UTV sell TV business to ITV

That actually looks like a mock someone at the paper did rather than anything officially put out by ITV.

Somewhere in-between the two. It was a throwaway aside that I didn't expect to be taken quite so seriously.

"The Internet is serious business"

We have ITV News Channel TV, so I can't see why we couldn't have ITV News UTV.

"good evening, you're watching ITV News, now the latest from UTV..."

That was actually on the u.tv website in the official article about the rebrand so I'd say it's official.

With regards all the chat about the UTV name not lasting and the logo only being used for UTV Live, Michael Wilson has tweeted on several occasions that the UTV name is here to stay and they have no plans to rename to ITV Northern Ireland. They would not have gone to the trouble of creating a brand new logo and filming new idents if the logo was only going to be seen three times a day.

Well the brand was created in house so wouldn't have cost very much, if anything at all (and we obviously haven't seen idents yet to know what they're planning with that) However, it's possible for the short term at least, they want to treat UTV as another channel within the ITV 'family'.

I still think this is the most likely option in terms of news:



If they genuinely want to reinforce the UTV name, they could do this:



And if they're really serious about keeping the name, they could do this:



I think it's almost impossible that they would consider relegating the ITV News brand altogether considering what's been done online already.

I expect it will be the first example. I dont think there are any rules that the name of the station must be in logo form in the news title screen, there has probably been loads of occasions over the years where this wasn't the case.

This hideous example springs to mind!

It was relatively normal for many TV broadcasters up until the mid 1990s - for example I think the 1990s virtual studio look was the first time the BBC logo featured in the BBC News opening titles.

Strange in hindsight how in the split regions news programming often shared a brand but had comlletely different branding.

In terms of filming new idents, I'm sure the press release had suggested they could also be used on the ITV network. So it sounds like, if they were to keep the UTV logo, it could be used in the same form as the Scottish/Grampian blue square period, where the backgrounds were generic enough to have a sense of the area without being overtly Aberdeen or Glasgow in their case. Maybe they could use clearly local ones before local programming, in a similar sense to how GMG North had local idents during the generic era.

That assumes they're not just going to go full ITV, which I suspect is most likely. In which case the two options that strike me as most likely are full implementation of the ITV brand with the local news remaining as UTV Live, with either the current package retained until a proper switchover to the new look can be arranged, or a new title sequence as a stopgap. Which may be where that new logo makes a guest appearance.

I suspect in the long-term you'll have the usual generic ITV studio and local news intro, and then ITV News Northern Ireland. ITV UTV is a bit of a clash. Mind you, as already pointed out, ITV News Channel TV doesn't particularly sound lovely either.

'ITV News Granada Reports' doesn't either but that's what it appears to officially be called. Mercifully, the news anchors don't have to call it that though. At the beginning of the programme, Lucy/Tony says something like "You're watching ITV News, this is Granada Reports" but from there on in they just called it "Granada Reports". I think Calendar has the same regime and I reckon it would be similar for UTV. As I'm quite certain UTV would have network continuity and no regional idents even in regional junctions, "ITV UTV" won't generally be seen onscreen together outside the news titles. Indeed, I imagine UTV won't really exist anywhere else.