ITV PLC Formation

[VMPhil]

Er, yes.

At the time, it may as well have been called Granada, but I guess ITV suited both the narrative that it was a “merger of equals” with the much smaller Carlton as well as the final happening of the much touted “single ITV” (which 20 years later still doesn’t technically exist as long as STV survives).

They could have used both names, of course. No I don't know why I made this either.

[AaronLancs]

Er, yes.

At the time, it may as well have been called Granada, but I guess ITV suited both the narrative that it was a “merger of equals” with the much smaller Carlton as well as the final happening of the much touted “single ITV” (which 20 years later still doesn’t technically exist as long as STV survives).

They could have used both names, of course. No I don't know why I made this either.

Actually in the world of portmanteaus, that is a brilliant one. Honouring the two companies past but still looking forward toward the future.

[James Martin]

ITV being *the* brand had been the endgame of a plan phased in from 1998. First the trailers, then the dual branded idents before ditching the regional brands totally.

IIRC the original 2002 plan was "it'll either be (for example) Yorkshire Television or ITV but never both." That didn't happen and dual branding remained for regional intros.

[L1]

Out of interest, does anyone recall the random appearance of an ITV1 London branded ident around the time the second set of celeb idents launched? Think it only appeared once and never seen again IIRC

[Brekkie]

What was the reasoning behind the Breakfast timeslot being a separate franchise?

I think the core reason was the regulator of the time wanted a competing news service. Additionally I don't think they wanted one of the existing franchises to significantly benefit from providing the breakfast service and it's split was for similar reasons to the London region weekday/weekend split - ensuring no company became significantly bigger than another.


Back to ITV Plc and for some reason I was looking through the structure on Companies House not that long ago (think I was trying to find out if the various ITV Studio brands are seperate legal companies) and basically it's a whole chain of Granada owning Carlton owning Granada owning Carlton when you look at how ITV Plc is formed.

[From The North]

Out of interest, does anyone recall the random appearance of an ITV1 London branded ident around the time the second set of celeb idents launched? Think it only appeared once and never seen again IIRC

Yes, that's right, IIRC on the first time a regional programme aired in the London region (2003 look), they preceded it with a Chris Tarrant ITV London ident, never to be seen again, using network versions from then on afterwards.

[From The North]

In 2006 when ITV1 had the short lived 'emotions' idents, there's very little online of these being the last true badged regional idents. Each region would use the Pride version before their regional programme (by this time it was down to half an hour a week I think, usually politics on a Thursday night.) Does anyone know of any examples of them all existing? I specifically out of interest would like to know if Westcountry ever had one (or whether it was just West by then) and if they did was it still West Country or Westcountry as they seemed to mess the labelling with each rebrand around this time!

I don't think these lasted the duration (the 10 months of the whole branding), but after a couple months were dropped and standard non labelled ones used with bespoke continuity announcements and the region audibly checked still, but willing to be corrected.

Here's the only example I can find online...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jXfMCzve24

[TheMightyTRex]

What was the reasoning behind the Breakfast timeslot being a separate franchise?

I don't know if this was already mentioned (I am jsut starting reading this thread)
I strongly recommend reading this book - its a fantastic history of breakfast telly
Morning Glory: A History of British Breakfast Television
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/190305320X

[L1]

In 2006 when ITV1 had the short lived 'emotions' idents, there's very little online of these being the last true badged regional idents. Each region would use the Pride version before their regional programme (by this time it was down to half an hour a week I think, usually politics on a Thursday night.) Does anyone know of any examples of them all existing? I specifically out of interest would like to know if Westcountry ever had one (or whether it was just West by then) and if they did was it still West Country or Westcountry as they seemed to mess the labelling with each rebrand around this time!

I know Border certainly had an ident in this style - and I believe most regions used them frequently into the 10:30PM news trailing those Thursday late programmes. Of course, it was just before this rebrand that any promos/trailers for regional programmes were scrapped and the bizzare 'sponsors ITV Regional programmes' sponsorship trails were introduced.

[James Martin]

What was the reasoning behind the Breakfast timeslot being a separate franchise?

I don't know if this was already mentioned (I am jsut starting reading this thread)
I strongly recommend reading this book - its a fantastic history of breakfast telly
Morning Glory: A History of British Breakfast Television
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/190305320X

However, like I say the author clearly has a chip on his shoulder with Bruce Gyngell. Not sure if he was one of the "234" but he really does put the boot into a man that took TV-AM from the brink of collapse to great prosperity. As a result, the coverage of TV-AM (and to a lesser extent GMTV) is pretty disparaging.

[Andy89]

On the subject of confused double branding does anyone remember the “ITV1 Carlton for central England” just before the merger?

https://youtu.be/Rj7Wt1FnUlA

Was this Carlton’s last attempt of maintaining their brand?