Whilst there had been various generic logos for ITV in the past, including a rather blocky, eighties looking thing, no real attempt had been made to use them regularly across the whole network. However in 1989 it was decided that ITV needed to portray a more united front, and a new generic ident was introduced. Designed to provide a form of common branding across the network, as well as add a regional identity, versions were offered to all the ITV stations.
The animation and logo was to be common to all franchises. The V part was, however, given over for a regional design, this usually being a section of the company’s existing logo - on the Tyne Tees version you can just make out the top left hand corner a segment of the old flowing rivers ident.
Tyne Tees had used other ITV generic logos in the past, and took warmly to the new ident. Indeed if all the fellow ITV companies had embraced the united front so warmly, the whole idea could really have worked. However a sizeable minority of companies didn’t like the new ident. Some like Yorkshire wouldn’t use their version until it had been re-edited. Others refused to use it point blank.
Some of the companies used the ident keenly, the keenest user being Grampian, which used its version (in tandem with its existing ident) until 1999 when a new ITV logo was unveiled. It was also popular at Tyne Tees, who in 1990 introduced a local version where the ITV ident was run backwards so that it formed a gold Tyne Tees logo on a dark background (sadly we have been unable to find a copy of this).
However, with the lack of enthusiasm from the rest of the country, most of Tyne Tees abandoned the ident in 1991, although the ITV generic jingle was used for another year with the new idents, and was later adopted for use as the jingle for the ITV National Weather.
