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Channel 3 North East and Carlton Central/Westcountry

Why dual branding for one and not the other? (March 2014)

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ET
ETP1 Forever
Isonstine posted:
cwathen posted:
No. The first ever Carlton-branded startup from Westcountry in 1999 did reference 'Carlton Television for the Westcountry'. The last ever Central link in 2002 did mention 'the Central region'. I believe those were the only 2 times over the 3 years that the regional names were quoted in continuity. Normal state of play was just to refer to all 3 regions as 'Carlton' with no mention of Central or Westcountry (although Westcountry did occasionally mention 'the team here in Plymouth' and I think Central occasionally used the line 'the heart of the ITV network' in their links as an homage to their old 'the centre of the ITV network' strapline).


No. Announcers on Carlton (Central) would regularly reference the 'Central Region' - Amanda Youngs who had the honour of announcing the last Carlton (Central) link made reference to the 'Central Region' as a complete in joke in that it was one of her favourite announcements into Central News at Six.


The last ever bit of Carlton continuity was actually done by Ted May (used to be a video on YouTube of the last announcement).
IS
Isonstine Founding member
Of course...I'm completely misremembering. It has reminded me of Ted's great link into The South Bank Show "Now on Carlton, we're off to the South bank". Understated but very clever.
MK
Mr Kite
JAS84 posted:
Three Lefts Do posted:
In my mind, I can picture "what if" mocks of the blue hearts endboards with the Westcountry "W" logo and the Central "cake" both being entirely yellow and encapsulated in the small blue square, as per all GMG/UN&M regions. I'm thankful that the Carlton idents we actually got instead were a billion times better than that would've been.
Not UN&M. Anglia and Meridian's logos both stayed full colour, and HTV's last pre hearts ident was blue on a yellow background. The blue would've clashed with the blue hearts background, so they switched the colours around and used yellow text. Yorkshire and Tyne Tees's logos were both yellow anyway, so only Granada was changed, reverting to the 70s and 80s yellow instead of the then current silver. Border, of course, removed it's logo entirely.


They were going to be entirely yellow initially, as shown in some of the early prototype idents. Anglia's logo just doesn't look right in all yellow though, so I suppose UNM insisted on colour logos. Anglia and Meridian also had extra large text which I thought looked rather odd and unbalanced.

I've mentioned before on here that I could've sworn I saw a Westcountry version of the generic hearts. Watching on the TV and any interviews regarding ITV, particularly consolidations, were conducted outside the network centre which seemed to have a wall with all the different regional logos on. I recall seeing a Westcountry one with a white 'W' in the ident box. I'm sure someone on here confirmed that this did exist. I've tried finding photos of the outside of the network centre building during this period but to no avail.
JA
JAS84
White? That's odd, as the logo was actually light blue.

http://hub.tv-ark.org.uk/images/itvsouthwest/images/westcountry/continuity/westcountry_pres_1997_t1274.jpg
CW
cwathen Founding member
Mr Kite posted:
I've mentioned before on here that I could've sworn I saw a Westcountry version of the generic hearts. Watching on the TV and any interviews regarding ITV, particularly consolidations, were conducted outside the network centre which seemed to have a wall with all the different regional logos on. I recall seeing a Westcountry one with a white 'W' in the ident box. I'm sure someone on here confirmed that this did exist. I've tried finding photos of the outside of the network centre building during this period but to no avail.

I also was sure this existed. And that it wasn't the Westcountry logo that was used but a new white logo which was in a much wider font. However recently someone said this didn't exist and what was on that board was a print version of the branding.
:-(
A former member
Im sure there we have talked about this: not sure which thread?

Networked ITV 80s/90s or maybe Correct press dates?
MA
martin890
The ITV Central studios in Gas Street nowadays have 45 people working in that building . a far cry from way back in june 1997 when their was over 200 + people working their
BR
Brekkie
I'm quite surprised it's that many to be honest - I guess most are with Central News.
MA
martin890
Brekkie posted:
I'm quite surprised it's that many to be honest - I guess most are with Central News.


The Cube Real Estate is on the Ground floor where the ITV News Central news studio is, The 1st floor is ITV Central and ITV feedback service or viewer services. and the 2nd floor are available to rent as office space and yes most are with central news but some others work on the phones talking to itv viewers about programmes etc and plus yes thats how many people work their
BL
bluecortina
bluecortina posted:
Markymark posted:


... I've seen mention here that Northam had two IVC studios, from the Southern TV days, not ever being
able to see the Dover/SE region I don't know how often, and how this was used ? Perhaps it just contained
the SE clock during TVS's tenure ! ...


Southern only had one IVC studio (4). The SE area of the region never having a separate 'in vision' look during their tenure. The complete presentation for the South and South East regions were both carried out from Southampton - the Assistant Transmission Controller could split and re-join the South and South East feeds quite easily on the Marconi presentation desk, and simultaneously, bearing in mind that the only reason to do so was the occasional local ad, local news bulletins and the separate 'Day by Day' programme from the Dover studios (and even then the comms in the middle of the edition came from Telecine 2 in Southampton).

On those days when a single 'Day by Day' programme from Southampton was shown in both regions, the SE local newswrap near the top of the programme was recorded a few minutes before 1800 and then inserted live into the Southampton programme by the ATC (it ran off one of the ACR25's) and thence on to the SE region transmitters.

Behind Studio 4 was the Sound transcription unit, later and perhaps even during Southern's time, this was converted into the commercial inject room for the C4 feed.

I have some sort of memory of TVS having two IVC studios at Southampton. I'm wondering if initially the SE region presentation was actually done somewhere in the SE region itself , TVS built two new control rooms where the Southampton Telecine section used to be, perhaps that included two new IVC studios as well? I will ask my wife - she used to do it, but it was all a long time ago.



I've asked my wife who joined TVS in 1984. At that point they were still using the original Southern Pres control rooms and kit. Any SE in vision continuity came from 'outside' Northam. (In 1984 I guess it would have been Vintners Park) but everything, both S &SE, was still routed through that Marconi mixer.

Later the original Southern telecine area was slimmed down and relocated to the old Southern VTR area and close by was the C4 commercial inject point/room - known as 'the fridge'.

2 new Pres suites were built in the old Southern telecine area, Pres A did presentation for the entire region (but could provide split feeds to S & SE for news programming etc - but no split in-vision continuity, it must have been phased out by then). Pres B was just used for News bulletins for the South region, the equivalent SE bulletin from Vintners Park being 'split' fed on the Pres A mixer.

The C4 commercial inject moved behind Studio 4 (as per my original post). So, there was only ever one in-vision continuity suite at Northam at any time.
MA
Markymark
bluecortina posted:

On those days when a single 'Day by Day' programme from Southampton was shown in both regions, the SE local newswrap near the top of the programme was recorded a few minutes before 1800 and then inserted live into the Southampton programme by the ATC (it ran off one of the ACR25's) and thence on to the SE region transmitters.


That explains the pregnant pause at the start of Day by Day as seen on the 'South' tx , Barry Westwood would open the show, then throw to a newsreader for 'today's news', there was often an uncomfortable pause, presumably the director waiting for the SE feed to opt away to the ACR25 ?
WH
Whataday Founding member
RB posted:
On the received wisdom of why Channel 3 North East had to have "Tyne Tees Television" on the bottom due to regulation issues, did the ITA, IBA, ITC really have such a tight rein on what ITV companies called themselves on screen?
If it were true, did Harlech have to seek permission to rebrand itself as HTV? Did Associated-Rediffusion need permission to become Rediffusion London (although that might have been part of the 1964 franchise round)? Did Scottish Television have to get permission when it became STV and then went back to Scottish (well before the current stv)? London Weekend to LWT etc?


I always understood that the change to HTV was prompted by the IBA who said it was too Welsh a name for the West part of the reason. I might be wrong there though.

Also, again I might be wrong but the story I've grown up with is that the reason C3NE was such a botched job was not because of any interference from the ITC, but due to boardroom squabbles. Some of the board/management didn't want references to Tyne Tees going altogether so as a compromise they imposed a bit of self regulation.

By the way, I know as fact that the reason Carlton didn't rebrand HTV is because they were given a clear heads up by the Welsh Assembly that they would kick off very publicly about any loss of identity. It's also the reason that it became ITV1 Wales when the regional names went.

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