Brand New Regional ITV1 Idents

Also it would be nice to hear some announcers giving the regions a bit more 'regionality' when doing the regional intro's.
A few announcers DO come to mind, see if you can name them!

I think you'll find Graham Rogers and Bannerman are very good at regional name checks, and on the occassions I've heard Glen Thompsett, he always gives the 'so- called' regions a good plug.

Larry makes the important point though - what is the point of regional idents when the channel is, actually, a national one? You can't get away from the fact that as soon as you start wanting regional idents you start wanting regional continuity, and ultimately we all want a completely independent, autonomous, regional channel. But when that was the case most of the programming went out nationally, because at the end of the day an independent regional station just can't afford a full schedule of quality original programming.

That's depressing! Someone say something cheery!

How exactly does a "national network" manage to broadcast regional programming?

With reluctance. The 1990 Broadcasting Act effectively did away with the whole point of having a regional network, it was always going to be just a matter of time, and still is, until the network abandons its regionality and becomes purely national. The Broadcasting Act made the ITC's current regional requirements nothing more than a token gesture. Blame Thatcher.

'The Channel' is not *a* national one. Neither is it 'The Channel'. It is still technically a regional network of separate stations. That is what it was set up to do, and it worked best doing that, and nothing has officially happened to change that situation. Not until a single company holds a single licence to provide a national ITV service will it become a national channel.

[quote="cwathen"]


And even then it will remain a regional channel as long as it continues to provide regional programming.

Five is the only truely national channel on analogue.

If one company owns all the licences, it IS effectively one channel. The licences become nothing more than a technicality. If the Thatcher government had been interested in protecting the idea behind regional licences it wouldn't have introduced the 1990 Broadcasting Act, and if the present government thought any differently it wouldn't have allowed the merger - indeed, it would be looking to split the network up again. But the reason for that now is digitial TV - the government know that there's no point coming down heavy on ITV because the days of analogue broadcasting are numbered, which is actually the only reason licences exist at all. Digital TV means a free market; or at least, a much more free market.

It's up to the BBC to diversify and enhance their regional output. I don't think it's reasonable to expect it from ITV anymore.

Why? The BBC was never designed to be regional. Indeed, it's only because of ITV that they are.

Imagine a situation of a London based broadcaster provided one basic service, with opt outs for the nations, and a rudminentary English regional network with only 4 or 5 crude regions which usually only provided 5 minutes of regional news per day. That was 1950's BBC Television.

They then spent most of the 60's investing much time and money into developing a regional service. By the mid 60's, the nations had their own separate versions of BBC1 (separate to the point that until 1985 they didn't even have to call it BBC1), and in England a proper national network existed with many more regions and proper regional news operations. Why did they do that? Because what ITV were doing was very popular.

To suggest that ITV couldn't possibly have managed to prosper if it had remained as a locally owned regional network is ludicrous (I would suggest it would have made it's position safer). It would have been just fine - it's not like multichannel television didn't exist in the past.. By 'we must merge to compete in the digital age' they actually mean 'we must merge or we'll never get bought out by an American broadcaster and thus our shareholders will never get their pockets lined' (the word digital as usual has no relevance at all).

I know this isn't the focus of your point, but I'm not sure this part is true -- certainly not for Wales. Even though the graphics on-screen sometimes aligned as <BBC1 Wales>, in various fonts and designs, it was never said that way [to my knowledge, ever] until the balloons in 1997.

There used to be copious use of <BBC Wales> on-screen, and everything mentioned, in trails etc, was "on BBC Wales", even though they would be referring to one specific channel's line-up. And the announcements over the symbols were always "Now on BBC Wales on one/two.."

just to note, central used one of these new ident before central news at six this evening - and very effective it looked too!

i do, however, (i know, i know, a bit picky cos we ought to be glad we have such idents at all - considering the sh*te we've had to put up with since the itv rebrand) feel that a couple of night time idents would compliment the set - especially when they're being used before shows at 11.30pm etc. warwick castle at night, birmingham council house at night, oxford at night - all pretty simple to do, but i think they'd be effective.

but anyway - nice to have a change from that *yawn* inspiring generic itv ident at 6pm - and i suppose its a nice chance for people who don't watch rock legends, the 2.30 show, central sport or any other regional shows to see the local idents.

Well of course I agree with that - for what it's worth, I think both the 1990 Broadcasting Act and the merger were disasters, and that Thatcher deliberately destroyed ITV because she was and is a shrunken-minded half-wit. It was that act which has ultimately led to the current situation in which ITV is run by businessmen with about as much interest in programme making as in sandwich making (ask Charles Allen), which has just compounded the whole problem.



Well that's more to do with the fact that having declared the BBC a 'public service', you then have to decide what service the public want, which in practice means being forced into replicating whatever it is people decide to start demanding from their public service broadcaster - once ITV provide regional news, the BBC have to follow, or people (in particular MPs) start to get annoyed. But it needn't have happened that way; any pressure group of viewers or local MPs could have pressed for a regional news service had they wanted to, regardless of ITV doing it.

Anyway, I'm all for re-regionalisation, but I just don't think it's going to happen, unless the government appoints a programme maker to the cabinet...

Just read this:

ITV marketing chief Jim Hytner has been approached by Manchester United about becoming the club's commercial director. "I have not been offered the job and I've only had one conversation with them. But I'm very happy here at ITV," said Mr Hytner.

Take it take it take it...