their system. I put some pages on air and they were left there for a month or two. The other main design was based around a stylised 'U' - surprisingly.

They preferred the latter. The design you saw had a service logo which placed emphasis on the '+'. When displayed in it's entirety, that particular logo looked ok...when the '+' was used on its own...well, as you pointed out, there were certain connotations.

Although they went with the page layouts using the stylised 'U' and were initially happy with my plans for the service, they later dropped the project...before it went on air. It just was not to be.

And so we still have the minimalist graphics that first appeared in 1994.

If I'm really bored some day, I may try and reproduce the designs on a PC-based teletext application and let you see what the service might have looked like!!

Mind you, there was a promo for Ceefax subtitles on 888 on BBC ONE last night voiced by none other than the mighty Trish!

Scant reference was given to 'or just use your menu if you have digital' but it was all top-and-tailed with a shiny red, green and blue '888' swirly logo.

So there you go

TTTV is updated at least once a day, but the front page was left alone for ages with the old news bulletin times until April, and in the night with gobbledegook. The design hasn't been updated since 1998 (Including the North-East Tonight page stuck two designs back) and Yorkshire text paid a brief visit to 600 (Sub-page 2) in March, and still exists on one of the mail order pages.
Some info might be innacurate due to me not being bothered to check for changes since July

I'm fairly sure that it is Jane Copeland , not might Trish, on the subtitle trail. Although they have similar sounding voices, Jane's voice is just a touch lighter than that of Trish.

so it does. UTV can be right crappy sometimes.

Add to that the fact that the trail has been on since Autumn 2000! The only differences were no on screen subtitles, and the appearence of '..and from October, even Live and Kicking' after Trish/Jane mentions the local and national news.

Well, it's the first time I'VE ever seen it, and when I DO watch mainstream TV (which isn't often these days) - it's most often BBC ONE.

Doesn't say much for their timing, does it? How come it's taken me 3 years to catch it?

It's usually shown in the less popular slots, or when they've got enough time. It's sometimes shown before the news on ONE, but other than that It's nearly always on TWO (especially after See Hear! On Saturday).
It's probably shown between programmes in the Sign Zone too but I've never watched Sign Zone myself.

This thread is going off topic a bit now.

Talking about UTV, Did you notice that letter on Chatterbox, asking why ITV have no ads overnight and just a 'back soon' caption. And the letter was from someone from Northern Ireland!

That'll be UTV forgetting to run trailers or PIFs overnight then?