On that one, my guess is that they've done it so the same logo can be used on UTV Ireland (you can see where the "Ireland" would fit in) - in fact its not a million miles away from UTV Ireland's current logo.
Should we read anything into the fact that the announcement relates only to UTV's NI channel? There's been absolutely no mention of UTV Ireland.
Maybe.
It could be that they have no decision over what the medium term future of the channel will be, though I don't expect any closure announcement in the short term (and in fact I don't expect one at all).
They may have no decision over what the branding will be going forward yet. They may be toying with moving straight to ITV Ireland.
What I think is most likely however, is that they don't want to trumpet another rebrand at this point. They opened in January 2015, fifteen months ago, with a look not disimilar from UTV NI (different idents in the same style and with the same jingle, and everything else was pretty much the same as UTV NI but recoloured from blue to green). In September 2015, they had a much heralded rebrand in which they kept the logo but ditched pretty much everything else for a "people idents" look which isn't too far away from ITV itself.
They may feel that going for another rebrand, taken out of the context of the ITV takeover, might be taken as "desperate" by some in the Irish media anxious to write their death certificate.
What I think will happen is that UTV Ireland will adopt the new logo - but no other elements of the ITV look - on the same day UTV NI rebrands. As I've said, its so similar to what they are using now - effectively just swap the "TV" for "tv".
That's if they don't decide to jump straight to ITV Ireland.
