Weekends: 02/08/1968 - 27/10/2002
London Weekend Television1992 Musically, the 1992 ident pays homage to the David Dundas 1989 tune, but kicks it screaming into the nineties. Visually, a series of multi-coloured chunks crash on from left of screen, to form the initials LWT. As our clips show, there were two versions: one included the ITV corporate logo to indicate networked programmes, while the other didn't, for use with regional programming only. This ident continued to be used even after LWT was taken over by Granada Television in 1994, following the relaxation of rules about ITV company ownership in the 1991 Broadcasting Act.
London Weekend Television1996 Circa September 1996, the lettering of the LWT ident was amended and the overlapping stripes first seen in 1971 were dispensed with. The stripes were simplified and modernised, to be animated in a stunning fashion: a small rotating box explodes into a star, which in turn breaks up into streams of tiny red, white and blue cubes. These cascade down onto what appears to be a whisp of cotton wool, forming the letters LWT. Two versions were seen, with the animation and music played in full, plus a shorter version. The grand fanfare was composed by Paul Campbell and Joe Hart.
London Weekend Television1996 'Formula One' Ident
The 1996 ident was also delivered with pleasing variations: this example is the Formula One version, with zooming car sound effects and chequered flag graphics. There were also idents for Football, plus Christmas & New Year. We're still looking for good quality recordings of these other idents, so get in touch if you can help. The second clip is an audio recording of the full-length LWT music composed by Campbell & Hart.
London Weekend Television1998 '30th Birthday' Ident
July 1998 saw LWT wishing itself a happy birthday with these gorgeous animations. Trish Bertram's voice appears on these examples of the celebratory ident seen across the weekend. Visit our continuity page for more 30th birthday clips.By 1998, ownership of ITV was almost entirely held by a handful of companies: English and Welsh regions belonged to Granada, Carlton and United News & Media, while the Scottish regions were managed by SMG. As it moved closer and closer towards becoming a single company, ITV needed to look as cool, young, fresh and competitive as possible. The ITV Corporate logo of 1989 seemed austere and out-of-date.
In September that year, ITV's commercial director John Hardie unveiled a new look: a "friendly" ITV logo of lower-case letters, plus a new "heart" symbol for the channel. "ITV is the channel closest to the heart of the nation. This is emphasised by its proud history as a strong regional network, reflecting the lives and concerns of heartland Britain. This will not be a sentimental Valentine-type heart. It will be a much more subtle and adaptable image designed to reflect the breadth and depth of our programme output - ITV at the heart of the action, at the heart of current affairs, at the heart of the nation." The incoming idents would therefore show members of the public arranged in heart shapes, before mixing into the local station logo.
London Weekend Television1999 'Hearts' Idents
LWT's versions of the Hearts idents debuted on November 8th 1999. The logo forms over an animated backdrop of rotating hearts, with a daytime version featuring golden hearts. Like most supposedly 'cool' and 'fresh' branding devised by marketeers, these idents were not very good and, as far as LWT was concerned, the worst ever. We're looking for better quality examples of the opening films, three of which we have below.
London Weekend Television2000 'Video Wall' Ident The Hearts were so bad that LWT broke ranks with the rest of the network to introduce its own creation on 24/03/2000, based on a video wall. Hearts could still be seen, just, in the form of two ferris wheels spinning intermittently in the video panels. Its Bloody Mary colour scheme is vile and the tune accompanying it is rather poor too, a simpering collection of beeping sounds. It has always struck me as a visual interpretation of a nightmare suffered by a set designer at the London Studios. A widescreen version could be seen from 01/07/2000, the date on which ITV and Channel 4 continuity flipped into 16:9 aspect ratio.
London Weekend Television2001 'Video Wall' Widescreen Ident This revised version of the video wall turns out to be LWT's last ident, introduced when ITV was renamed ITV1 on 11/08/01. Quite an improvement on the earlier version, thanks to lobbying by the announcers who wanted a stronger and more dynamic tune to work with. Plus the colour scheme is less seedy. The clips are from November 2001 and April 2002 - one shows the URL for LWT's site, the other boasts ITV.com's address.
When ITV1 relaunched on Monday 28th October 2002, these idents became a part of TV history. Just like the other UK regions, London no longer has its own unique on-air identity. Viewers in every region receive a generic ITV1 network feed.
LWT, LNN and Carlton continued to make programmes for London weekdays and weekends until 2003, when Carlton merged with Granada and a single ITV company was formed. For a short while from 2004, programmes made at the former LWT/London Studios were known as "Granada London Productions". Then, in yet another branding decision, from 2005 onwards every programme was known as an "ITV Production".
But this is the LWT section of TV ARK! A selection of LWT production "end boards" from 1969 to 2002 may be seen on page 3.
