End of the road for UTV?

Hey, am I the only one here who thinks that they could just rebrand UTV as something like ITV Northern Ireland?

No. Your not.

I think ITV News Ulster sounds nicer though

I recall at least a couple of forumers citing their concerns about this happening when the UTV continuity first disappeared months back. They were roundly and cattily bollocked by the mainstream clique on here. Well, turns out they were right.

It’s a pity UTV comes to an end on such whimper. At least with the other ITV brands and local continuity demise it was flagged in advance and, depending on the region, at least got a send off. The UTV name now goes the way of HTV at the end, being used only for news, and that will probably only last until they come up with an appropriate name to replace it (which will be easier said than done for a number of reasons).

It'll probably happen to Scottish sooner or later, I bet in the next 10 years or so

I really hope not, STV is too proud and too rich...I am sure they will resist

These conversations and theories about renaming UTV just keep going round in circles. Nothing new is ever added.

And I’m sure it only took place in the other UTV thread a few weeks ago

Who had 2020 in the sweepstake? I'm sure there was a few poster predictions when the original ITV buyout was announced.


My crystal ball was faulty then.


That particular discussion point has been done to death, it's worth waiting on news about that before debating it again. Same goes for any far-in-the-future "what if" scenarios.

Does the long-standing insistence on referring to the national news as "ITN" (in preference to "ITV") still persist these days? Not that there can possibly be many places where it could get an opportunity to occur anymore, besides during the 18:29 close/handover at the end of UTV Live.

It's so strange that UTV is ending on such a whimper. What price an LWT style final day / send-off? (About as likely as an Elvis Presley comeback tour, methinks)

Really disappointed to hear this news today.
Well ITV have wanted rid of UTV branding/Julian/Gillian since October 2016 and it's felt like the UTV continuity airplane has been in a holding pattern since then with the whole pre-recording of Julian & Gillian instead of bring 'Live', and from today the plane has finally run out of fuel and come crashing down....

I still feel J & G are way better then most of today's announcers and do hope they are both heard over an ident somewhere else soon.

I feel ITV3 would be a really good fit for them both?? "But now on the ITV3 it's time for Classic Coronation Street .....anyone??

So we're never gonna hear a "Hi there whatta bout ye" or a "But now on the UTV" ever again....a very sad day in Northern Ireland broadcasting

So Gillians last announcement was at 6am on the 2nd April when she told us "Julian & I will be back with you as soon as possible".

As for Julian...when was his last ever UTV announcement? Any recording of it anywhere? I'm guessing 7pm the day before, as Gillian took over from 7:30pm till 6am on the 2nd April....actually come to think of it this last announcement was on a Thursday morning....Gillian and Julian would normally swap over on a Monday evening at 7:30pm then back to the other person on a Thursday at 7:30pm....so I'm guessing Julians last announcement would have been Monday 30th March at 7pm.

Gillian's last announcement: (Thank you to 'The Ident Gallery')
https://theident.gallery/player.php/UTV-2020-ID-SEASWIMMERS-GOODBYEUTV-1

I really hope Julian's last announcement shows up somewhere.

Oh definitely, they're quite proud (from what I've seen of them) but ITV plc are (I believe?) richer than them, and besides every single franchise except those two up north (and Channel Television strangely enough....) are owned by them, who says they won't buy them