ITV Regions Fault

I highly doubt "normal" people know their ITV region at all now. Years ago, maybe so, but doubt if that would be the case now. Since the effect of normalising everything and dropping the regional identities in England has happened, most people are almost certainly not aware that their ITV regional company is still only one of 15 that makes up the ITV Network. Many people weren't aware that GMTV was an entirely different company, just seen as another programme on ITV.

Anecdotally, people in the former Central South area still refer to ITV as Central, but usually as part of a sentence that goes along the lines of "We don't watch Central News now that it's all about news from the seaside." No-one refers to it as "Meridian" it would appear. But then again, the same people are equally confused by the BBC who changed the name of the local sub-opt news programme from "South Today" to "BBC Oxford News" three years ago. Most people still call it "South Today". It doesn't help that weekend, breakfast and lunchtime bulletins are pan-regional and called "South Today", yet later editions are called "BBC Oxford News". It also doesn't help that the actual text on the titles just says "BBC Oxford".

Here in Yorkshire you still here some people (including my own mother) saying "Put Yorkshire on the TV"

I rarely hear anyone in my circle of friends refer to our local ITV station by name. Even myself - someone who detests the ITV1 brand - rarely has the need to name check the station as 'Tyne Tees'.

I've tested friends by deliberately saying things like 'Did you see that programme on Tyne Tees last night?' and their response is normally something like 'That's an old-fashioned thing to say' or 'It's not called that anymore, is it?'

Even my parents, who are in their late 70s and still talk about 'the wireless' and 'the viewer' (ie. listings magazine) rarely say 'Tyne Tees'. They don't say ITV either for that matter - because they have Virgin, they would normally refer to the channel number rather than the name of the station, eg. 'Put 103 on for the news', 'Put 139 on for Blockbusters'.

To be honest, the only time I hear anyone say 'Tyne Tees' is when talking about the local news - and then it's normally to differentiate between this and the national news, eg. 'There might be something about that murder on the Tyne Tees news, coz it wasn't on the main news'. Or, 'At my aunt's we get the Granada news'. People, quite understandably, only seem to associate the region names with the news - it's the only thing they notice is different when visiting a different part of England.

Specifically talking about ITV1+1 (or HD), I've heard people say 'why am I getting the news for Sheffield?' or 'the news for Manchester?', rather than 'why am I getting Yorkshire/Granada TV?' They quickly notice the news isn't relevant to them or is 'incorrect', but if Granada News popped up with stories from Newcastle, they'd probably barely bat an eyelid, than maybe to comment on the change of name or presenters.

A few older people 70+ still refer to Meridian round here, but most say 'ITV'. Contrast to 20/30 years ago, when there was a good 3-4 year lag for people saying 'Southern' (instead on TVS) and TVS (instead of Meridian) !

One thing is certain, everybody I know from 8-80, still refers to 'BBC NEWS 24' !!!!

Name recognition for the regional station names is fading but as for the BBC News 24 name, everyone still calls it by that. I have never heard any basic telly watcher say put the 'BBC News Channel' on.

Funny then, I have - by my tinkering about - on my freeview box:
01: BBC One N.W.*
03: ITV1 Granada
33: ITV1+1 Granada

Well, someone should think of what region they come from, at least in TV terms.

*It's N.W. as my box has only 16 characters in its channel name thingy.

On another note I feel sorry for STV and UTV. Since getting sky I have been amazed at the amount of ITV branding during the 6:00 - 9:25 slot there is. It's a shame as they try hard to remove the ITV 1 brand during their broadcast times only for ITV to dump loads on the screen during those few early hours.

I guess that's because the 0600-0925 slot is a separate franchise - which was once TVam and GMTV, but is now owned by ITV plc? Although most people think of Daybreak and Lorraine as programmes on ITV1, in reality they are programmes on a separate franchise owned by ITV plc.

ITV plc have chosen to brand them as ITV - but I guess STV and UTV have no control over this as they don't have any franchise rights to Channel 3 broadcast space 0600-0925? I agree it must be galling for them.

I still hear people referring to ITV West as HTV West, puts a little smile on my face!

Yep it is officially ITV Breakfast LTD branded as ITV 1. They also add ITV 1 promos on the time slot too. Its not bad for ITV 1 Channel Television though as they are branded as ITV 1 anyway.

Indeed - there's a big challenge for STV and UTV when it comes to "overspill" use of the ITV1 name and branding despite their strong local branding.

Most of the use of the ITV brand on network programmes is, of course, in keeping with the old use - the generic name for the network pre 2001. For instance, the ITV Weather and ITV Sport. No confusion there necessarily. "ITV is the network across Britain and here we get STV."

The problem kicks in when presenters refer to ITV1... when people see ITV1 trails during Daybreak and on the other ITV channels... when people see the name ITV1 in listings magazines and certain newspapers.

Many people here very definitely call STV by that name. But the public cannot avoid some references to ITV1 and I wonder to what extent the general public realises that ITV1 is not the overall national name for a channel which trades locally as STV - it is, of course, just the name of the third channel in the ITVplc regions and, by default, in the Channel Islands.