ITV Christmas Hearts era

They did the same thing with their playout of The Golden Jubilee ident in 2002. It seemed a bit odd at the time, as the regular idents were all set up and *cough* usually played out correctly into 4:3 stuff. Even if by that point they weren't using much outside of the somewhat butchered heart re-edits.

I suspect that playout was treating the ident as 16:9/4:3 as normal, but they'd only loaded a single version into the servers and not bothered to change the settings for playout (how hard would it have been to down-up after the ident rather than before for those few days?).

That said, none of this is as unprofessional as a nasty little trick I saw on UTV around this time (or maybe slightly earlier, I don't recall). They actually (on a few occasions as well) wiped from a 16:9 promo to the IVC studio (which was still 4:3) while doing the AR change. We were talking about possible lack of professionalism at Thames at the end of that Rainbow episode a couple of months back with the picture jumping after a fade, but that really takes the cake. Eurgh.

The Central Cake?

The Central Christmas Cake!

It's a shame really because those idents look perfect in widescreen. Put the ident in widescreen and then lead into the 4:3 programme.

At the time GMG's policy was that the ident would be shown in the same aspect ratio as the programme it introduced, with the ARC switch before the ident. In contrast Carlton would show all pres as 16:9, with the switch going into the programme.

Sorry Phil, I thought I was quite clear. I didn't like either the celebrity idents, or the later 'emotions' set with a logo slapped on - or the current meaningless 'Art College' videos, with their colour-picking logo, which became boring after a week.


However, I did like the CGI set that they used between those creations:







I'm sure they were cheap to make, but they happen to appeal to my personal taste, and each to their own, of course.

The celebrities ident package of 2002 was nothing more but cringe to me at its finest when I look back - the set after that in 2004 (aligning ITV1 with ITV2/3 logos and timed well with ITV3's launch) was far more presentable and appealing to the eye.

Sadly however it didn't last long, as ITV decided in mid-2005 to scrap the 1998 logo.

The current set is quite bland in production values - but ITV's quantity over quality strategy keeps them constantly fresh, something that other broadcasters have struggled with, especially with regards to the BBC.

My only problem with the 2004 set was the ITV 'squares' looking a bit too much like they were trying to emulate the BBC logo.

They never used those idents to their full potential of course. Well, they did for about a week before they decided they couldn't be bothered.

Never really liked that ITV1 logo though and in hindsight it's obvious the 1998 logo itself was on its last legs by that time. They needed something more adaptable to each brand rather than using yellow and blue for everything (or, just to shake things up, white and blue for ITV3). Fast forward to 2006 and the ITV logo changes colour depending on what channel or brand it's for.

My sentiments exactly. It felt quite tacky and similar to the BBC logo, which is timeless in comparison.

I always preferred the regional brands with a little itv logo approach but that thinking is from a bygone era