BringBackThames on 7:20 pm on Dec. 23, 2001
ITV's never been the same since Thames left. Though who of us would have thought that in 1993 that Carlton would be the closest thing ITV would have to a saviour?
I think we can all safely say that the wrong company lost their franchise in 1991, the only reason Granada survived was because Thames lost and the ITC couldn't afford to have two majors leave.
Thames should have survived and Granada left - they would never have allowed this destruction of regionalism.
Still when the viewing figures continue to plummet and the revenue dries up they may have a change of heart.
Oh sod off. What a load of tosh.
Thames would've been the first to axe regional identity given the chance. They wanted to create one big London dominated media organisation.
Granada has seriously helped the economy of the North as a whole, not just the North West. Nobody gives a stuff whether a big London company goes bust, it happens every bloody day, but there aren't that many dominant companies in the North and the destruction of Granada would've just meant more money for you poncey Southerners. Get lost.
And what the hell did Thames do? Sod all is the answer to that.
At least Carlton put a bit of effort into local stuff, Thames didn't. LNN would never have been created with Thames in control because they were such unco-operative *******
s who couldn't bear to lose their blessed little franchise.
MV
Mr Videowall
Quote:
frogman on 8:29 pm on Dec. 23, 2001
Quote:
Mr Videowall on 8:26 pm on Dec. 23, 2001
c) LWT told me in an email that 'we have no plans to axe the videowall until the 2nd quarter of 2002'
Yeah, and Meridian told me that 'Granada are all in favour of regional identity'. How wrong can you be.
As with most rumours, I think we're probably better waiting to see whether they actually come true or not.
I'm sure you'll all remember the fabulous promises we were made about the Sky News graphics... none of them actually came true, despite the fact that the source was very convincing (to most of you, at least).
May I suggest that instead of creating a 50 page topic on this - which is a pain in the arse for anyone to read at the best of times - that you go into the chatroom where we are currently discussing this. It saves a mass of one lines posts and a lot of bandwidth.
I do think it's best to wait and see what happens. I don't know where the source (CraigV) has went, but just because he's dissappeared doesn't mean to say he was just winding us up does it? Besides, even if it is/was a wind up, why just all of a sudden dissappear? Surely they would continue to have their 'fun'.
I know i've said its best just to wait and see what happens, but there is no harm in talking about the issues and having opinions all the same. Thats what this message board is for. The idea of a generic itv1 ident based on the xmas ident with a blue/yellow/white colour scheme does seem plausible to me. Didn't they use some promotional footage for the renaming of itv to itv1 using exactly that colour scheme? I'm sure they did.
As to LWT and them refusing to use the new generic idents, well is it up to them? No! Granada will tell them to do whatever they want and they have to comply. LWT *is* Granada after all. As to whether Granada will FORCE them to use a generic ident as such.... well I personally don't know. I would imagine Granada are trying to get their act together, and I suppose at least they will force LWT to display the GR/N/DA logo somewhere, regardless of the ident.
Well time will tell, but it has to be said I never thought I see the day when Granada would ditch the name of the regions, I thought they were in favour of keeping the regional names, but since this generic Christmas ident came out, it's obvious that's not the case!
IT
ITV Channel Islands
This now makes me wonder about the future of Channel. Saw on Channel Report recently that their parent company Media Holdings as had a change of ownership and then ITV1 Channel Islands heading appear on teletext when previously it was just ITV Channel Islands even when the rest of the network was ITV1.
Can't even e-mail them no one there until te 2 January and it could be too late by then.
Frankly I'll believe it when I see it. However it would be in-keeping with Granada's actions of late; it was they who have renamed their regional centres, they who pushed the idea of reducing the number of regional hours per week down to 8 (which just covers news and about 3 hours extra which would be mainly taken up by the Lunchtime programmes at 1.10) and they who have used generic idents this Christmas. It is also they who have reduced staffing levels drastically at the regional centres in the last 12-18 months.
