Get Ready for ITV 1989 - the distribution

[Markymark]

Sorry to ask a stupid question but was it THE David Dundas, of Jeans On fame?

EDIT: it was! Never made the connection.

Yes, and Dundas also composed C4's theme of course

[harshy]

So no sustaining feed if I was in the gallery what would I have seen?, say a programme from HTV had to start and I was working in the YTV control centre, would I have seen a switch, then test colour bars followed by vt clock into the programme ?

Would they have been talkback on a second sound track ?

[Richard]

So no sustaining feed if I was in the gallery what would I have seen?, say a programme from HTV had to start and I was working in the YTV control centre, would I have seen a switch, then test colour bars followed by vt clock into the programme ?

Not sure this quite answers your question but there was an ITV book (yearbook maybe) in my careers library at school (early 90s) which explained that an ITV contractor would broadcast a live programme via their own transmitters and would also distribute it to other contractors who would do the same. That sounds like an over simplification and I’m not sure whether each company would send the continuity that preceded the programme to other contractors so they could join at the right point.

In know that in some cases (TVS maybe?) contractors who didn’t have IVC introduced their own network programmes over a slide (which wasn’t networked) followed by their ident which was. The reason was to avoid playing the same ident twice.

[Rdd]

I suppose no discussion of ITV 1989 is complete without mentioning the brief renaissance it enjoyed in 1998, right before the new logo was unveiled. Although it remained ITV’s corporate logo throughout 1989-98, it faded in prominence in the 1990s, as the new licensees went on air (and some of the older ones like UTV and HTV adopted brand new identities). Still got plenty of airtime mind you, on production captions and in ITV Sport programmes, just not as prominent as you’d imagine a channel identity to be.

Then in 1998, the Network Promotions Unit came into being, and beat the new ITV logo on-air by a matter of months. And of course, they couldn’t use the new logo yet, so the 1989 logo enjoyed one last very short period of prominence (and indeed, some of the early NPU trailers used endboards that harked straight back to the 1989 look itself).

[harshy]

The fact that the VT clocks have a YTV identification on them suggests that this is a compilation kit of parts that Yorkshire put together, perhaps from the full kit provided by the designers?

Will it have been supplied like that by the designers and each region got theirs just like that?

[nwtv2003]

Certainly around mid-1998 we saw nothing but ITV branded promotions in the north, but as well at the same time this was when Granada take over of Yorkshire Tyne Tees came into full swing, and regional branded trailers for networked shows disappeared overnight in favour of ITV branded ones. There were at least two styles that appeared in 1998, there was the Granada style ITV logo in a grey box on the top right of the screen, something which had been seen with the Granada and LWT logos previously.

The second style was a white ITV logo on the top left of the screen, something which I think the Carlton regions did. The latter seemed more short lived, even though it looked smarter, this certainly felt more like a product of the NPU.

[James Martin]

So no sustaining feed if I was in the gallery what would I have seen?, say a programme from HTV had to start and I was working in the YTV control centre, would I have seen a switch, then test colour bars followed by vt clock into the programme ?

Not sure this quite answers your question but there was an ITV book (yearbook maybe) in my careers library at school (early 90s) which explained that an ITV contractor would broadcast a live programme via their own transmitters and would also distribute it to other contractors who would do the same. That sounds like an over simplification and I’m not sure whether each company would send the continuity that preceded the programme to other contractors so they could join at the right point.

In know that in some cases (TVS maybe?) contractors who didn’t have IVC introduced their own network programmes over a slide (which wasn’t networked) followed by their ident which was. The reason was to avoid playing the same ident twice.

Yes, the producing company would play the programme out and all stations would then link up to that company, so everyone would link to Leeds for Emmerdale, or Manchester for Corrie etc. This is why in the 1984 Thames strike Thames programmes couldn't be aired outside of London, and Thames itself couldn't take programmes from the rest of the network.

If you were in the gallery you generally would see bars and tone - companies could easily feed the network something completely independent of what they were feeding the TXes locally.

[Steve Williams]

I suppose no discussion of ITV 1989 is complete without mentioning the brief renaissance it enjoyed in 1998, right before the new logo was unveiled. Although it remained ITV’s corporate logo throughout 1989-98, it faded in prominence in the 1990s, as the new licensees went on air (and some of the older ones like UTV and HTV adopted brand new identities). Still got plenty of airtime mind you, on production captions and in ITV Sport programmes, just not as prominent as you’d imagine a channel identity to be.

Then in 1998, the Network Promotions Unit came into being, and beat the new ITV logo on-air by a matter of months. And of course, they couldn’t use the new logo yet, so the 1989 logo enjoyed one last very short period of prominence (and indeed, some of the early NPU trailers used endboards that harked straight back to the 1989 look itself).

Yes, as you say, you didn't really see it all that much outside of endboards in the early 90s, but it was a bit more prominent later in the decade - as suggested, by that point with all the consolidation there was more stuff going out on more than one station, so they needed to refer to the generic brand more often.

The introduction of the NPU in September 1998 was an interesting one, as you suggest they used a different style of endboard for the first month or so before the new logo was unveiled (I wonder if the logo was delayed, as you would assume they'd launch them both at the same time to avoid an awkward crossover period like that). It was quite unusual to see network promos and of course even regional promos had the same endboard.

And it was quite an interesting period programme-wise, because David Liddiment had just taken over from Marcus Plantin as Director of Programmes, and ITV were just coming out of a period of rather mundane and conservative scheduling, it was a successful period but things got a bit predictable and series would come back in the same slot at the same time every year and there were a lot of ageing and declining brands around and the channel wasn't very surprising. Whereas in September 1998 you had The Bill moving from three half hours a week to a single hour so there were a lot more pre-watershed slots opening up that hadn't been available for many years, and some shows moved days or months (London's Burning to Saturdays, although it flopped there and they moved it back sharpish, and Blind Date from September to November), and of course there was Millionaire every night, and quite a few long-running shows were axed, like Soldier Soldier, and it all seemed quite different to previous years. In many ways the changes in September were perhaps more radical, certainly at the time, than the changes the following March when they moved the news.

[Markymark]

So no sustaining feed if I was in the gallery what would I have seen?, say a programme from HTV had to start and I was working in the YTV control centre, would I have seen a switch, then test colour bars followed by vt clock into the programme ?

Not sure this quite answers your question but there was an ITV book (yearbook maybe) in my careers library at school (early 90s) which explained that an ITV contractor would broadcast a live programme via their own transmitters and would also distribute it to other contractors who would do the same. That sounds like an over simplification and I’m not sure whether each company would send the continuity that preceded the programme to other contractors so they could join at the right point.

In know that in some cases (TVS maybe?) contractors who didn’t have IVC introduced their own network programmes over a slide (which wasn’t networked) followed by their ident which was. The reason was to avoid playing the same ident twice.

Yes, the producing company would play the programme out and all stations would then link up to that company, so everyone would link to Leeds for Emmerdale, or Manchester for Corrie etc. This is why in the 1984 Thames strike Thames programmes couldn't be aired outside of London, and Thames itself couldn't take programmes from the rest of the network.

If you were in the gallery you generally would see bars and tone - companies could easily feed the network something completely independent of what they were feeding the TXes locally.

Yes, and they did. There wasn't however that much capacity in the BT network for lots of simultaneous different feeds to different companies. There was a central core of several circuits going London Brum Manchester, but not the same number on branches to Leeds, and Newcastle. There was only I gather one circuit from Southampton back to London and TVS/Southern had to share use of that with the BBC. (The Beeb used it a lot to feed Portsmouth and Southampton football back to London). Similar from Norwich I gather

[JasonB]

When did Thames dump their version of this look and replace it with the logo which stayed until Carlton arrived?

[James2001]

A few days after the franchise loss was announced (though I think they'd been using that ident for local shows for around a year before then).

[Inspector Sands]

So no sustaining feed if I was in the gallery what would I have seen?, say a programme from HTV had to start and I was working in the YTV control centre, would I have seen a switch, then test colour bars followed by vt clock into the programme ?

Yes, the company whose programme would be taken by the TX area of that company, and also sent out to the others. So all the others would see would be the VT clock of the programme (although I read somewhere that ITN didn't use one, they just had to be confident that it was going to be there on time)

Would they have been talkback on a second sound track ?

I don't think there was any talkback between regions or OBs to them all. Presumably an OB would be either be in touch with the company that was responsible for the programme or the 'nominated contractor'.

There wasnt any talkback countdown to the next programme or anything, they just all had an agreed on air time and they stuck to it. The transmission areas were linked with a system called the red phone which was literally a red phone on the desk of the transmission operator. Any changes to agreed times etc were communicated on that

[Inspector Sands]

When did Thames dump their version of this look and replace it with the logo which stayed until Carlton arrived?

The ident itself (or one very similar) was used before their local programmes I think from when their blue triangle logo was introduced in 1990.

The change from ITV branding to just Thames happened after they found out they'd lost their license bid. IIRC it was the Monday afterwards

[James Martin]

Not sure this quite answers your question but there was an ITV book (yearbook maybe) in my careers library at school (early 90s) which explained that an ITV contractor would broadcast a live programme via their own transmitters and would also distribute it to other contractors who would do the same. That sounds like an over simplification and I’m not sure whether each company would send the continuity that preceded the programme to other contractors so they could join at the right point.

In know that in some cases (TVS maybe?) contractors who didn’t have IVC introduced their own network programmes over a slide (which wasn’t networked) followed by their ident which was. The reason was to avoid playing the same ident twice.

Yes, the producing company would play the programme out and all stations would then link up to that company, so everyone would link to Leeds for Emmerdale, or Manchester for Corrie etc. This is why in the 1984 Thames strike Thames programmes couldn't be aired outside of London, and Thames itself couldn't take programmes from the rest of the network.

If you were in the gallery you generally would see bars and tone - companies could easily feed the network something completely independent of what they were feeding the TXes locally.

Yes, and they did. There wasn't however that much capacity in the BT network for lots of simultaneous different feeds to different companies. There was a central core of several circuits going London Brum Manchester, but not the same number on branches to Leeds, and Newcastle. There was only I gather one circuit from Southampton back to London and TVS/Southern had to share use of that with the BBC. (The Beeb used it a lot to feed Portsmouth and Southampton football back to London). Similar from Norwich I gather

Remember it wasn't just TXing; companies that frequently aired shows at different times to the majority of the other companies would still be taping the show off the feed from the originator to play back out at a later date or time. One example is Home & Away - Thames would play out the (generally networked) lunchtime showing, but each individual station would record the feed locally. That tape was then used for the evening showing, played out from your own regional HQ (or later a TX hub like Leeds) which differed from as early as before CITV to as late as 18:30, before everyone went with 17:00 in March 1999.

[Rdd]

After some searching on YouTube, at 0:22 and again from about 1:50 on this video you can see some of those early NPU promos - the background on the end board appears to be straight from the 1989 identity. So it seems the NPU went right back to the original 1989 corporate look for that first generation of promos, though they didn’t go so far as to resurrect the italic serif font which had long fallen out of use even on production captions at this stage. This was just under a month out from the launch of the 1998 logo, so obviously this brief revival didn’t last long!

https://youtu.be/YZI4eYmXKms