It's the way they sell 'em
Digital Spy: UTV "significantly outperformed ITV peers"
Whilst ITV plc has been preoccupied trying to erase all of its former regional identities to create a sea of blandness in order to supposedly avoid confusing its (assumed to be) half-witted viewers, UTV in the meantime has continued to make use of its regional identity as an independent broadcaster to great effect, it seems.
The Northern Irish television market has historically been tough since of course not only have there been the well documented economic problems (which are only now being addressed) but in many parts there is also competition from additional channels from the Republic south of the border, and this also illustrates that UTV has been using regional character as a distinct selling point in order to stand out from the crowded competition; a fact which has been lost on ITV plc which only seems to see regional distinction as a costly and confusing overhead.
SMG in Scotland has had its own troubles but they have been largely caused by other factors such as the acquisition of Virgin Radio, though it's interesting to note that the presentational style used on its Scottish channels tends to be more corporate compared with UTV; Grampian in particular has suffered at the hands of being tied to Central Scotland. The UTV experience seems to suggest that SMG would be better off carving a stronger regional identity for its Scottish channels instead of dreaming of a partial or full merger with ITV plc.
Of course we shouldn't ignore the fact that UTV's Northern Irish market has distinctions that may not exist in England (for example) and may be improving based on a history of doing rather badly, but the fact that the region has a TV franchise that has a distinct identity both with its viewers and its region coupled with the fact that it is doing rather well in a fierce and competitive market tends to suggest that ITV plc's chosen path to terminal blandness may have been, to put it mildly, misguided. But there again ITV plc has had a reputation for making a mess of things in the past so we shouldn't be too surprised at this.
