[Orry Verducci]

It's years since I've watched STV. 

Presumably the ITV feed to them is clean of announcer and credit squeeze so that STV can add their own credit squeezes and voiceovers. 

So why don't ITV just go the whole hog and provide a programmes-only clean feed to STV instead? It's not that difficult to achieve, BBC One and Two network provide a programmes-only clean feed for the Nations and it works very well.

Is there some benefit to ITV in that feed having promos and idents on it?

Yes the network feed taken by STV has the ITV branded network idents and promotions on the feed, but shows a static ITV logo slate during ads and regional slots, and doesn't carry any continuity (announcements, end credit promotion graphics) or the ITV logo DOG.

I work with ITV Pres and STV TX, rather than for them, so I'm not sure the specifics of why the network feed is setup the way it is. But I can explain what I do know.

Basically the network feed comes from a single network playlist on the automation (Morpheus). The output of this playlist is then fed back in to all the regional playlists, which are slaved to the main network playlist (excluding STV), so that most the time they take the network feed, but run their own events for ads and regional programming at the time the network playlist indicates they should do so.

The promotions and idents are on the network feed so that all the ITV regions can take them as a single feed, otherwise these presentation events would have to be duplicated across all the regions playlists. Doing so simplifies what is already a complex playout operation. This means STV, who directly take the network feed (like the ITV regions), also receive ITV's promotions and idents.

There probably are ways they could make this a programmes only feed, much like the BBC have, but that would add complexity to what is again an already complex operation. The BBC nations don't (usually) take any promotions or continuity from London, so they can easily provide a "network" feed with only programmes and then run BBC One Network (aka BBC One South) as a "region" on top of that "network" feed. If ITV wanted to do that, due to the fact presentation is shared across all their regions, that would require basically two slaved network playlists (unlike the BBC).

So does STV have ITV branded Promos etc the 6 till 9:25 bit?

Yes, between 6am and 9:25am STV is branded as ITV, as ITV are the license holder during that period. Viewers in Scotland see the same ITV promos, idents and logo on screen as the rest of the UK does. Although since the Lorraine show extended to 10am ITV do allow STV to switch back to their presentation in the ad break, which usually falls a couple minutes before 9:25am, otherwise there would be a messy switch during the show.

The exception to this is when major sporting events are on early morning during the breakfast slot, as was the case on Saturday with the rugby. Given the significant viewership and ad revenue involved with such events, ITV and STV have an agreement whereby ITV allow STV to stay on air with their presentation and ads throughout (under ITV's license). In return however STV owe ITV the time back later on. So ITV usually schedule a film in the afternoon, with the ads that should have been in the breakfast slot, and during that STV have to switch to the ITV branded feed. This happened yesterday during Despicable Me.