'Yorkshire Television'

I presume that the regional news programme is called Calendar/Calendar News because the title 'Yorkshire News' would imply a programme for Yorkshire only. But of course, the region also includes Lincolnshire and the North Coast of Norfolk etc.

So, if the title of the news programme has to take such things into account, why on Earth doesn't the name of the broadcaster also consider this?

'Yorkshire Television' is a name which does rather a dis-service to the rest of it's region. It's even worse with the ITV/ITV1 generic idents - the caption just says 'Yorkshire'. At least when followed by the word 'Television' they can defend themselves by saying that it's a company name, which is not necessarily quite one and the same thing as a description of the region.

But now the on-screen identity must seem completely unsatisfactory from a Lincolnshire or North Norfolk Coast point of view.

But you have to admit 'The news now on 'Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and the North Coast of Norfolk etc'' doesn't have the same ring to it.
And it's less likely to be able to fit in TV lisitings magazines!!

Bit like London Weekend Television really. I suppose London (and bits of Bershire, Surrey, Essex, Kent, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, and Sussex) Weekend Television doesn't quite have the same ring.

Thinking about it Yorkshire didn't originally cover North Norfolk and Lincolnshire - Anglia did... Anglia even had an office in Grimsby.
However the Belmont transmitter was transferred from Anglia to Yorkshire after one of the early ITA franchise reviews.

Much more recently a similar change happened when TVS got the franchise from Southern - Bluebell Hill (I think) was transferred from Thames/LWT to TVS. (Possibly as a result of TVS providing a full news service from Maidstone, possibly to increase the ad revenue for the South franchise)

YTV is produced in Yorkshire, that's why it has that name. If you are to victimise that, then you'll also have to victimise BBC.
BBC - British Broadcasting Corporation
BBC America. It's still called BBC America as it's still produced in Britain.

Oh, I see... I didn't realise that Lincolnshire etc was originally Anglia's territory. That explains it!

I suppose the area YTV covers is such that it would be impossible to find a 100% accurate region-describing company name.

The only solution would be a meaningless corporate name that could just as easily be used in any region, for all the difference it would make (e.g. Granada, Carlton)

Granada might as well be called Manchester and Liverpool Television for all the attention they pay to us in Lancashire.

Many ITV stations have this problem. Grampian doesn't only cover the Grampians of Scotland, Scottish is incomplete, Anglia covers bits of what would normally be termed the Midlands. Also remember Channel 3 North East, which also covered North Yorkshire. Thankfully that was changed back, as the less boxed-in nature of the Tyne Tees name is a lot more appropriate.

I like the subtle way that 'Meridian' relates to the south and southeast, rather than the more simplisticly-obvious 'Television South'.

Ditto for 'Westcountry' compared to 'Television South West', which makes it a bit of shame that Westcountry has since become 'Carlton' (West Country Region!).

Hmm, I think Scottish Television seem to have themselves well covered. And given that they produce most of Grampian's output, then its seems more accurate than the rest of the network.

Perhaps Grampian should re-brand as Scottish, giving us a Scottish Network?

One of the franchise bidders for the Yorkshire region in one of the last rounds was a company called 'White Rose Television', which still only relates to Yorkshire. I don't think you could come up with a name that encompasses the whole region. However, at least it's better than CARLTON, which is absolutely meaningless whichever region you are in.

It's not allowed. Carlton will have to restore Central and Westcountry's names before the franchise review in 2007? or lose all of it's franchises. (for not using the channel name.)

How do you know this? I did not know of such things. I'm not having a go at you, but can you back this up please?

I find it difficult to believe that the ITV/ITV1 network bosses would be that bothered about seperate region names, because:

(1) If it were so important, Carlton would never have been allowed to re-brand Central and Westcountry in the first place.

(2) There have always* been two regions both called HTV. (*not quite true - there was once TWW, Teled Cymru (sp?) and all that sort of thing - but you know what I mean)

(3) The current 'dual-branding' in most regions is definately a prelude to a time when region names will ultimately be dropped and the channel will just be called ITV1.

Allow me to elaborate on point (3)...

Between the three of them, Granada Media Group, Carlton Communications and Scottish Media Group own all but two ITV1 regional broadcasters (the two that are still independent are Channel and UTV). This is why the current 'united front' branding has caught on better than the 1989 attempt - ITV/ITV1 is well on the way to being a single company/channel.

If and/or when it becomes one thing (i.e. GMG, Carlton and SMG have merged or taken over each other, and snapped up Channel and UTV) because it will be one company, the channel is boyund to be given one name - ITV1, rather than current situation of both the regional name and the ITV1 name sharing the screen.

(Edited by StandUpAndBeSeated at 2:00 pm on Sep. 7, 2001)