What if... Central & YTV

Imagine what ITV would be like today if it had been "Central and ITV" and not "Carlton and Granada". What are your thoughts on this :

ITV would have some of the best presentatoin ever and idents the BBC would die for. I'm sure in the name of competition, we certainly wouldn't have *dancers* from the BBC!

Also, I think that these two great ITV companies would have retained and indeed maintained their regional identities. A strong point if ever there was one.

I've never been able to understand how an established ITV company of 11 years (Central) could have been taken-over by one that was just weeks old! If anything it should have been the other way round!

...what does everyone else have to say?

...and all broadcasters would be proud of their regions.

May be there'd be some in-vision continuity. If it was done from "around the region" it would give viewers a reason to watch.

Aston, do you realise what YTV's track record was when they were independent, but owned another franchise?

I won't go over the details again. Have a look over at http://www.ttlp.org.uk/

The last thing I would personally want would be YTV owning any part of the network. Part of Granada, out of harm's way is just fine by me!

I'm not sure at the end of the day it would make any difference.

Granada used to use loads of in-vision continuity, but it didn't stop Granada Media from axing it and sending it out of vision across the pennines.

So if Central wasn't purchased by Carlton, they'd probably still end up dropping the cake logo in the end etc.


Also its not the 'organisation' which makes these decisions, its the people within them, presumably the bloke who retained Granada's in-vision retired or moved on, and his replacement didn't want it so axed it, and the rest of the board didn't care either way

Look at Bruce Gyngell, the whole Channel 3 North East debacle seemed to be his doing, not known before his reign, and scrapped soon after

Since YTV pioneered most of what is wrong with ITV today, I'm rather glad that they have now ended up as a fairly small and insigificant part of the GMG empire, it's no more than they deserve.

As has been said, having Central running ITV would probably have made little difference. Look at Granada's presentation in the early part of 1997 - IVC apparant all over the shop, decent quality out of vision links the rest of the time, a nice subset of idents to complement their main ident, but by the end of the year they had change to Leeds out of vision continuity over the same ident over and over again - and Granada were the ones in control.

The problem isn't that it's the wrong companies in charge, it's the wrong people in charge. Creative people who thought it was a good idea to have all that great pres on Central are no longer in the driving seat, Central would no doubt be just as bland as Granada if it had ended up getting one of the controlling interests in ITV.

I'm too young to remember YTV's all too short period of IVC. Judging by the subsequent out of vision efforts, it wouldn't have been any better if they'd have kept it.

YTV pres. has always been the dullest on the network. Let's be grateful that they no longer have any influence.