UTV - From City Quays 2 onwards

Yep. When in UTV Media ownership, we got ITV continuity for a portion of the overnight hours. So, under ITV plc ownership, not only does the channel look infinitely better than it did when owned by UTV Media, usage of the local brand has increased.

First bulletin from CQ2 with Paul Clark.

Actually, on second viewing the studio looks bigger. I just can't imagine two people sharing that small desk

They've finally updated the graphics so the aston is only as long as the text in it, and not the full width of the screen regardless of what was in it. Some of those boxes with stock footage in them are still clearly crappy SD quality from when they originally created the titles, and I doubt they'll ever get updated.

Regarding the desk, do we even know if the UTV Live format is going to stay as it was with 2 presenters? Perhaps the 4 main presenters will just take turns, there really isn't any need to have 2 news presenters any more for a regional news programme. The whole "line each" approach to reporting a story with the other making that "glance to the side of their head" motion whilst waiting for their turn to speak is really cheesy and old fashioned. The show can easily be done with just one presenter, as this evenings broadcast has shown.

Even if they went for something less harsh than the black it would look better.

To be fair to UTV that was a vestige of the old ITV Night Time service, and generic branding was seen in most regions overnight in pre-ITV plc days. However when UTV and STV got their clean feed, a nasty side effect was that overnight continuity went out announcerless.

And don't forget that 'Back Soon' slide as a filler.

The point is, UTV chose to let the ITV branding through. Even if they didn't want to pay to man their playout, they could've let the automation take care of the junctions.

UTV recorded that off the 90s night-time feed and slotted it in themselves when they had no ads to show. They were still using it some time after that night-time branding had ceased.

It’s the same size as the rest of itv and they all fit two behind them

I just assumed it was some sort of
“Sustaining feed” that was broadcast to all regions, with all others replacing it with ads. Obviously not then. I seem to remember a hearts version with the same music, so presume that was generated by UTV as well?

You're right - it was on the clean feed in the 90s. However, UTV kept a recording of it and played it out in lieu of ads at night - they were still using it in the early years of the hearts era.