History of ITV television idents

The television network now known as ITV1 began as a group of regional stations, each with their own identities. Each station used its own idents to create an individual identity until the late 1990s when ITV began to introduce a consolidated presentation package as part of a dedicated effort to unify its identity. This article looks at the history of presentation of ITV1.

Corporate images

1980s branding

The ITV franchises had individual logos, with no ITV brand, up until 1989 (see below). Before, and also after this, they used unique identities, across the network. This process continued, for the most part, until 2002. These idents shown below were introduced individually for each franchise from 1955 to 1999.

File:ITV logo 1989-1998.svg

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, TSW and Granada declined to use the generic idents that were designed for their regions, preferring to stay with their distinctive on-screen branding. However, Granada did mix its branding with the generic ITV idents at some point in early 1990, and Central decided to use the generic ITV ident in tandem with the one with its own music. Yorkshire Television's ident was given a makeover so that the chevron would form next to part of the V and zoom in to the center of the screen. 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. Thames dropped it a few months after losing their franchise in 1991. The three newcomers to the ITV network in 1993, Carlton, Meridian and Westcountry all launched with their own brand images.

The regions to have the longest use of the generic ident were Yorkshire, who kept it on until October 1994, and Grampian 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 LWT used a re-recorded version.

November 1999 – 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 Carlton & Granada (later ITV plc) introduced the "ITV1" on 11 August 2001 on the stations they owned.

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, Tyne Tees, Yorkshire, LWT, Border, Meridian and Anglia 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 Martin 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.

They simply wanted to have an expression of the heart which was theirs alone. So we were asked to somehow square this circle, that they were part of ITV and therefore of the heart but they were also unique as a brand. And we came up with the proposition that, okay, if ITV is the 'heart', Carlton is the 'star' of the ITV network.
Brian Eley, Creative Director, Lambie-Nairn

When HTV 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 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.

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 Carlton/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 and was in use until May 2006 (2 years after it was discarded by the ITV plc regions) when they were both rebranded to STV. 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.

November 2004 - January 2006

The 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. 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.

January – November 2006

File:Itv logo feb06.gif

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
Love	Starts with a mum hugging her young son, then we see a woman picking up a pair of pink high heels, followed by a man rubbing his belly and finishing with two people hugging a tree.
Pride	Ident starts with a lady placing a home-made card on a shelf, followed by a young boy talking a tray of breakfast and a card to his mum, that is then followed by a man cleaning his car, we then see a boy with who has just had a tooth come out, then finally a man bringing a motor scooter out of his garage and placing it along side his other scooters.
Joy	We start with a woman enjoying a walk in a sunny forest, we then see a dog with its head out a car window, then a couple enjoying a paddle in the sea, followed by a woman laughing as she comes out of a tent, and finally we see several children rolling down a grassy hill.
Surprise	A bucket of water is thrown over two people sun-bathing, then two children jump out of a cardboard box, followed by a newspaper blowing past a pedestrians face, then finally a man comes out of a tent in a field and starts chasing several cows.
Fun	A boy bangs two symbols together, then two people eat giant slices of chocolate cake, next we see several children sliding down a water slide, the next scene sees a dog's tail wagging, and the last scene sees two pigs enjoying the mud.
Embarrassment	We first see a man on a beach trying to get changed with a towel wrapped round him as two people walk past looking, we then see a lady at a party with her dressed tucked in her underwear, then a boy is seen with an embarrassing hair cut, then the last scene sees a man on a busy train fall asleep on someone's shoulder.
Anticipation	This ident is different to all the others because it only has one scene in the whole ident. A man is seen waiting at a cinema holding a single rose in his hands. This is a more sombre ident.
Sadness	We first see an emotional woman hugging a man, then a girl is on her own in a school corridor while a group of kids nearby laugh and chat, we then see a lady in bed crying, and the last scene sees a man in a cinema sat at the end when everyone else is leaving. This is another sombre ident and mainly used before drama.
Sport	This ident focusing on various emotions felt from different sporting events. We first see a boxer looking quite nervous as he has boxing wrap removed from his hands, we then see another boxer in the ring being treated and having water put on him to cool down, we then see a football match and a penalty taking place, and finally football fans jump up and cheer when a goal is scored.

November 2006 - present

File:ITV1.svg

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, 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. Regional idents were finally discontinued with the arrival of the new set. All idents use the same drone-like audio.

ITV promoted the new idents as the "second phase" of the look introduced in January, but it is unusual for a channel to discontinue 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.

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.

In April 2010, a new channel, ITV1 HD, was launched. To coincide with the launch, a new look ITV1 logo was introduced. The new logo first appeared on the HD channel alone until a week later when the new logo was launched on ITV1. The new logo ties all the idents together unlike previous versions which had two different sizes. As well a new logo, another four new idents were added, these being "Sunflowers", "Lanterns", "Snakes and Ladders" and "Dodgems". These four idents received new variants to the regular music heard on the previous 10 idents. many viewers questioned why the original 10 idents didn't also receive new music as many do not like the original music. A new style presentation was also launched on the channel which included new style promo end boards, end credit promotion, holding stings and several new break bumpers all featuring the new logo. The four new idents and the new style presentation have generally received a positive reaction from viewers.

Name	Description	Air dates
Beach	The ident starts as a simple beach scene when the yellow windbreak suddenly bursts out to the side and starts to fly up soon to be joined by an orange wind break. The logo appears from behind the windbreak. Edited in April 2010	November 2006–present
Lake	A single person rows a small wooden rowing boat with schools of yellow and orange fish swimming in the lake below. The logo appears from behind a tree. Edited in April 2010	November 2006–present
Bike	A woman rides a bike at night through a dark street only lit by street lamps. Fireflies swarm around the street lamps. The logo comes out from the side of a tree. Edited in April 2010	November 2006–present
Market	An ornate curtain floats up revealing an exotic street market. The camera follows one man then follows a second man through the market. Throughout the ident, small yellow birds fly round. The logo appears from behind the second man. Edited in April 2010	November 2006–present
Basketball	An Ivy like plant grows up the back of a basketball hoop. The camera pans round revealing the full basketball court. The green plants start to cover the whole court and yellow flowers begin to grow. The logo sprouts open like a flower when the yellow flowers open on the back of the basketball hoop. Edited in April 2010	November 2006–present
Pavement Art	The ident starts with several people painting large yellow stripes on what first appears to be a pavement. We soon see they are actually painting on a rooftop as the camera pans over the edge of the building. The yellow stripes continue down the side of the building and onto the ground below where they form unusual patterns. The logo appears on the ground when the camera moves over the edge of the roof. Edited in April 2010	November 2006–present
Bubbles	People in a park are blowing bubbles of all different sizes. Soon several very large bubbles come into shot and float up. The logo is revealed behind one of the large bubbles floating up. Edited in April 2010.	September 2007–present
Garden	In a family's back garden, the camera moves into the undergrowth revealing a whole new miniature garden where yellow flowers and mushrooms grow as a butterfly flies round. The logo is revealed as the butterfly flies over. Edited in April 2010	September 2007–present
Buildings	The ident starts with some people enjoying lunch shaded by large yellow and white umbrellas. We soon see they are surrounded by many tall buildings. As the buildings are revealed, the windows start to shimmer, then the windows start to open like shutters producing yellow reflections. The logo is revealed in a series of shutter type movements amongst the windows. Edited in April 2010	September 2007–present
Fountains	A man walks down a large dark alley full of puddles. Soon after the man turns into a smaller alley, yellow fountains start to erupt from the puddles lighting up the alley. The logo fades in amongst the fountains. Edited in April 2010	September 2007–present
Sunflowers	A dark field soon erupts with colour as hundreds of Sunflowers all open up to face the sun and sway in the wind. The logo fades in as three parts. First aired Friday 9 April 2010.	April 2010–present
Lanterns	People at a festival all release Chinese lanterns which slowly float up into the night sky. The logo is revealed behind one of the lanterns. First aired Friday 9 April 2010. The ident may be pulled because the National Farmers Union criticized ITV of the dangers of Chinese lanterns.	April 2010–present
Snakes and Ladders	A team of builders and painters are doing work on a large building with the help of scaffolding resembling a Snakes and Ladders game board. Some workmen keep abseiling down the scaffolding and pallets of building materials are lifted up. The logo fades in as three parts and becomes part of the scene with the workmen seen in front of it. First aired Sunday 11 April 2010.	April 2010–present
Dodgems	At a fairground, dodgem cars suddenly start moving by themselves and start to perform a routine. The logo fades in as three parts. First aired Saturday 17 April.	April 2010–present

See also

• History of BBC television idents

External links

• itv.com
• channel3gallery.co.uk ITV presentation fansite.
• idents.tv Video of ITV1 idents
• idents.tv Video of ITV2 idents