YTTV / Channel 3

Can anyone fill in a bit of the detail for me about the infamous Bruce Gyngell era as chief exec at Yorkshire / Tyne Tees ?

Is it known at all whether the doomed "Channel 3" rebranding (especially for Tyne Tees) was an ITV Network attempt at a gradual rebrand, or a Mr Gyngell initative ?

I seem to recall a number of "For ITV, Press 3" campaign ads, featuring ITV programmes running around this time, did they go out nationally or created for the YTTV region ?

Of course, they chickened out with the whole rebrand for YTV, with the 3 just appearing on a revolve of the chevron with Tyne Tees going the whole hog. Was the Tyne Tees experiment to test the water for a full on ITV rebrand ?

It was a McGyngell initiative. He wanted a Channel 3 Yorkshire as well as a Channel 3 North East. This happened soon after YTTV had closed down the continiuity department at City Road and transferred its functions to Leeds. Despite protests in the North East when the rebrand happened, their comments were, in true YTTV fashion, ignored.

These certainly appeared in the Central region. The ITV logo appeared in a green teletext-style font a bit like a channel identifier that TVs show when you change channel.

He was both a refreshing change and a bruiser. He got what he wanted and whilst this effectively finished Tyne Tees' independance, he created a formidable force which held strong through the first ITV consolidation period.
The fact that the equipment was there for remote network, ad playout etc, saved it from the chop when Granada got it.
He liked his pastel shades both inside the place and on screen. You might remeber the spinning chevron was against a nice pastally blue background. He insisted on employing model type receptionists. Usually one male & one female on duty at the same time. They had to be perfectly turned out, it was all about image & he insisted everyone should be proud to work there.
Whilst many people critisised his reign, and that's what it was, Yorkshire TV & the Kirkstall Road studios would proberbly have gone the way of Central, Anglia, Meridian and the others if it wasn't for his changes. There is still quite a lot of pride in the place. In the recent regional 50 years of ITV programme, some may have noticed ITV Yorkshire was refered to only twice. In contrast to the many other mentions of Yorkshire Television and was followed by a nice little one liner " the people of Yorkshire would never give up their TV station.
Its proberbly the last outpost of Independant Television lets hope someone realises that what made ITV was is regional creativeness & thanks to Bruce Gyngell theres just a little bit left.

There was one good thing about C3NE though.

The ident!

The music and animation were really theatrical. The only problem it was it should have been TTTV North East!

If you haven't seen it,you can get it on TV Whirl.

Thanks for that. I don't understand what they were attempting to do really, at that time they already had the ITV brand and the regional brand on screen, why introduce a third identity ?

If it was an ITV Network endorsed initiative I guess Mr Gyngell was taking it to it's extreme and using it locally in an attempt to rebrand the network as Channel 3 ? You have to wonder what the motivation behind this was.



Yes, quite possibly. In some ways I guess he strengthened Yorkshire TV's overall position, although probably at the expense of Tyne Tees. That said, he took a bit of a nanny approach to running his TV station, banning anything that he deemed would be likely to corrupt the moral fibre of people in Yorkshire. I seem to recall Margi Clarke's good Sex Guide being banished from Yorkshire TV, opting out of the network in preference for a Whickers World repeat. Gods Gift & Carnal Knowledge got similiar treatment I recall.

The creation of YTTV also meant the merging of the overnight schedule, resulting in Tyne Tees missing a chunk of Prisoner Cell Block H episodes in order to catch up with the YTV lot.

Certainly an eventful period in Yorkshire / Tyne Tees history.

Historically, 'ITV' was a descriptive term, not a brand. The incoming ITC intended the term 'ITV' as a term applied to the ITV Network to die off and be replaced with 'Channel 3'; indeed the licences starting from 1993 were not sold as 'ITV contracts', but as 'channel 3 licences'. Even today, OFCOM continue to licence the ITV Network as 'ITV (Channel 3)'.

However, this did not happen (although if the 1989 national ITV identity have not been created, it may well have done) and the only two significant '3' references were the ITV/3 'Britain's most popular button' advertising campaign from the mid-90's (itself a perfect example of how to advertise the network nationally without the need to embark upon the clinical branding excercise that is 'ITV1') and the YTV/TTTV 'channel 3' identities from around the same time.

They are best looked back on as what could have been a possibile reality for the whole network had things turned out as the ITC had wanted, but as it happened, they ended up becoming just unique oddities which hung around for a couple of years before the ITV brand came back.


Indeed, I think both the C3NE and C3Y idents were artistically very good (despite what the C3NE brand stood for). The problems came when the channel 3 brand was ditched and the idents hastily re-edited. The YTV one was particularly poor; the logo just spun around and around and around whilst a 15 second jingle played, the TTTV version was almost as bad.

Tyne Tees did at least get a decent ident again eventually in September 2000 (even if it was seldom used), whilst YTV would never get anything reasonable ever again.

I don't think Yorkshire's 97 ident was that bad. They did bring back the jingle!

I thought that YTV ident was very classy, what with the grand YTV theme playing, nothing more was needed on screen that just a simple chevron spinning around.

The Tyne Tees one was a bit odd, just sitting there faintly for ages before being coloured in at the end, and that music was a bit loud, I'm sure viewers must have got fed up of it, being in every junction in those days

Didn't Sky News use the same music as the Channel 3 North East ident at one point?

Tombstone era opening titles I belive.

The Tyne Tees one was (reputedly) put together in an afternoon.

It showed....