Get Ready for ITV 1989 - the distribution

[JK1985]

Whose idea actually was it, as in 1989 there was no "network centre" as such, only the Big 5, and even they didn't really use the idents, with only Yorkshire really using them as intended once adapted to put the chevron front and centre. Thames adapted their logo for it but I don't remember it lasting too long, and LWT adapted the music and formup for themselves as they would do a decade later.

I do know that Thames Television and London Weekend Television acted as the "sustaining" service for the network. It was their role in providing a basic sustaining service, which the rest of the companies took, or opted around it. Other than that, there was no codified structure in place at the time of 1989.

[Brekkie]

A bit more info on it from Clean Feed - they seem to think it was in reaction to the upcoming franchise auction, a way of companies showing they were part of the ITV network and I guess hoping to reenforce that idea amongst the decision makers.

https://cleanfeed.thetvroom.com/1720/fea...rk-part-1/

[Inspector Sands]

Thames adapted their logo for it but I don't remember it lasting too long, and LWT adapted the music and formup for themselves as they would do a decade later.

Thames adopted a triangular logo for their 21st birthday in 1989 and then a few months later that was used as the triangle in their ITV idents. A year later they changed their logo to a much simpler blue triangle. They only ditched the ITV branding the week after they found out they had lost their license

LWT hels out using their 1989 package for a while and even then included the ITV logo in their own idents

I do know that Thames Television and London Weekend Television acted as the "sustaining" service for the network. It was their role in providing a basic sustaining service, which the rest of the companies took, or opted around it. Other than that, there was no codified structure in place at the time of 1989.

That's not the case, there was no 'sustaining' feed of ITV,. With the exception of Channel, each station was essentially on their own, producing their output from scratch, there was nothing to fall back on

One company, usually Thames or LWT was the 'nominated contractor' this role co-ordinated the schedule and dealt with timing and schedule changes, basically they took the lead.

[JAS84]

I thought ITV Network Centre was established in 1989, and one of the first things they did was commission the new logo?

[Philheybrookbay]

Whilst it's been said before, down here in the SW- there was little clue of the generic 89 look from TSW. Given only a few of their programmes were networked (Sounds like Music and local Highway come to mind),I do remember the grey end boards. But we got the start of the bland TSW seasonal idents- and look how that trend has exploded over the years.

Westcountry didn't join the party so again it was rare to see the ITV 89 main ident. I remember going to family in Chesterfield so saw the Yorkshire versions in real time- although as a package when the YTV ident came to the front it worked much better imho.

Had a holiday in Northern Scotland in 1996 and was amazed to see Grampian still using it and it still looked remarkably fresh.

[Steve Williams]

That's not the case, there was no 'sustaining' feed of ITV,. With the exception of Channel, each station was essentially on their own, producing their output from scratch, there was nothing to fall back on

One company, usually Thames or LWT was the 'nominated contractor' this role co-ordinated the schedule and dealt with timing and schedule changes, basically they took the lead.

In terms of bringing the network together, before the Network Centre began there was the ITV Association which was made up of all the different regional companies and were responsible for pan-network scheduling and initiatives, but obviously they all had their own ideas and requirements and so there were endless squabbles.

In 1988 they started the "flexipool", which was ostensibly to allow all the companies similar access to the network, but there's a bit in One Day In The Life Of Television where Granada's David Boulton, who was involved in religious programmes, says it's been a disaster - as the idea was that they would select the best programmes from all the different companies on merit, but it was entirely made up of people from the different companies who all, inevitably, just wanted as many programmes from their company as possible.

In Independent Television in Britain (a fascinating book, well worth looking for on eBay) they talk about the changes at the end of the eighties, and there's a chart which summarises how it worked. Prior to 1988 there was a Network Programme Committee, made up of all the companies, who would meet monthly to agree the network budget and approve the proposals from the Network Controllers Group. That was made up of the controllers of the Big Five, and they would pretty much carve up the network schedule between them.

In 1988 that changed with the Network Controllers Group now expanding to seven with TVS and STV joining it, and the start of seven sub-groups in charge of the various genres who would feed into it, each one with the controller of a different company in charge. These were...
Drama - Andy Allan (Central)
Daytime - Alan Boyd (TVS)
Sport - Greg Dyke (LWT)
Finance (presumably, budgets and the like) - David Elstein (Thames)
Entertainment - John Fairley (Yorkshire)
Childrens - Gus MacDonald (STV)
Factual - Steve Morrison (Granada)

As mentioned, that didn't seem to work so moves were already afoot to have a Network Centre and an independent controller from the new franchise period, so from 1991 the Network Scheduling Group, now expanded to ten members (presumably with HTV, Tyne Tees and Anglia now joining, and just the smallest five companies not included) was supplemented by a NETCO Steering Group to manage the transition. As this book illustrates, ITV loved their committees.

[Rdd]

Another aspect of this was that with the 1990 Act on the statue book but not yet commenced fully, there was a provision in the Act that Channel 3 licensees maintain networking arrangements. The arrangements had to be approved by the ITC and the DGFT and one of the regulators basically said they wouldn’t approve the arrangements unless the commissioning and scheduling was done by someone was wasn’t employed by a licensee. Effectively that required the employment of a Director of Programming, and the ITV Network Centre was born out of the need for that person to have a support staff. The Network Centre I think first fully commissioned the September 1993 schedule, with the spring 1993 schedule done under the old arrangements as a transitional measure.

But that was all well after this identity was already unveiled. You have to think that this was driven by the ITVA executive, but that it could never have got as far as delivery if they didn’t feel that their members, the contractors, were backing them and were going to use it? After all the ITVA had no income of its own so the regional companies were ultimately the ones who would have had to pay for it? All I can think was that certain companies led the ITVA to believe that they were fully behind the identity and balked only when it came to actually putting it on air.

[Neil Jones]

I wonder if it was a case of "creative differences" in that those companies that didn't take any of this were either given an initial outline/plan/sketch/concept that they may have liked and what actually materialised they didn't like? It sounds off piste for, say, UTV to chip into a corporate look budget and then refuse to have anything to do with it later.

No end of examples I presume elsewhere where somebody says yes that sounds good to a plan/idea/concept/method or whatever and a few weeks later what turns up is like what the deuce, that's not what they said we'd get.

[James Martin]

September 1993 sounds about right; that's when significant changes came in to the network schedule, particularly in daytime.

• The preschool slot moved from 12:10 to 15:30.

• Families was axed and repeats of Enmerdale/Corrie came in.

• Home & Away was given a networked lunchtime slot.

• I believe it's at this point CITV went out-of-vision, though I may be wrong.

[Neil Jones]

• I believe it's at this point CITV went out-of-vision, though I may be wrong.

February 1993 was when in-vision was dropped. September 1993 was when they were extended to a 3:30pm start after the 12:10pm slot was dropped.

[scottishtv]

Grampian was the last bastion of it, still using it as late as 1998, years after everybody else had dumped it.

Grampian was an interesting case, as they used in-vision continuity so whilst the ident was in use, it was only shown before the ITN news or North Tonight. Everything else was in-vision from their rather quaint set. The interpretation of the Grampian logo was one of the few that looked quite good, so that's probably why they kept it in use (albeit sparingly) - you can see it here on YouTube.

In fact, Grampian only stopped using this ident when the ITV corporate logo changed in 1998 (to blue and yellow lower case) so they basically *had* to!

The accompanying music was a different story. Once SMG got rid of in-vision continuity in Aberdeen, Grampian created a rather basic saltire flag ident and added in the 1989 ITV music. It's here on TV Ark (the first video on the page) in use in December 1999.

This ident lived on until February 2000, when SMG re-branded both stations with simple box logos, getting rid of the STV thistle and Grampian flag (along with the ITV 1989 theme tune).

[James Martin]

You could mistake that for a modern STV ident for the first second!

[Rdd]

The music from this ident, composed by David Dundas is a bit of a presentation story in its own right. A number of companies - LWT, Tyne Tees, Border, as well as the aforementioned Grampian, used either the same music or a rearranged version well into the 1990s (or 2000s in Grampian’s case!), even after they dropped the corporate look itself.

Then it had another life as the ITV National Weather theme, with the original arrangement being used for a while followed by a series of rearranged versions to go with a set of different weather Powergen stings (these were replaced around 1996 with another set that were the same basic idea but used different music).

[James Martin]

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

EDIT: it was! Never made the connection.

[Richard]

Grampian was the last bastion of it, still using it as late as 1998, years after everybody else had dumped it.

Grampian was an interesting case, as they used in-vision continuity so whilst the ident was in use, it was only shown before the ITN news or North Tonight. Everything else was in-vision from their rather quaint set. The interpretation of the Grampian logo was one of the few that looked quite good, so that's probably why they kept it in use (albeit sparingly) - you can see it here on YouTube.

In fact, Grampian only stopped using this ident when the ITV corporate logo changed in 1998 (to blue and yellow lower case) so they basically *had* to!

The accompanying music was a different story. Once SMG got rid of in-vision continuity in Aberdeen, Grampian created a rather basic saltire flag ident and added in the 1989 ITV music. It's here on TV Ark (the first video on the page) in use in December 1999.

This ident lived on until February 2000, when SMG re-branded both stations with simple box logos, getting rid of the STV thistle and Grampian flag (along with the ITV 1989 theme tune).

What I’ve often wondered is if the new [itv] logo was introduced on Monday October 5th 1998 (which it was, I remember…) what idents did Grampian use (if any) on Monday and Tuesday of that week if their new one didn’t appear until Wednesday?