Questions, Questions, Questions

Good Evening

At last I have finally got internet at home, the last time I used it was back in October 2003 at an internet cafe which went bust . I did try to sign back up again under my old name(Johhny) but because the email address didn't work i resigned again under this name (apologies).

Any way onto the Questions about the world of TV which i never found out due to no internet for about 4-5 months.

1. What happened to the Channel 4 relaunch that was been mentioned?

2. What happend to freeview channel CBM, one minute it was coming soon, the next gone?

3. Why has the LNN been replaced with ITV London productions

4. Is there any vidcaps or stills of the ITV 1989 idents for Anglia & Channel, as far as I can remember these were the only two missing?

5. Have I missed any major changes to tv presentation, etc. in my above questions

Regards

Johnny

1) Turn on your TV
2) Flick though the channels
3) Then you can see if there have been any major changes to TV Presentation

1. What?
2. What?
3. That's irrelavant now, because the ITV London production caption has been replaced with ITN now.
4. What?

Before Christmas everyone was speculating whether or not Channel 4 was going to relaunch it's image, (it was also in either media week or broadcast), they were talking about Channel 4's 21's birthda for a relaunch.

Freeview channel 22 was going to be CBM but then it dissapeared

What actually happened to LNN

Last year the Granada, TSW, TVS & Ulster versions on the ITV 1989 generic idents were captured & are now available on tv-ark. Anglia & Channel are the only versions missing

And also to add to this what has happened to TV Travelshop :

Regards

Johnny

The story of CBM as far as I know is one minute Crown Castle wanted it, next minute they did not (well the prospects for the channel were a pile of dung anyway so good on them for getting rid).
Channel 22 will likely be a time-shared channel with 2 or so channels broadcasting for a few hours.

However CBM is not totally dead. The folks behind it have some silly plans for a 'freesport' channel. I think it might be because Setanta dont have plans for their free sports channel which was goping to be on SDN?

Are you on about TV Travel shop that was on Freeview but now is not? Well TV Travel shop packed their bags from the SDN Mux and Top-up tv took over. Simple.

So they didn't go bust then :

No. TV Travel Shop and TV Travel Shop 2 are happy as ever on Sky, NTL and Telewest.

What if he's only got the five analogue terrestrial channels? What if he's on Freeview and wants to know about, for example, changes to Sky One? If you're not going to contribute anything worthwhile or helpful, it's generally best to just shut up.

http://img2.photobucket.com/albums/v11/itvcentre/itv1989/empitvang4.jpg
http://img2.photobucket.com/albums/v11/itvcentre/itv1989/empitvang3.jpg
http://img2.photobucket.com/albums/v11/itvcentre/itv1989/empitvang2.jpg
http://img2.photobucket.com/albums/v11/itvcentre/itv1989/empitvang1.jpg

Sorry, can I remind you what this person said in his first post:



How is that contribusing anything worthwhile and helpful. It's too wide a question to ask about "changes to TV presentation" generally. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a more specific question, e.g. have there been any major changes to Sky One".

Also, this is a discussion forum, not to post five questions on things you don't know. There are other presentation WEBSITES (only a few clicks away in the "Links" section) which cover "major changes in TV presentation" very well, so I don't think my resonse was unresonable...

It didn't happen. I personally doubt they ever intended to have one. I think it's nice, OK I don't think they should ever have got rid of the colours in the 4 (they could have gone for a more subtle palette). TV presentation in this country is now so weak because it's always being changed every 5 minutes, the obsession with branding which pretty much all UK companies (not just TV channels) are in the grip of is only of benefit to design houses; bringing in a new logo every 2 years does not make your brand stronger. Keeping the same logo for years and years and years, with changing it something that will happen only once or twice (or never) in a company's lifetime is how you build a strong brand.

It's nice to see that C4 have introduced something and let it grow, they've kept it up to date (yes the basic boxes theme has been in use for nearly 5 years, but it's not the same presentation in use - much of what they're using now is only 2 years old, and some of it is newer than that. AFAIK the only remants of actual 1999 presentation is a few of the idents they occasionally use overnight.

IMO C4 have the strongest brand out of any of the other terrestrials; and that's for two reasons. That their current presentation has been allowed to develop rather than be the subject of constant groundbreaking revamps, and that the logo itself, despite being reworked a couple of times, has never changed in 21 years (on a slightly different but still related note, neither has their news theme, also imo a great strength which makes C4 news instantly identifiable). I was saddened to hear that they were thinking of throwing that away, and relieved that they haven't.

Other channels could learn a lot about branding from them - strong brands are not built by bragging about how many millions you've paid Lambie-Nairn to develop your newest brand and logo to replace something you introduced only a few years ago, it's not about developing 'more coherent' presentation sets (and it's certainly not about developing 'culturally inclusive' idents), nor is it about introducing 'cleaner' corporate logos which will only last a few years. Strong brands are not born overnight by throwing money at a design house, they are built up by getting it right in the first place, and then letting that brand grow over a period of many years.

And from a purely business point of view, C4 aswell as having the strongest brand on UK TV, have undoubtedly spent a lot less on it than any other channel with their constant revamps. If they can spend less money on branding *and* get a stronger brand than anyone else, surely their approach is unquestionably right?

</rant mode>


The original story was that Crown Castle kicked them off a few weeks before launch and were considering legal action. This never happened.

Since then, CBM were going to go into a venture with Setanta to develop a Freesport/Freemovies dual channel. This didn't happen.

Then Disney were supposed to be launching a channel called Daytime, so called because it was going to show things which American daytime TV shows (so tacky low budget soaps and gameshows then? - although if they reran the excellent Sunset Beach I'd give them a go). Although it never had a firm launch date, it was supposed to have launched before the end of the winter - and it is of course now spring. Nothing has been heard about them since late December.

And at the end of the day, the space which all of these various ventures were after - the blank channel 22, is still vacant. What I think is most likely to happen now is that Bid Up.TV (soon to be kicked off to make way for pay TV operator Top Up) will move there - I can't honestly see anything more worthwhile going on Freeview now).

Still on the subject of DTT, a new pay TV venture is going to launch by the end of this month. Top Up TV (www.topup.tv or www.topuptv.com - both the same site) is about to launch a pay TV service, hopefully within the next 2-3 weeks. This gives you 10 channels (including E4, Discovery and UK Gold - but sadly not Sky One) on a timeshare basis for £7.99 a month with no minimum subscription period (although there is a connection fee). You also have the option of subscribing to soft porn channel TVX at additional cost. For this, you need an ex-ITV Digital box, although new boxes will appear soon.

This uses space on D3&4 and SDN and will come at the expense of some of the shopping channels. TV Travel Shop has allready gone and Bid Up.TV (unless it can find space elsewhere - I seriously think it will move to mux D and continue broadcasting on Freeview's space) will soon leave. Price Drop.TV will also go eventually (not for another 6 months or so), but at present this will be for More4, not Top Up (although I think it likely in time that plans to put More4 on DTT will be scrapped and Sky One will get the space if an agreement can be reached with Sky). Although this is what will happen at present, I think it unlikely that Price Drop will survive and Bid Up will leave. I think that when Top Up launched, Price Drop will go, Bid Up will move to Price Drop's space, and then Bid Up will try to secure permanent carriage for one or both of their channels elsewhere.


LNN was a venture to enable London regional production, London News & London transmission to come together under a single company, so that the weekday and weekend contractors only have to pay half each towards the cost of maintaining one regional operation, rather than both paying for their own facilities which would then lie dormant for part of the week. As time as gone on, LNN has taken on other roles too, but the reason for it's existance was always to avoid duplicating resources in London.

As soon as Carlton and Granada merged, LNN was wholy owned by ITV plc and the need for it's existance ended.

The news operation has just been taken over by ITN (the weather is still made by LNN but will end), LNN factuals has become part of ITV London, and LNN transmission will be renamed ITV transmission.


I'd never seen those stills which were posted above until today, the only graphics I've seen of them are those poor quality scans on that website that hasn't been updated in 6 years. Do captures exist?


News 24 has had a new look, BBC national news has finally got new titles, ITV news has had a complete revamp, which has included a generic regional news look (although only Border News had a new set directly because of it - yes London Tonight has now got a new one but that's only because the news production has been taken over by ITN).

The HTV News brand has now been removed in favour of ITV Wales News and ITV West News.

Central and Westcountry are no longer called Carlton, they are now called ITV Central and ITV Westcountry (not that that really means anything any more).

And behind the scenes, Central's Nottingham studios are facing closure, as a consequence of this Central News East will now come from Birmingham (with a lot of speculation as to just where they will fit). The Central South operation in Abingdon is unaffected atm, but how long that will be for is unclear.

Meridian has faced studio closures and centralising of it's 3 regional news programmes. Aswell as that Granada, Tyne Tees, Scottish, and HTV Wales AND HTV West are all going to move to new, scaled down facilities. That means that the Yorkshire TV operation in Leeds will soon be the only significant ITV studio complex outside of London.