(name removed) and (name removed) are the authors of this website.

Not so anonymous now, then.

Thames did use that slogan - Carlton adopted it when they started -- check out centraltv.co.uk and look at the Carlton logo in the top corner
I have the original 'SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH' title sequence if you are interested?
It would seem doubtful Meridian will have a new look in Sept, as they have been (nearly) bought by Granada and Granada are about to unveil new GMG idents across the regional network - so who knows what will happen - there have been a few subtle changes at Granada recently.

Meridian have been associating themselves with the phrase Spirit Of The South since their inception in 1993. The sequence was originally played out immediately before local progs, but then changed to becoming 5-10 second promos to prevent the ident/continuity being too long.

Anglia also use this - Spirit Of Anglia.

This'll probably change though when Granada starts to kick in ...

Yes, we get *Spirit of Anglia* fillers.

it usually is something along the lines of three old dears playing bowls in Cromer, then a caption telling us its *Bowlers* *Cromer* Usual twee rural stuff. (Basket-weaving near Sudbury, Duck on pond in Beccles, etc;)

It's long overdue a send-up, akin to the *You're watching Carlton* mickey-takes on KYTV. So, here are some suggestions:

Crack dealers in Luton
Prostitutes in Northampton
Benefits Queue in Stevenage
Vandals in Milton Keynes
Perverts in Bedford
Student Demonstrators at Huntingdon Life Sciences
Paint drying in Kettering
A1(M) Flyover in Peterborough
Drugs Bust in Cambridge
etc;

Border Heritage:
Film of lakes and hills and pretty post offices.
Used especially at lunchtime when all other regions had 10 minutes of news, while Border had only five.
Now Carlton's five-minute holiday programme seems to have usurped it.

> *You're watching Carlton* mickey-takes on KYTV

I seem to have missed these. Explain anyone?

>> *You're watching Carlton* mickey-takes on KYTV
>
>I seem to have missed these. Explain anyone?

Early Carlton had 'real' people stood in front of a background, who then said "You're watching Carlton" along with the persons name and occupation.

KYTV spoofed it and had captions like "Mrs Scroggins, axe murder".

>KYTV spoofed it and had captions like "Mrs Scroggins, axe murder".
>
>
London bias, again. Oh these media types.

>
>>KYTV spoofed it and had captions like "Mrs Scroggins, axe murder".
>London bias, again. Oh these media types.

I'm sure that if any ITV company had done something similar it would have been spoofed,

>
>>KYTV spoofed it and had captions like "Mrs Scroggins, axe murder".
>>
>>
>London bias, again. Oh these media types.
I got it - having seen those awful CARLtON trailers on the News

>I'm sure that if any ITV company had done something similar it would have been spoofed,

Which is why there are loads of sketches about shopping trolley going through TV logos. (UTV)
Or . . . big blue squares roaming about the Scottish countryside
Or . . . trains roaming around the sharp G track

Because Londoners would fall off their chairs laughing.

Agreed, when the programme makers' idents were shown before networked programmes, they
used to be spoofed.
Boobs instead of Thames on Kenny Everett, WLT (Women's Lib Television) on Benny Hill,
The Anglia knight falling off the turntable (forget which show)

>Agreed, when the programme makers' idents were shown before networked programmes, they
>used to be spoofed.
>Boobs instead of Thames on Kenny Everett, WLT (Women's Lib Television) on Benny Hill,
>The Anglia knight falling off the turntable (forget which show)

There's a point, why did they stop putting the indents before the shows?

>Agreed, when the programme makers' idents were shown before networked programmes, they
>used to be spoofed.
>Boobs instead of Thames on Kenny Everett, WLT (Women's Lib Television) on Benny Hill,
>The Anglia knight falling off the turntable (forget which show)

Don't forget Rutland Weekend Television as well.

>There's a point, why did they stop putting the indents before the shows?

Dunno...I suspect they thought it confused viewers. They stopped them on 31 Dec 1987. No warning at all.

>There's a point, why did they stop putting the indents before the shows?

ITV was even messier than it is now pre-88. Logos upon logos upon logos. So someone said let's get rid of one layer, so they did.

A shame cos we all loved 'em so.

Not that messy!

Invision announcer tells us about programme followed by the ident of the producing company. All went quite nicely!

>Not that messy!
>
>Invision announcer tells us about programme followed by the ident of the producing company. All went quite nicely!

If you were lucky enought to have in-vision announcers.

Most regions were until the late eighties. YTV never had IVAs, and the announcer would introduce the programme over a caption followed by the producing company's ident. Not messy.

Compare to today's mess of idents and non-specific continuity, promos, more promos, even more promos, and then the sponsorship business, some programmes not getting idents...

Granada was messy.
IVAs occasionally.
The Granada ident, followed by production company ident
Or (when a Granada production) programme publicity slide followed by the silent, boring Granada production ident.

Border had IVAs or bizarre idents with the company's production ident meant the removal name of the day in lovely seventies Top of the Pops-style font (in the early to mid eighties) or the straight ident.

No matter what, removal of production ident meant the removal of one layer.

>No matter what, removal of production ident meant the removal of one layer.

Perhaps, but they were replaced with the ident of the local company, so no change. Then along came sponsorships, which get moving idents before and after (ITV companies generally didn't go for moving endcaps).

Let's look at Coronation Street on YTV

1987:
Caption and announcement (still)
Granada ident
programme
end part one
part two
Granada endcap (still)

2000:
YTV ident (music and film/animation)
announcement
sponsorship (animation)
programme
end part one
sponsorship (animation)
sponsorship (animation)
part two
sponsorship (animation)
Granada endcap (still)

Messier!

You make you point well, sir. You know your messiness.

However, now that ITV Network Centre commissions programmes directly from independents, what would happen?

Hmmm...

If we had IVAs, we could then have a production ident before the programme - whether it was an ITV company or not. At the moment both the BBC and ITV occasionally show film company idents before movies. Perhaps if the idents all said 'XTV presents' it would work quite well.

Without IVAs it gets messier, because you could end up having local ident + announcement, then another ident. Still that would be better than the current business. And companies like YTV have found ways to get round it before...

True Damian - when TVS abandoned IVAs in Sept 1987 we had a TVS caption (sometimes still, sometimes animated), then the ident, then titles. Although TVS were never keen on IVAs for the evening, usually just a still caption, or the revolving flower. Come to think of it, foes anyone remember the kaleidoscope from the early days?

If you'd been watching the Hallmark channel (Sky Digital 190) a week or two ago, when they started re-running Upstairs Downstairs, you'd have seen the original LWT 'ribbon' logo at the start of some episodes. Just to confuse things they put a mid-90s LWTP logo on the end! They're still showing Upstairs Downstairs but they've stopped showing the logo. Shame.
You can still see the beloved Thames TV 'mirror' logo in front of the Benny Hill Show in North America, but there's nowhere you can see it on British TV any more...except at the head of a Monty Python episode!!!