History of ITV

TV is a commercial TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 as

Independent Television under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority
to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITV_(TV_network)

ITV has a lot of different regional channels that broadcast slightly different things. They
adapt the idents on the channel to fit the area theyre in. The regional channels arent as
popular anymore, for example ITV London only has two broadcasts now.

The ITV television network began as a group of regional stations, each with their own
identities. Each station used its own idents to create an individual identity until the late
1990s when ITV began to introduce a consolidated presentation package as part of a
dedicated effort to unify its identity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ITV_television_idents

1980s branding
Up until 1989, all of the ITV franchises had individual logos and idents. These
individual logos and identities were created by the franchise for their own use and
identification within the network. A generic, blocky-looking logo was used
infrequently throughout the 1980s, often in a rainbow colouration for promos
produced by the "Big 5" franchises (Thames, LWT, Granada, Yorkshire and Central),
as well as holding slides used by some of the regions and Channel 4 (for cross-
promotion purposes), but it was never used as the centrepiece of an identity, and was
replaced by the next logo.

A new ITV logo was introduced on 1 September 1989 and accompanied a national
on-air identity designed by English Markell Pockett with music by Lord David
Dundas. The logo was the centre of a whole branding package; there was a national
logo and regional logos for all of the ITV franchises. Each franchise had a distinctive
portion of their logo included into the V of the ITV logo. The ident was generally
formed by beginning with the franchisee's logo, then going into a sliding sequence
featuring a dove, a couple in period dress, Big Ben, an athlete, and a pair of dancers
before the regional ITV logo is formed. Along with this, each franchise received a
regional clock, trailer style, network font and break bumpers.
October 1998 October 2002
On 5 October 1998, the ITV logo was changed to a lower cased blue and yellow
affair. This was in line with the fact that, with the upper cased ITV logo used
previously, the viewer perception of ITV was a high brow stuffy channel, not aimed
at younger audiences. ITV changed the logo to seem friendlier and more welcoming
to younger audiences.
On 8 November 1999, the next generic look was born, designed by English and
Pockett with music by Lord David Dundas, both of whom were involved with the last
look. The main theme of the look was the ITV slogan of 'TV from the heart'. There
were three variations of the ident.
An opening film that incorporated a heart shape at the end, before
transferring to a spinning hearts background with the region name, with
ITV logo below it with their logo in a small box above the name.
The name, logo and ITV logo form from lines coming across from the sides
of the screen over the spinning hearts background.
The name, logo and ITV logo fully formed on a spinning hearts
background.

The lines and static idents could also feature a spinning hearts background that was
tinted brown that was used during Daytime schedules. The look was accompanied by
a clock superimposed on a spinning hearts background, as well as promotions
provided by ITV's Network Promotions Unit. A heart break bumper was also
provided.
October 2002 October 2004

On Monday 28 October 2002, a new idents package was rolled out across the regions
using the central theme of a celebrity posing 'backstage'. There would be a clip of the
celebrity chilling-out when they were supposedly off screen. The 'ITV1' logo had
been softened with smoother edges by this point and it would animate on in the
bottom right hand corner, being formed from 3 aligned blue blocks and one yellow
block. This package also coincided with the centralisation of continuity from the
English, Isle of Man and Scottish Border regions to London. As a result of this,
regional idents were always pre recorded by a national team of six recorded from the
Carlton/LWT continuity booth. Wales retained its own announcers for the time being.
The regional versions of the idents were now only used in Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland throughout the day. The other regions had their own idents
specifically for use before local programmes.


November 2004 January 2006

The 1 November 2004 heralded a new on-air look coinciding with the launch of
ITV3. The ITV1 logo was reworked, splitting it into separate squares. On-screen, the
boxes were arranged as a large yellow square containing the '1' with blue ITV boxes
on top. This logo would be seen against a generic background of a blue sky with
clouds, windows of a high rise building, underwater with fish swimming by and dark
blue ribbons flowing against a blue background.
The plan for these Idents were to use them as mini-menus showing what is coming up
soon. The Idents would zoom to the left allowing a short video and description of the
upcoming programmes to be shown, before the panels of the videos to become part of
the ITV1 logo in the centre of the screen. They were not designed to be traditional
idents, however despite the fact that ITV took on a team of associate producers to
produce these promotions, the promotional idents were used less and less as the
months go on.
During this period, ITV spent a lot of this period using themed idents specific to
particular programmes, such as Celebrity Love Island.
January November 2006
On 16 January 2006 a brand new logo and presentation package was unleashed. It
brought ITV1, ITV2 and ITV3 in line with ITV4. It was part of a major re-brand of
the ITV network, known as Brand 2010, which also included the News and Sport
divisions as well as off screen content. It was designed by Red Bee Media following a
perception analysis carried out by the audience. The results stated that although all the
ITV channels had a good combining brand, with the ITV logo, they all looked the
same, couldn't be told apart, that their programming values were blurred and that the
ITV logo itself was getting boring.
The solution was to make a new logo in a rounded off box, involving the lower case
itv. These, it was claimed, made the service look friendly, retaining what had been
attempted in 1998, and yet fresh and crisp. From there they added an extra oblong on
the other side of the channel name. All channel shared this look with the colour being
the only main difference with the exception of the name. This provided the
distinctiveness, yet unity they sought.
The ITV1 idents were created on the basis that ITV1 provokes "an emotion response
in all of us" and therefore the so-called 'Emotion' idents were created. Many were shot
in South Africa and featured a montage of unrelated scenes, which include such
things as a man rubbing his bare chest, girls rolling down a hill and two people
hugging trees. These represented moods such as joy, pride, sadness, love etc. In them
the 'ITV1' logo would open out and enclose the footage it was superimposed on to.
The exception to the rule was one of the ITV1 logo on a black background, used to
introduce the news.
The look was controversial both with critics, online and in print, viewers and ITV
bosses who saw the look too vague. This look had one regional ident, Pride which
was used before regional programming and also for a time at the 1900 and 2230
junctions on Thursday, with an announcer name checking the regional station on
some occasions. These were the last ITV idents to include the region's name onscreen.
ITV1 Wales also had a full selection of idents for a time before they began using the
standard ITV1 idents with the Wales added on the live television feed during
transmission
November 2006 January 2013

The next presentation of ITV1 was launched on 13 November 2006, just 10 months
after the last new look. Following the issues with the previous one, the themes were
changed slightly: the logo remained the same shape and style, but with the letters itv
changed to black so as to contrast with the yellow of the logo better this had also saw
the end of regional idents for the ITV plc owned stations and as of this day the
regional names was now used for regional news only and then in 14 January 2013
Channel Television had suffered the loss of regional identy and the regional to the
news instead.
The ident films themselves were scrapped and a new set created following the theme
of "Alive with Colour" with ITV promoting the new idents as the "second phase" of
the look introduced in January.
[4]
The idents, based on the previous set by Red Bee
Media, were designed by The Mill and produced by Blink Productions and Pleix
include surreal scenes featuring yellow colours to the same audio track.
The look launched with six idents: 'Beach', 'Bike', 'Lake', 'Market', 'Basketball' and
'Pavement Art', with another 4 added on 3 September 2007 which runs in tandem with
the previous ones. These latest idents included an ITV1 logo that was bigger than the
ones launched in 2006, but retained the same soundtrack. In April 2010, ITV1 HD
was launched, featuring an updated glossier logo based on that of ITV1. In response,
ITV1 changed their logo to the glossier version and launched another four idents.
These latest idents have been noticeably different from their predecessors: the logo
was once again larger and faded on in parts. They also featured individual
soundtracks based on those previously and the style of the ident themselves, namely
the shooting of them, was very different from those before them. They were
accompanied on screen by updated programme promotions, end credit promotions,
stings and break bumpers.

The 2006-13 ITV Yorkshire logo displayed on The Leeds Studios (December
2009)
Because of these changes, all of the idents were updated with the new logo, including
making it bigger in many places. However, the soundtracks remained the same
causing some to question why the other idents weren't changed with the new looks.
Viewer opinions suggest that the original music is unpopular, but the ident package
itself generally popular. This has been the longest lasting ITV generic look to date,
lasting far longer than the 1999 Hearts, and being kept by far more companies and for
longer collectively than the 1989 Generic look. The primary criticisms of the look
have been the scrapping of regional idents. All regions are introduced with a national
ident and the region is not referenced to in the announcement. The exception to the
rule is ITV1 Wales, with includes the word 'Wales' either underneath the ident or
located in the bottom left hand corner of the ident. The Wales ident was used before
all programming except overnight for the first few years of the rebrand before being
quietly relegated to regional junctions only.
January 2013 present

In 15 November 2012, it was announced that ITV1 was to receive a rebrand in
January 2013, in which it would revert to its old name of ITV. A new "curvy" logo
was introduced with new idents and presentation package. This was first implemented
on 14 January 2013. On the same day, ITV1 +1 and ITV1 HD were rebranded to ITV
+1 and ITV HD respectively, whilst sister channels ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, and CITV all
received new idents and presentation based upon the new corporate logo.
ITV's new idents were created to reflect "everyday life of the Great British public".
New idents will be brought in on a consistent basis to reflect the four seasons -
Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. In addition, the new ITV logo changes colour
on each ident, a process named as "colour picking".
This package is only seen on the ITV plc owned companies of Anglia, Border,
Central, Channel Television, Granada, London, Meridian, Tyne Tees, Wales (Later
ITV Cymru Wales), West Country, and Yorkshire.
UTV refused to adopt the look, instead continuing with their in house produced
landscape idents introduced in October 2012.
STV Group companies of STV Central, and STV North, refused the look, instead
continuing with their arrow flip book idents introduced in March 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ITV_television_idents