The Newsroom

ITN - The Classic Years

A nostalgic discussion about retro ITN presentation (July 2012)

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VM
VMPhil
The titles were also great, and I can't even tell whether it's CGI or a physical model of the clock tower. Great stuff from Lambie-Nairn, and with that Hewson theme, well, you've pretty much got the best cohesive branding. The 1999 branding was nice to see at the time as I recall, but looking back, I really don't think it has aged as well as the previous look.

I'm not sure I'd agree with that, I still think it looks as good as it did back then, but I will agree in that it was not as good overall as the 1995 ITN branding (across all bulletins).

Quote:
While we're on the subject, didn't the look of News at Ten undertake several "amendments" after the initial November 1992 relaunch? There were at least two different sequences showing the studio in the newsroom (one from inside the newsroom and the other looking in from the atrium IIRC). There were also changes to the music - the music used in the first year or so sounds almost "too" subtle! It was re-recorded but seems to have been changed yet again at some point after that, to add in the long drumroll at the top of theme. I don't think it settled until 1995 or so. Weird - this kind of thing would never happen now, would it! Laughing

They also had different ITN captions looking back at video on YouTube and other sites. I've seen one video which has an ITN frontcap, then another has the ITN logo overlaid at the start of the titles which then zooms out and fades as the camera zooms back out onto Big Ben (which looks gimmicky to the say the least), and then another has a more basic white outline ITN logo.
IT
itsrobert Founding member
One thing I found "distinctive" about the studio as a child was that strip of colour at the top of the desk, which was yellow for daytime bulletins but red for evening bulletins. I don't know the significance of using those two colours amid a sea of blue (!) but was it possibly a nod to the News at Ten logo of the time? You know, the red/yellow bars next to the text?


Wow, I never thought of that! Again, as a spotty adolescent at the time, I probably didn't pay as much attention as I would now. I think you're probably right there, as the News at Ten logo did have hints of yellow and red.

The titles were also great, and I can't even tell whether it's CGI or a physical model of the clock tower. Great stuff from Lambie-Nairn, and with that Hewson theme, well, you've pretty much got the best cohesive branding. The 1999 branding was nice to see at the time as I recall, but looking back, I really don't think it has aged as well as the previous look.


Yes, it was magnificent. We were lucky growing up in the 90s. On one side we had the awesome BBC "virtual era" with its cut glass virtual reality studio and impressive orchestral themes; and on the other we had this fantastic presentation for ITV News. I feel sorry for the kids growing up today as news presentation is a bit lame these days. I can't see many people looking back on the current ITV News branding with admiration in 15-20 years.

Robert thanks for starting the topic as you've thrown light on some oddities - was there any particular reason for the overnight service sticking with the '95 look for more than a year after the '99 relaunch? Revamping in stages just seems to be something they did back then, I guess!


No problem, Nicky. I always love to discuss old ITN presentation Very Happy I've never really come to a conclusion with that one either. The 1999 revamp coincided with a move from the atrium-side studio to Studio 1 in the basement for the main bulletins. One can only assume it was easier/cheaper to run the other studio overnight? But they moved into the basement eventually so I guess that's not really a valid excuse. I'm fairly sure the overnights were probably kicked out just before the launch of the ITN News Channel in August 2000, which then occupied that studio space (now home to ITV London). Another guess might be that they knew the News Channel was on its way in 1999 and wanted to keep the studio and control room operational so left overnight news to broadcast from there until the time was right to start building a new set? I wish someone could provide a conclusive answer!

While we're on the subject, didn't the look of News at Ten undertake several "amendments" after the initial November 1992 relaunch? There were at least two different sequences showing the studio in the newsroom (one from inside the newsroom and the other looking in from the atrium IIRC). There were also changes to the music - the music used in the first year or so sounds almost "too" subtle! It was re-recorded but seems to have been changed yet again at some point after that, to add in the long drumroll at the top of theme. I don't think it settled until 1995 or so. Weird - this kind of thing would never happen now, would it! Laughing


You're right, those changes did happen. I know the first version of the 'new' News at Ten theme tune wasn't used for very long at all. It launched in November 1992 and it was certainly gone by January or February 1993 as I recall seeing a YouTube video of a programme from that time and it was using the re-recorded version. That version, as far as I can tell, lasted until some time in mid to late 1993 when the drum roll at the start was extended. And yes originally they used a pre-recorded flying shot over the newsroom towards the studio (you can tell it's pre-recorded as Trevor has the same clothes on each time!) but this was replaced in 1993 (I think) with a new 'live' shot from across the atrium (well, I say 'live', but the opening titles were most likely recorded 'as live' each night). I think these changes coincided with the dropping off the full-screen frontcap. More changes happened in 1995... the ITN logo changed; the voiceover altered (dropping 'From the headquarters of ITN...'); and the bong sting at the end of the headlines was also dropped. And if memory serves, it remained like that until 1999. Remarkable that so many changes happened to one programme in such a short space of time. We'd have had a field day with all that had TV Forum existed back then.

Sorry to drag this topic back a bit from its remit, but I just wanted to say that although I love the 1995 (and NAT 1992) music, some of my all time favourites come from the previous era:

http://youtu.be/zHXKnWUXk5A?t=17s - this is one heck of a news theme! That takes me right back to my childhood on Saturday and Sunday evenings!

http://youtu.be/SYnCKolFYAw?t=16s - and this one takes me back to my grandparents' house. We always used to watch Blockbusters before tea and this would come on straight afterwards.

And of course... http://youtu.be/12kk6WfoIvM?t=2m9s - definitely a classic! So simple and understated yet quite authoritative. They don't make 'em like these anymore.
IT
itsrobert Founding member
I'm not sure I'd agree with that, I still think it looks as good as it did back then, but I will agree in that it was not as good overall as the 1995 ITN branding (across all bulletins).


I think 1995 worked so well because News at Ten retained its own distinctive look and the other bulletins all tied together as one package, which was also quite impressive! 1999 I'm not so sure about. Like Nicky said, it seemed great at the time, but for me the visuals haven't aged so well. And it didn't seem to work quite so well for the late evening bulletins; certainly not as good as the 1992-99 NAT look, which was quite moody and atmospheric.

They also had different ITN captions looking back at video on YouTube and other sites. I've seen one video which has an ITN frontcap, then another has the ITN logo overlaid at the start of the titles which then zooms out and fades as the camera zooms back out onto Big Ben (which looks gimmicky to the say the least), and then another has a more basic white outline ITN logo.


I was posting about this while you wrote that, but the white frontcap lasted from late 1992 until some time in late 1993, when the floating version was introduced. The more professional-looking white logo was introduced in 1995-ish I think (probably to coincide with the 1995 revamp of the other bulletins, which used the same white logo).
PC
Paul Clark

I think it's safe to say I utterly took this for granted at the time... Undeniably effective - the pairing of the titles and music is fantastic.
VM
VMPhil
I think 1995 worked so well because News at Ten retained its own distinctive look and the other bulletins all tied together as one package, which was also quite impressive! 1999 I'm not so sure about. Like Nicky said, it seemed great at the time, but for me the visuals haven't aged so well. And it didn't seem to work quite so well for the late evening bulletins; certainly not as good as the 1992-99 NAT look, which was quite moody and atmospheric.

That is very true - whilst 1999 worked for the ITV Evening News and presumably was designed with it in mind as it was the new flagship bulletin at the time, it didn't work for the later timeslot of the Nightly News (and later on, News at Ten). Perhaps a blue/white shaded colour scheme instead of the blue and red would have worked for the Nightly News, similar to the 1995 studio? (for the daytime bulletins)

I was posting about this while you wrote that, but the white frontcap lasted from late 1992 until some time in late 1993, when the floating version was introduced. The more professional-looking white logo was introduced in 1995-ish I think (probably to coincide with the 1995 revamp of the other bulletins, which used the same white logo).

Ah okay, thanks for clearing that up. I'm probably asking for a lot here, but was there any reason why they ditched the frontcap, similarly why they decided to revert to the old white logo?
Last edited by VMPhil on 26 July 2012 12:08am
JA
JAS84
Old white logo? It was always yellow until 1993.
BE
Ben Founding member
Thinking about the 1995 look a bit more, the reason it worked so well was the simplicity of the whole thing. The studio was small but they didn't try to do anything to make it bigger. No open view onto the newsroom (it was there but behind a blue screen), no TV screens etc. Just a desk in the corner. The graphics were simple too, no fancy effects no complicated type face. While over on the BBC you had the complete opposite.
VM
VMPhil
JAS84 posted:
Old white logo? It was always yellow until 1993.


Sorry, I meant the design, they reverted to the old design from 1995 but of course in white and not coloured.

I've been looking through the ITV News pages on TV Ark and found something I hadn't seen before. Whilst the Early Evening News dropped the Big Ben titles sometime during the 1995-1999 era, it seems the Morning News didn't. And so even after the 1999 rebrand, the newly named 'ITV Morning News' continued to use the Big Ben titles!

http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/news/itvnews/images/news/itv_morning_news_160500a.jpg

If this link to the video doesn't work, it's on this page and the video is marked as 16.5.2000

I've also found this great ITN Dave Hewson montage on Soundcloud: http://soundcloud.com/aaronhudson1981/dave-hewson-itn-and-election
Last edited by VMPhil on 26 July 2012 1:33pm
IT
itsrobert Founding member
Ah okay, thanks for clearing that up. I'm probably asking for a lot here, but was there any reason why they ditched the frontcap, similarly why they decided to revert to the old white logo?


I'm not sure I have the answer, unfortunately. I think they carried on using the white frontcap for the other bulletins right up until 1995; it was seemingly just News at Ten which dropped it. My best guess is they thought the transition from white frontcap to very dark titles (the nighttime shot of St Stephen's Tower) was too jarring? So they eliminated the white background and had the ITN logo floating in mid-air? Like I say, just a guess!
NI
Nicky
Ben posted:
Thinking about the 1995 look a bit more, the reason it worked so well was the simplicity of the whole thing. The studio was small but they didn't try to do anything to make it bigger. No open view onto the newsroom (it was there but behind a blue screen), no TV screens etc. Just a desk in the corner. The graphics were simple too, no fancy effects no complicated type face. While over on the BBC you had the complete opposite.


You've hit the nail on the head - it was the subtlety and simplicity of the look that I feel made it (ironically) more distinctive than others.

I've been looking through the ITV News pages on TV Ark and found something I hadn't seen before. Whilst the Early Evening News dropped the Big Ben titles sometime during the 1995-1999 era, it seems the Morning News didn't.


The Lunchtime News also continued to use the Big Ben titles right up until the 1999 rebrand. I wonder why the Early Evening News dropped the sequence? The only explanation I can think of is that the titles were dropped to save time - but what's 15 seconds in the grand scheme of things? We're all coming up with so many questions about this particular era, aren't we? Laughing And thanks for that Soundcloud link. It contains the 1990s-era Budget theme which is a favourite of mine.

...similarly why they decided to revert to the old white logo?


I remember reading somewhere that it was Lambie-Nairn himself who decided to bring back the original "outline" logo for the 1995 rebrand. I think he designed the logo himself back in 1970, as suggested here.

I think 1995 worked so well because News at Ten retained its own distinctive look and the other bulletins all tied together as one package, which was also quite impressive! 1999 I'm not so sure about. Like Nicky said, it seemed great at the time, but for me the visuals haven't aged so well. And it didn't seem to work quite so well for the late evening bulletins; certainly not as good as the 1992-99 NAT look, which was quite moody and atmospheric.


I agree with you there, and I think it also perfectly describes the music too. The 1995 themes are fantastic but the NAT theme of the same time sounded much more serious and authoritative without being overtly brash - it definitely had an atmospheric feeling about it which gave it a unique importance. I like the 2008 version but for that reason I'd pick the 1992-99 as my favourite of the two. The 1967-92 is definitely up there though - as we all heard on Friday last week it can still send chills down your spine.

(Sorry for the multi-quote...)
VM
VMPhil
We're all coming up with so many questions about this particular era, aren't we? Laughing

Very much so, this has been a really interesting thread about one of my favourite eras of ITN branding. Being able to discuss past presentation in detail with other people who are as interested in it as you is one of the great things about TVF.
MA
Maaixuew
This is possibly my favorite ITN theme of all eras:

http://up.metropol247.co.uk/072012/1343568170_1707301230.mp3

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