[sparky_75]

Staff Relations & HR were debateable too.

They upped their shares in Central - sold everything off, sacked a majority of the staff, and then axed programmes.
Not in that order.

The way staff were sacked was less than tactful - all staff were hauled to a conference to be shown a 5minute film about being made redundant.
Those that could get to the conference were kindly sent a copy on VHS.

I could write pages on Carlton politics......

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Animated by David Speed. Using an 2 halves of an 8" plastic sphere, hinged at the bottom.
Look close enough, you'll see the join as it used two seperate  peices of animation!

The Coloured globe was part of the 1982 brand - as it was used at the start of the morning start up and used to accompany the digital clock used in links before the news.
The Minale Tattersfield Design brief from 1981, included the coloured globe; for some reason - on screen they used the Blue/white sphere throughout 1982 & 1983.

The animated Coloured globe was worked on during 1983 - and didn't go into use until the end of '83, so was first seen on screen in 1984.
The 'Cake' was part of the Autumn 1985 re-brand.

I don’t suppose you happen to know why, despite introducing the Cake for regional presentation in 1985, they continued to use the sphere on programme frontcaps and endcaps until 1988?

The 'cake' formed part of a new promotions brand - which launded during Autumn 1985 - it didn't include endcaps or a dedicated station ident at the time.
The package included 6 or 7 different animated versions of the Cake - all of different lengths; which would be used to fit in continuity slots.

The work was purely for trails/promotions and continuity. (Where they dropped in-vision continuity around that time)

The first station Ident version of the cake I saw - appeared on 35mm, minus it's captions & music dated from mid 1988.
Might still have it lurking in a can somewhere!

Though, to answer your question - not really sure why they continued with the Spheres for a while after; unless they knew a total re-brand was on the cards at some point, so continued with what they had until a final format was decided.
Also - didn't ITV companies drop opening idents sometime around 1989/90?

I do know by, Spring 1989 - the Animated "Central Production" cake & music was being included at the end of most programmes.