UKTV to become 'U' - Printable Version
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RE: UKTV to become 'U' - bkman1990 - 29-11-2023
I still cannot understand why UKTV would do this to potentially do long term damage to their channels brands for the viewers in the short to medium term. I still like the current names of their channels at this time. I don't see anything wrong with them. Why do UKTV executives have to change something so quickly when their brand isn't broken? This rebranding stuff is just a vanity project for them and nothing more.
In the eyes of the viewer who is into streaming a lot of shows and movies online at the moment; What could they say as an initial response when they hear from UKTV that they are adding the letter U and an '&' to their current names of their channels on both their linear & streaming platforms. Would the regular streaming viewers be happy with that situation or not or would they care that it is happening in the first place?
In theory; this new rebranding exercise from UKTV is trying to prioritise their streaming viewers first over the linear viewers. However is it not the case that both viewers who watch their channels on both linear and streaming would become very frustrated & confused with this plan coming out of the woodwork?
It might not make much difference to viewers who live in either England, Scotland or Wales.
But for viewers in Northern Ireland and in some cases the Republic of Ireland if they use FTA Satellite/Freesat and Saorview; it could cause some confusion for viewer's EPG's there if they see the new names of these channels if have UTV from NI on it as well.
UTV Live is still being used for their main news bulletins in Northern Ireland.
Would ITV have any official plans in place to eventually scrap that name to replace it with ITV News Northern Ireland sometime in 2024?
RE: UKTV to become 'U' - nwtv2003 - 29-11-2023
Does anyone else think they are testing the water before they actually go through with it? Normally these type of rebrands are usually announced a couple of weeks before, but there’s still some time to go yet, and they’re only rebranding the FTA channels in the first phase. Something doesn’t sit right with me. (Or I’m being cynical)
They had a perfectly good UKTV brand between 1997 and 2004, the UK prefixes were simple and effective, and you knew exactly what the brands stood for. UKTV branding afterwards was just a mouthful. The rebrand of G2 to Dave was genius and it worked very well for them, but I just think they got a bit cocky thinking the same concept would work for all channels, and it didn’t. (See G.O.L.D for best example of this.) I get why they did it, but it really diluted the UKTV brand. From the time they started putting UKTV on the DOGs at the start of a programme or part, this I think was when they really started to introduce the UKTV brand properly.
U, just doesn’t seem to work. You can have a broadcaster with a set of channels that don’t share a brand and still be successful. Paramount and Discovery are the best examples of this.
It might look good on screen, but it just seems such a mouthful and all a tad pointless.
RE: UKTV to become 'U' - gottago - 29-11-2023
The whole UKTV operation comes across as so amateurish sometimes. W’s stock video rebrand was very weak, Dave’s long lost its way as a channel, and now this rebrand is a real botched job of an attempt to draw a brand alignment. This is going to be an embarrassing rebrand that I can’t see lasting long term at all.
RE: UKTV to become 'U' - sky303 - 29-11-2023
Someone there really misses UTV.
Most of the channels brandings and brands got stronger without the UKTV name like Dave, Alibi, Yesterday, and Gold has history. I'm not sure how strong Drama and Eden are , I'm guessing Drama does better since it's Free to Air, but Eden has been around a long time. W is Whatever that is.
Adding U& to the names seems a little clunky. What are you watching? "U& Dave" U&W sounds like upscale store or something versus being a channel, and the W name barely was something.
It's a very strange thing to do.
RE: UKTV to become 'U' - JAS84 - 29-11-2023
Isn't UKTV entirely owned by BBC Studios now? Why not do what they did in 1997, and just copy the BBC's style - in this case, using the Chameleon branding style. That'd be UKTV at the top and the channel name at the bottom.
RE: UKTV to become 'U' - Brekkie - 29-11-2023
They already integrate the UKTV logo quite well into branding without the need for any name changes.
RE: UKTV to become 'U' - chinamug - 29-11-2023
(29-11-2023, 09:18 PM)bkman1990 Wrote: I still cannot understand why UKTV would do this to potentially do long term damage to their channels brands for the viewers in the short to medium term. I still like the current names of their channels at this time. I don't see anything wrong with them. Why do UKTV executives have to change something so quickly when their brand isn't broken? This rebranding stuff is just a vanity project for them and nothing more.It's not only being used for the News Bulletins, UTV is used on the GMB local Bulletins for Northern Ireland, The Logo and name are used for promo's for Northern Irish Made content, so the UTV name is used once or twice an hour every hour during primetime. It's attached to all local programmes at the finish and often the start of shows, and It's used verbally (A lot!) by presenters on UTV Live, UTV Life and on View from Stormont. It's still commercially a valuable piece of property, (The Northern Irish advertising landscape is somewhat different to England and Wales) Even if ITV dropped it in the morning It's likely they'd look for some sort of settlement. After all these are not charities they're running.
In the eyes of the viewer who is into streaming a lot of shows and movies online at the moment; What could they say as an initial response when they hear from UKTV that they are adding the letter U and an '&' to their current names of their channels on both their linear & streaming platforms. Would the regular streaming viewers be happy with that situation or not or would they care that it is happening in the first place?
In theory; this new rebranding exercise from UKTV is trying to prioritise their streaming viewers first over the linear viewers. However is it not the case that both viewers who watch their channels on both linear and streaming would become very frustrated & confused with this plan coming out of the woodwork?
It might not make much difference to viewers who live in either England, Scotland or Wales.
But for viewers in Northern Ireland and in some cases the Republic of Ireland if they use FTA Satellite/Freesat and Saorview; it could cause some confusion for viewer's EPG's there if they see the new names of these channels if have UTV from NI on it as well.
UTV Live is still being used for their main news bulletins in Northern Ireland.
Would ITV have any official plans in place to eventually scrap that name to replace it with ITV News Northern Ireland sometime in 2024?
RE: UKTV to become 'U' - Worzel - 29-11-2023
(29-11-2023, 09:46 PM)sky303 Wrote: Someone there really misses UTV.
Most of the channels brandings and brands got stronger without the UKTV name like Dave, Alibi, Yesterday, and Gold has history. I'm not sure how strong Drama and Eden are , I'm guessing Drama does better since it's Free to Air, but Eden has been around a long time. W is Whatever that is.
Adding U& to the names seems a little clunky. What are you watching? "U& Dave" U&W sounds like upscale store or something versus being a channel, and the W name barely was something.
It's a very strange thing to do.
W was originally 'Watch'. Before that it was UKTV People/Blighty (I think?).
RE: UKTV to become 'U' - Milkshake - 29-11-2023
I think they should the "W" around make it an "M" and then you could have a channel called U & Me..
RE: UKTV to become 'U' - dbl - 29-11-2023
(29-11-2023, 09:50 PM)JAS84 Wrote: Isn't UKTV entirely owned by BBC Studios now? Why not do what they did in 1997, and just copy the BBC's style - in this case, using the Chameleon branding style. That'd be UKTV at the top and the channel name at the bottom.
It doesn't work like that. UKTV although owned by BBC Studios, is treated as a separate entity. Decisions like this rebrand have been consulted with the heads of BBC Studios and the BBC.