UTV

[This is UTV]

It's a sad day today here at The UTV, as Frank is to present his final weather forecast on UTV Live at 6 tonight.

I also believe political editor Ken Reid is also retiring from the station today too.

We had Ken's final appearance on View From Stormont on Monday night with a look back at his time on UTV.

Last week's UTV Life with Pamela looked back at Franks career and paid tribute to him, so not sure how much of a final send off we're gonna get for both gentleman on tonight's UTV Live at 6, but I'm sure more than just a brief mention.

Goodbye Frank and Ken, Happy Retirement.


Also we're almost at the first anniversary since that fateful day last year when the UTV on screen branding and local continuity was "Temporarily suspended".

It will be around this time last year that the decision was made, to wind down the local branding and switch to ITV, with this decision being made public on the 1st April last year, that local continuity is to be suspended....and then from the following morning, 5:59am on the 2nd April 2020, Gillian delivered the last ever local announcement.

A tough few days ahead for us all as we approach the first anniversary of the end of "The UTV" as we all knew it.

[Jamesypoo]

[mention]This is UTV[/mention] I assume you were This Is Granada at the old place?

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[Ballyboy]

I’ve been watching Frank do the weather since 2005 as far back as I can remember. I think he was the only weatherman in the uk to do a weather watcher camera?. but all the best for him and Ken on their retirement

[Colm]

The Weather Watching camera, I think, started at the time UTV Live and UTV Life split into separate programmes first in March 1999.

Before that, there were just viewers' photos at the end of the forecast.

A few other regions have had similar features to the Weather Watching camera as part of weather bulletins - ones which spring to my mind are:

Tyne Tees during the legendary Bob Johnson era (before the forecast while chatting with Mike Neville et al; a sequence of picturesque shots before revealing the location in the last shot - usually the town sign or a recognisable landmark)

Border (at the start of the bulletin, same kind of scenic shots as TTTV, but revealing the location via voiceover and an Aston almost straight away - they didn't do in-vision weather presentation on Border until Granada took over).

[This is UTV]

Today marks 1 year since the devastating removed of the UTV on screen branding, promos, trails, idents, and local continuity from our Julian and Gillian.

So 1 year on....where are we now?

• A half way house of ITV branding, mixed with out of date style UTV local branded promo endboards.

• Disastrous pre-recorded London continuity with errors far too often.

• Many UTV legends leaving (Julian, Gillian, Frank, Ken, Jane)

• A far inferior UTV service compared to just a year ago

I fear it's only gonna get worse if ITV continue on this path of destruction of the UTV brand.

ITV need to understand the UTV brand is far more well known, and well regarded here in N.I. compared to the ITV brand.

[Ballyboy]

Do you remember UTV live tonight?. it was on Monday to Thursday at 10:45pm until September 2016. a phenomenal programme until it got axed cause itv bought utv.

[This is UTV]

Do you remember UTV live tonight?. it was on Monday to Thursday at 10:45pm until September 2016. a phenomenal programme until it got axed cause itv bought utv.

I really liked UTV Live Tonight, the red set was a particular favourite of mine!! and with Paul and Gillian reading the news. I've been watching it on dailymotion again these past few days.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x51gnz0

[Steve in Pudsey]

ITV need to understand the UTV brand is far more well known, and well regarded here in N.I. compared to the ITV brand.

Respectfully, the same could have been said about Granada, Anglia, Border, HTV, Yorkshire, Central, Tyne Tees, LWT etc 20 years ago.

[Ballyboy]

Conchur Dowds providing a out of vision forecast. Is UTV the only station to do so??

[This is UTV]

I do wonder if Louise Small will ever pop up at weekends to do invision? However if she's Monday-Friday taking over from Frank, I can't see her working weekends too.

[Andrew]

Surely they need to add UTV to the same weekend hub provision that all the other regions get, rather than continue this dated out of vision system that they used to do when they were not part of ITV PLC

Maybe get whoever does Wales forecast to also do UTV’s at weekends

[Ballyboy]

Surely they need to add UTV to the same weekend hub provision that all the other regions get, rather than continue this dated out of vision system that they used to do when they were not part of ITV PLC

Is it James Wright is who your thinking off

Maybe get whoever does Wales forecast to also do UTV’s at weekends

[Ittr]

Surely they need to add UTV to the same weekend hub provision that all the other regions get, rather than continue this dated out of vision system that they used to do when they were not part of ITV PLC

Maybe get whoever does Wales forecast to also do UTV’s at weekends

I can see something like this happening around the same time the UTV name is finally axed for good from promos/DOG and the channel formally becomes an ITV region.

[James Martin]

ITV need to understand the UTV brand is far more well known, and well regarded here in N.I. compared to the ITV brand.

Respectfully, the same could have been said about Granada, Anglia, Border, HTV, Yorkshire, Central, Tyne Tees, LWT etc 20 years ago.

Agree with this. We're constantly told Scotland is a special case but if STV became ITV there, it wouldn't be an issue. Same with NI. If it still shows Coronation Street, I'm A Celeb and BGT, nobody is really going to be bothered.

When Central became Calrton 22 years ago, was anybody bothered? Outside of us lot, not really, no. If the programmes suddenly changed overnight I could see an argument. I think someone at TVS on their last day said "A lot of people didn't notice the switch from Southern" and that was 40 years ago.

Yes, those CA faux pas such as Stormfront-gate are unforgiveable. But it will save ITV Plc money and the average viewer is not going to notice, nor care.

And in any case to have the sister channels branded ITV and the main channel branded UTV if anything is a bit jarring. I've as much affinity for the regional names as anyone else but when your streaming services and sister channels are carrying the ITV name, it ultimately makes sense to use that brand nationally.

[London Lite]

There really hasn't been a huge outcry with using the ITV branding bar some regional shows in the schedule.

ITV really need to think about a full rebrand as ITV Northern Ireland at some point, along with rebranding UTV Live and UTV Life.