ITV 2004

And then there were three...

The first hint of the changes to the brand identity of ITV's family of channels occured with the trailing of a new channel, ITV3.

On screen promotions showed the ITV letters were now split into three separate tiles. The channel number was then added at the end, as before, as you can see at the bottom of the launch night programme schedule.

The new branding scheme also allowed for the channel number to be added underneath the ITV name, in a stacked formation, allowing it to appear much more prominently. For ITV3 the "3" was on the face of a slightly twisted cube.

The "Starts tomorrow" caption indicates the channel would be exclusive to Freeview and digital cable. This was because Sky had a freeze on new channel launches. But ITV found a way around this by doing a last-minute deal with BSkyB to buy its 49.5% share of Granada Sky Broadcasting, allowing it to close Granada's Plus channel and replace it with ITV3 on the satellite platform, just in time for launch. The deal cost £10m and doubled ITV3's potential audience. It also allowed ITV3 access to Plus's programmes.

ITV2's identity didn't have to change very much - it already used flying tiles and a prominent number "2". This is one of its break bumpers.

But it was on ITV1 where the changes would have the biggest impact, as the celebrity-based idents were ditched in favour of depictions of clouds and wind...

ITV1

ITV1's new look launched on the morning of Monday, November 1st, 2004.

This was the first of the new idents broadcast. The ITV1 logo first comes together on the left-hand side in miniature, before breaking apart again.

The flying tiles concept developed in previous revamps was still in use. And having clouds as a background was first seen with ITV1's alernative, non-celebrity idents from the redesign that was launched in 2002.

The "1" starts off on a yellow tile, but as the logo forms for the second time, in the centre of the screen, the tile then becomes a cube.

ITV1 Wales continued to have its own announcing team based in Cardiff and its own version of the ident.

The large, light blue tile that appears at the start of the ident's animation could be held in place and text overlayed on it to show what was coming up later. Channel 4 had tried something similar with a set of its idents.

But there was another trick that ITV1's idents could do that had not been seen before. They could include short clips of the programmes coming up now and later...

Once the clips had been shown, the ITV1 logo would assemble itself on screen, just as it would when no clips were used.

This ident uses a background of what seems to be silk ribbons blowing in a breeze. I'm not sure what the official title of this style is, but I hope it's "three sheets to the wind"!

ITV3

ITV3 began at 9pm on Monday, November 1st, 2004, the same day as ITV1's relaunch.

After a holding caption reminding us when the channel would begin, viewers were shown a clock counting down to the big event.

Once the clock reached zero, we were straight into the first announcement over an ident and then into the first programme, an unaired episode of Rebus, made for ITV, which had been left on the shelf for three years.

The ident before the second programme promoted Tuesdays, when ITV3 would be showing re-runs of A Touch of Frost, starring David Jason.

The idents all featured a rotating wireframe of a cube that resolved into the ITV3 logo.

Regional Variations

Here are some examples of the refreshed regional versions of the ITV1 idents, allowed only before regional programmes. These all use the third of three background images introduced at launch (along with the clouds and the breeze backgrounds shown above). More backgrounds were added later.

End Credits Promotion

ITV continued to narrow the closing credits of programmes so that it could use the space to promote what was coming up later.

End Production Captions

As part of the rebrand, Carlton's orange production captions were removed from the end of programmes such as Today with Des and Mel. They were replaced by animated, purple Granada captions, finally purging the Carlton name from our screens.

The Anglia name, but not its flag logo, survived, as Trisha became a Granada Anglia production.

But LWT was now a gonner too. Its programmes became Granada London productions. (Although some programmes with LWT captions still slipped out occasionally.)

The Granada arrow and Yorkshire chevron logos were also lost as Coronation Street became a Granada Manchester production (since a Granada Granada production would have sounded silly!) and Emmerdale ended with a Granada Yorkshire caption.

The new purple captions were only used for programmes made for the whole country. Regional productions continued to use the blue and yellow ITV captions introduced in February.

This caption featuring both the Granada and Thames names was used for Ant & Dec's Gameshow Marathon, which celebrated fifty years of ITV by re-creating some of the channel's classic game shows.

The X Factor

ITV1 began using special break bumpers and idents in the build up to The X Factor final in December 2004.

Animated caricatures of the judges were shown carrying placards. Sharon Osbourne and Simon Cowell tussled over the ITV1 logo, messages counting down the days to the final and signs promoting "THE FINAL" and "STEVE", representing singer Steve Brookstein, the eventual winner of the competition.

Louis Walsh carried a placard with "G4" on it, the name of the group he mentored, who finished as runners-up.

BRITs 25

The 25th BRIT awards were held on February 9th, 2005. The live show was promoted on ITV with the pop stars of today, such as Avril Lavigne, Busted and the Scissor Sisters, as they might look in the future.

The Boat Race 2005

On March 27th, 2005, ITV showed the annual University Boat Race for the first time, ending the event's 50-year association with the BBC. Idents, trailers and break bumpers were produced to promote ITV's "live and exclusive" coverage.

ITV Day

On Monday, April 11th, 2005, ITV's daytime schedule was branded as ITV Day. ITV1's blue identity package made way for a new brighter image, based on the colours of a warm, sunny day. New programmes were also introduced, and others cancelled, in an attempt to win back viewers.

The ITV Day promo, seen above, stars presenters from GMTV, Phil and Fern from This Morning, Nicholas Owen and Katie Derham from the now hour-long ITV Lunchtime News, and Melanie Sykes from Today with Des and Mel.

Viewers in Wales kept their own announcers and "Wales" was added underneath the ITV Day logo. The idents were also used in Northern Ireland, but with the blue ITV tiles replaced with the UTV logo - hence "UTV Day". There was no special day-time branding for viewers in the Scottish and Grampian regions.

Idents, including programme menus, were based on leisure activities, such as cooking, keeping fit, cycling and errm... decorating.

Promos also had an ITV Day theme.

The break bumpers were based on the standard breeze ident but in orange and yellow. And there was a yellow version of the breeze ident shown before the Lunchtime News.

Hell's Kitchen

The second series of Hell's Kitchen started its nightly run on April 18th, 2005. Gordon Ramsey was replaced with two new chefs, Jean-Christophe Novelli and Gary Rhodes. The celebrity contestants were also replaced with members of the public for this series. This was the ident used to promote the show.

ITV 50

In September 2005, ITV celebrated its 50th birthday, making a selection of special programmes to commemorate the event. There were also a couple of minute-long trailers...

ITV1's standard idents were temporarily replaced with a new set, with fireworks to celebrate "ITV 50".

There were also regional variations. And this time "Westcountry" was back to being a single word.

The fireworks theme was also added to programme trails and end credit promotions.

Who Did It

Bruce Dunlop & Associates were responsible for refreshing the look of ITV's channels, again utilising the talents of senior designer, Matthew Piper.