ITV television presentation
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Since its origins, various ITV stations have used different idents to define each of its franchises. Not until the late 1990s did ITV begin to introduce a consolidated presentation package due to a dedicated effort to unify its identity.
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[edit] ITV1
[edit] September 1989 - October 1998 (ITV Studio only) November 1999 (ITV1) (Various depending on ITV franchise)
ITV introduced its first official corporate logo and national on-air identity in September 1989, using branding designed by English Markell Pockett and music by Lord David Dundas. However, Ulster, Anglia, TVS, Channel Television and TSW declined to use the generic idents that were designed for their regions, preferring to stay with their distinctive on-screen branding. A whole branding package was designed around this logo; in addition to the idents, there was also a clock, trailer style, font, break bumpers and various other elements. 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, a pair of dancers before an ITV logo is formed which featured an abstract form of that franchises logo in a triangle in the V of ITV.
Some regions took elements of the package, but not others, and these were slowly dropped over time with most regions reverting to their own looks. Scottish Television, Granada and Central did so almost immediately, with HTV adopting a brand new look on New Year's Day 1993. The three newcomers to the ITV network in 1993, Carlton, Meridian and Westcountry Television all launched with their own brand images.
The regions to have the longest use of the generic ident were Yorkshire Television, who kept it on until October 1994, and Grampian Television who continued to use the 1989 generic ident right up until ITV's new corporate logo was introduced in 1998, although they were by then part of SMG. In addition, Tyne Tees, Border and Grampian continued to use an edited version of the 1989 ident's music in their first idents after dropping the generic look, whereas London Weekend Television used a re-recorded version.
[edit] October 1998 – October 2002
A new ITV logo was launched in 1998 and a second common ident was introduced in 1999 which started the "TV From The Heart" era. This logo was changed when the main channel changed its name from "ITV" to "ITV1" on 11 August 2001.
Some of the idents had a live-action animation, with several people and/or objects forming a heart shape, which then flashes to reveal the ITV logo on a background of spinning hearts. Another generic ident started with the spinning hearts, then lines crossed each other to form the ITV logo. The "lines" ident had two different backgrounds. One had a blue/yellow scheme for Daytime, whereas for Nighttime, the background was the one otherwise seen in the "live-action" idents. Another version of the ident was simply a static ITV logo on the "hearts" background. Sometimes, it would feature the yellow heart from the "Daytime" ident, coloured purple, and no hearts at all. All of the idents were modified in August 2001 to replace the ITV logo with that of ITV1 and three months later, the "live-action" idents were discarded in most of the ITV regions when an animated "itv.com" website was added to the bottom of the "static" and "lines" idents.
Granada Television, Tyne Tees Television, Yorkshire Television, London Weekend Television, Border Television, Meridian Broadcasting and Anglia Television used the idents through 2002. It was far more difficult for individual regions to opt out this time, with all these franchises now owned by Granada Ltd, although in late March 2000, LWT discarded the heart idents because "they were not exciting enough", and debuted their own Video Wall idents.
Carlton had their own heart-themed idents made by Lambie-Nairn for the London, Westcountry and Central regions. These idents came into service on 6 September 1999 when the Central and Westcountry names were dropped in favour of Carlton. Each animation would end with a silver star flashing on the top-right corner of the heart to reveal the Carlton logo with a star next to it, the ITV logo underneath it, and the Carlton website at the bottom, on a rotating star background. Sometimes, the animation was shorter, and sometimes, it was a static Carlton logo on the star background. The idents were intended to show that if ITV was TV from the heart, Carlton was the "star" of the network.[citation needed]
When Harlech Television was acquired by Carlton in July 2001, the Carlton animations were "married" to the end boards of original 1999 HTV idents and did not include a star. After the flash, the heart would appear on the "spinning hearts" background and zoom out and become the "V" of the HTV symbol. UTV, Grampian Television and Scottish Television boycotted the new look for their regions. But in early 2000, Scottish Television and Grampian adopted a common logo (a shimmering blue square bearing the station name) and a new ident package reflecting life in modern Scotland.
Channel Television had the most thorough implementation of the Hearts look, creating a full rebrand out of the elements of the new look. Major changes included a new logo (featuring comets forming a heart around a spinning globe), a new slogan ("The Heart of the Islands), and the idents, but with a completely different soundtrack. A clock ident was also used, and idents with no ITV branding and more prominence of the Channel brand were also used. Even after the Hearts era, the logo and slogan were kept and were adapted to future idents until the January 2006 rebrand where the look was officially dropped.
[edit] October 2002 – October 2004
The era of the 'celebrities'. Monday 28 October 2002 marked the centralisation of continuity in London for all regions in England, the Isle of Man and the Scottish Borders. Regional idents, and all regional continuity announcements now were pre-recorded and only appeared before regional programming. The regional announcers were replaced with a national team of six, working from the former LWT announcer booth. In 2006, this was reduced further to four. HTV Wales, now ITV1 Wales, would retain its own announcers until the 2006 relaunch.
The idents consisted of footage of celebrities 'off-stage'. There would be a clip of the celebrity chilling-out when they were supposedly off screen. The 'ITV1' logo would then animate on in the bottom right hand corner, being formed from 3 aligned blue blocks and one yellow block. The ITV1 Wales idents featured a yellow rectangle containing the word "WALES" under the ITV1 logo, Granada variants had the ITV1 logo and the name of the franchise below it in a blue square and Carlton kept its identity under the ITV1 logo in the Westcountry and the Midlands.
Grampian and Scottish did not initially use the new look, although later adapted it to match their logos. UTV and Channel Television also tailored the new look to their logos.
In 2003 the set was updated to reflect changes to the faces you could see on ITV1. The new idents were very much like their predecessors, shot in a middle-blue and yellow studio. Idents were filmed in both London and Manchester. The logo would animate on as before.
[edit] November 2004 - January 2006
1 November 2004 heralded a new on-air look coinciding with the launch of ITV3. It consisted of a reworking of the ITV1 logo, splitting it into squares (see image, right). On screen, the 1 was seen in a large yellow square with the three blue squares, each with one letter of "itv", on top. The new ITV1 logo would animate in various ways against different backgrounds such as clouds, windows, water and (most commonly) ribbons.
The plan with this relaunch was to move away from traditional idents to mini-menus which showed you what's coming up later as well as what's on now. The ITV1 squares could reform into a menu pattern which allowed short clips of forthcoming programmes to be shown. ITV took on a team of associate producers to produce these promotions, but they gradually became less and less in the period up to 2006. It perhaps did not help that ITV spent a lot of this period using themed idents specific to particular programmes, such as Celebrity Love Island.
[edit] 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.
Dubbed the 'Emotion' idents, several of the idents were shot in South Africa, in them the 'ITV1' logo would open out and enclose the footage it was superimposed on to.
All but one of the idents were 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. The idents were supposed to represent a feelings such as joy, pride or sadness.
The entire network re-brand was made by Red Bee Media, though faced criticism by critics online and in print, mainly due to the almost complete removal of regional variation on the channel.
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Pride | A child taking his mum breakfast in bed, another boy showing off his front teeth, then finally a man proudly showing off his collection of motorbikes. The standard news ident and also the regional ident, in regions which opted to use it. |
| Embarrassment | A man trying to touch his toes on a beach, a woman at a party whose dress is tucked inside her knickers, a boy having an embarrassing haircut, and finishing with a man asleep on a train - oblivious to the women sat either side of him. |
| Sadness | A couple hugging, a dejected teenage schoolgirl, a woman upset in bed, and a man watching a movie at the cinema. This is rarely used as a breakbumper. |
| Hope | A young man holding a single rose waits in a cinema lobby for someone who isn't coming. Often seen before the news. |
| Joy | Beginning with the shoot of a woman, the camera pans out to reveal she is in a forest, the scene then changes to a shoot of a dog with its tongue out, sticking its head out of a window of a car. This then moves to follow a couple walking into the shallow sea and ends with children performing 'roly-polys' in a field. |
| Surprise | Starting with a shot of a man emptying a bucket of water onto two female sunbathers, two children are then shown jumping out of a cardboard box in what appears to be their living room. Next a man in a suit is seen in extremely high winds his tie flying out of place and a piece of paper flying into his face. The ident ends with a couple camping frightening a herd of cows away from their tent in the middle of a field. |
| Love | Often used before daytime programing, this ident starts with a shoot of a mother cuddling her son, then a women picking up a pair of pink shoes from a collection of pink clothing and accessories. Next a shoot of a half naked man rubbing his hairy chest in front of a mirror, finishing with a shot of two people hugging a rather large tree. |
[edit] November 2006 - present
The current presentation package on ITV1 in England, Wales, the Isle of Man and the Scottish Borders was first seen on 13 November 2006. A new set of idents replaced the previous set which debuted in January, the theme being "alive with colour". The set consists of 'Beach', 'Bike', 'Lake', 'Market', 'Basketball' and 'Pavement Art' idents. The new package was designed by The Mill using concepts introduced by Red Bee Media[1]. Blink Productions and Pleix were responsible for producing the idents. The logo remained the same in essence, only the 'itv' lettering was inverted from its previous white state to black, to allow it to stand out against the yellow more.
ITV's PR trumpeted the new idents as the "second phase" of January's new look[2], but it is unusual for a channel to dump an ident package after only ten months. This has led to speculation that the January package was not well-received, not by viewers but by ITV management. Branding other than idents and break-bumpers remained unchanged for a few weeks after the refresh.
Regional idents were finally discontinued with the arrival of the new set. All idents use the same drone-like audio.
A further set of four new idents were introduced to run in tandem with the existing six on 3 September 2007; "Bubbles", "Gardens", "Fountains" and "Buildings". While retaining the same soundtrack, the ITV1 logo on the new symbols was considerably larger than that on the 2006 batch.
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Beach | Starting with a shoot of a beach, the viewer can see a fabric which unravels flying into the air to reveal the ITV1 logo.
The Beach ident has been mainly restricted to the screening of Spring - Autumn. |
| Bike | Starting with a shot a lady riding a bike along a road the camera pans out to reveal the ITV1 logo out of some nearby foliage. |
| Lake | Starting with a shot of foliage beside a lake the camera rises to show a man on a rowing boat, at the same time revealing the ITV1 logo.
This ident is the standard representation before news programming. |
| Market | The Camera follow a journey through a market in a foreign country, the ITV1 logo is released from behind the back of a man carrying what appears to be some type of rolled up fabric. The logo frequently disappears and re-appears as people get in the way. |
| Basketball | The camera focuses on the backboard of a basketball basket where flowers are growing across it, as the camera moves, the ITV1 logo slowly appears whilst in the background there are people playing basketball on the court. |
| Pavement Art | It starts with a shot of people spray painting what looks like a pavement, as the camera moves along it is revealed that they are actually on the roof of a building, and the paint stretches down the side of the building down on to the ground, where there's a group of people walking around the 'art'. |
| Buildings | High-rise buildings in a city centre pull their yellow blinds. The ITV1 logo comes on in a blinds-style wipe. |
| Bubbles | Children blow some very large bubbles in a park, each tinged with yellow. The logo appears from behind one of the bubbles. |
| Gardens | The camera pans downwards to the flower beds. Flowers and mushrooms sprout, producing the ITV1 logo as the camera continues to travel downwards. |
| Fountains | In a dark alley, a man goes into a bar and on the street, golden geysers spurt upwards from the deserted road. |
[edit] ITV2
[edit] July 2003 - January 2006
ITV2 received its first rebrand on Monday 14 July 2003, courtesy of design house Bruce Dunlop & Associates. The new logo was a 3D version of the previous, using an opposite colour scheme to the ITV1 logo of the time. The idents consisted of the ITV2 logo animating onscreen in different situations.
[edit] January 2006 - present
The channel received its current look as with the rest of the ITV network on 16 January 2006. The idents are based on the concept of "must have TV" and are a series of scenes were the viewer is taken from left to right while seeing images on a particular theme.
[edit] ITV3
[edit] November 2004 - January 2006
ITV3, like ITV2, took an ident similar to ITV1 from launch night. ITV3 appeared to be successful so in 2006 they changed to their new idents which all take the shape of a circle a lot like the recent BBC One idents.
[edit] January 2006 - present
Along with the rest of the ITV network on 16 January 2006, ITV3 went on air with a new look by Red Bee Media.
A series of eight live-action idents of 30 second and 15 second were shot on location that show images of natural complexities with those of a man made world were produced. All idents aiming to sell a small story, reflecting how story telling is at the heart of the channel.
Director: Gavain Brown
Producers: Liz Timms, Rebecca Refell
Production Company: Red Bee Media
Film Editor: Pete Lurie
Telecine: Dom Aarons, Marcus Timpson
Post Production: Rushes
VFX: David Kiddie, Brian Carbin
Rushes Producer: Carl Grinter, Josh King
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Rose | A rose filmed artistically. |
| Lake | A Ladybird resting where the hands of a clock meet. |
| Shell | A shell shown being picked up by a women on a beach. |
| Run Away | A women packing her suitcase and then 'running away'. |
[edit] ITV4
[edit] November 2005 - September 2007
The new ITV logo was launched with ITV4 in November 2005 making it the first of the channels with the new branding style. The idents were designed by Red Bee Media. The idents start with a normal environment, but when the ITV4 logo slides in and forms, it slides the 2 halves of the image together with it, slightly changing the context.
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Offices/Car | A scene outside an office tower. |
| Couple/Dog | A dog walks up near a hugging couple, but after the sliding, it appears like the male has a tail. |
| Clouds/Birds | A shot of birds flying in the sky. The birds do not pass through to the other side of the image at all. |
| Billboard | A billboard sign labeled "ENCHANTED GARDENS OF THE WORLD" is manipulated to say "END OF THE WORLD" |
[edit] September 2007 - present
ITV4's second set of idents launched in September 2007, and comprises a 3D CGI logo
[edit] External links
- Red Bee Media
- itv.com
- idents.tv Video of ITV1 idents
- idents.tv Video of ITV2 idents
[edit] See also
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