UTV sell TV business to ITV

Last night was the end of an era for independent television in Northern Ireland - from today all playout for the 3rd channel is from London

— Gavin Moffitt (@Roll_VT) October 10, 2016

So, new look today?

It will be interesting to see what UTV looks like today. I'm interpreting Gavin's post to mean ads etc are coming from London and not Leeds as some have speculated.

I understand that for the overnight period UTV has taken a clean(ish) feed of ITV network for years, not bothering to opt out of "ITV(1)" branded idents etc?

Is there usually a UTV ident at 05:59 to introduce Good GMTV Morning Daybreak Britain ?

If today is rebrand day, what happened at 05:59 this morning?

As far as I remember, UTV usually just take the ITV ident at 6:00am. UTV's first ident is usually at 9:25am.

As above, they always take the ITV ident at 6:00am

Overnight continuity has been ITV branded since 1999 but this was originally the "ITV Nightime" service when it still existed. The clean feed with no voiceover came in after the creation of ITV plc - perhaps in late 2004 but I can't really recall when exactly.

In recent years, UTV pres continues until 3am. From that point until 9.25am, we get ITV-branded trails and idents.

Last time I stayed up that late and they used a UTV ident going into Nightscreen at 1.40am, I guess they use UTV branding up to the point of the last local link before they join the Network. Don't forget UTV doesn't take the usual gambling fodder that ITV has.

No change... still same DOG in the corner too.

That still looked like Belfast playout to me.

Perhaps it's meant to!

I should've been clearer. The ident was the same woeful picture quality on HD and the fade to black was the same (believe it or not, there is a slight uniqueness about that when done by UTV's playout system).

At least one UTV ident went out last week which looked great on UTV HD - that almost certainly came from Chiswick. Any pres elements that get played out locally from Belfast are not being transmitted in HD - even their own version of the programme sponsorship stings (which are presumably supplied by London in HD) are awful quality on UTV HD.