ITC and ITV questions

That 1981 thread got me thinking.

Back in 1996 when this ident appeared it had to show Tyne tees television at the bottom to comply with the rules



Yet in 1999.... no sign of Central or Westcounty, what happened to that rule, why was it change or did ITV just go meh?

Also Where the new 1993 ITV companies offered dundas 1989 idents or where there given no choice?

I don't think such a rule ever existed. I think that ident was very much the product of internal politics within YTT. The company name was never changed, and I suspect that addition was there so the company had the capability to reverse a decision that was made by Bruce Gyngell and wasn't much liked by the management of either YTV or Tyne Tees.

I seem to recall at the time, and on another forum, someone asked the question of the ITC, and the response was that the regulator does not get involved in issues of branding.

As to the 1989 idents, I wouldn't have thought they'd bother making the 1989 idents for the newcomers. By this time only two companies were still using them (and one of those had edited theirs), so they were pretty much dead in the water.

Here's a (sort of) related question that always bugged me ... the 1992 Tyne Tees identity was introduced under YTV's stewardship (I do not believe this had been initiated before June of that year, when the buyout took place). Given that YTV must have known they were going to merge transmission for the two companies (this is one of the first technical departments to go in any takeover), it has always seemed odd to me that they would move from an ident that was the same length as the YTV one, to one completely different (and indeed required a nasty re-edited 'short' version to be produced in 1993 to fit in with what YTV were doing). Always struck me as a weird decision.

Is it possible they were trying to put clear blue water between themselves and Tyne Tees, after acquiring a brand that was not too different to theirs, rather bring the identities together as happened under a later strategy? Wouldn't breathe too much into the creative/technical side of it - I've often found these are completely unlinked despite the obvious incentives!

It was often name-checked as "Tyne Tees Television transmitting on Channel 3 North East"; suggesting that Tyne Tees was the company whilst Channel 3 North East was the service. It was a mouthful to say and sounded terrible.

I think the station name at the bottom being compulsory is a oft repeated myth, as many station idents didn't spell out the name, often it was just the logo. Central used various cakes with no lettering seen on screen at all.

It wasn't compulsory, the decision was made to reassure viewers that the service hadn't changed, and it was still Tyne Tees under a new guise.

The ITC wouldn't have intervened in the branding of a franchise as that was never a factor in the granting of the licences in the first place.

Yes, as ttt has said, the company name was never changed and their programme endcaps always said 'A Tyne Tees Production for Channel 3 North East", or in the case of networked shows (the only one I can think of is Crosswits), the endcap said 'A Tyne Tees Production for ITV". The local endcap featured the '3' symbol, the network version had no symbol, only the words 'Tyne Tees' in a large yellow font above the text. So, as far as the rest of the network was concerned, it was still Tyne Tees, only they seemed not to have a symbol for 18 months!

The Channel 3 logo was also featured on Cross Wits.

Incidentally, the opening titles of Crosswits from that era has one of the worst examples of computer animation for the sake of it:
Definitely from the school of fold up a image and whizz it round the screen

Maybe. I quite like it though.

That music takes me back too. Very... jazzy.