aberdeenboy

ITV presentation refresh in the New Year

I think we do the people of NI a disservice if we think their reaction to the loss of UTV trails and idents would be any different to the reaction of people in England and Wales all those years ago. Or indeed to the people of the north of Scotland when Grampian went.

Yes, some will dislike change. But what really matters is the range and strength of the local output.

UTV already carries some ITV branded sponsorship bumpers, apparently without controversy.

Would many really care about ITV trails and idents in connection with the network output?

Local announcers could easily stay to ease the transition.

The big change on UTV happened when the announcers went out of vision and ITV-esque branding appeared.

The good people of NI have far more serious things to worry about just now. The worst that would happen would be s couple of critical articles in the local press.

ITV presentation refresh in the New Year

It's entirely conceivable - and I stress again I have no inside knowledge - that ITV trails and idents could go out on UTV while UTV could stay as the local name for local output.

In the north west, the local news is still called Granada Reports and the weather is the Granada Weather - albeit under the ITV masterbrand.

I have no reason to doubt that ITV was sincere when it said three years ago that UTV would not become ITV NI. That isn't the same as promising not to use ITV branding and - wherever the intention - the current packaging has always looked to me like "transitional branding".