[Spencer]

Ah I right in thinking that apart from these brief reports on Central News, was no other effort made to introduce the change – it was something of a sudden, overnight switch?

[VMPhil]

This seemed like a rather pointless endeavour given Central and Westcountry continued to have their own continuity announcers and the regional news programmes didn't change name. Clearly just a corporate directive to have the Carlton name in as many places as possible even when it didn't make sense. And yet, all that is still preferable to the boring design-by-committee hearts and generic continuity we got in Granadaland.

[Milkshake]

Very weird comments going on around here about TVARK states this or according to them, There telling the truth....

the-media-leader.com 

Carlton To Rebrand Central And West Country Franchises - The Media Leader
Carlton Communications is to become the first ITV company to rename its franchis…
  Source: the-media-leader.com

Carlton To Rebrand Central And West Country Franchises:
Carlton Communications is to become the first ITV company to rename its franchises under the one brand name when, as from 6 September, Central Television and West Country Television become Carlton Central and Carlton West Country.

The move is part of a wider strengthening of the Carlton brand, announced in the company’s ten-point plan earlier in the year (see Carlton Communications Announces Ten-Point Plan). A spokesperson for Central Television said: “The TV marketplace has changed a lot in recent years, with the increase in channels and multichannel homes. Carlton plans to emphasise its brand in this marketplace, not only in television but also in books, video and international sales.”

As part of the rebranding, Carlton is to feature a whole new look and logo from 6 September. The new franchise names and Carlton’s revamp will both be promoted on air in the Carlton Communications ITV regions which broadcast to around 22 million people, or 40% of the population.

London tonight Friday 5th March 1999 and if you look at the end your see new London tonight logo being used from Monday 8th
youtu.be 

only know clip that ealry is 24th march 99.
www.youtube.com 

[Rdd]

This mostly contemporaneous article from Andrew Wiseman explains things in more detail. He did a piece to camera for Right to Reply at the time about it too.

625.uk.com 

Untitled

  Source: 625.uk.com

Now it’s easy to see it as a step in the direction of a single ITV identity but even in 1999 that wasn’t an inevitability about it. And the package itself was fantastic - far superior to the official Hearts look - its main crime was to drop the Central and Westcountry brands. (They spared HTV when they acquired that a year or two later, and instead gave it a weird hybrid of star and hearts).

[WillPS]

(They spared HTV when they acquired that a year or two later, and instead gave it a weird hybrid of star and hearts).

Only because the single ITV1 identity was by that point a 'when, not if', so it'd have been a futile exercise. In some ways it was a surprise they bothered changing the idents at all.

I'm sure if Carlton were certain that was the way it'd go within 3 years in 99 they wouldn't have bothered, but of course the landscape was very different then. I've seen some speculation that Carlton hoped to become the 'major partner' in the combined ITV and rename the whole lot to Carlton, but if that's the case those aspirations were certainly gone by 2001 when ONdigital was rebranded.

[Rdd]

Indeed.

My really vague memory (and no doubt someone will remember better!) is that play out for both HTVs, and continuity for HTV West was done by Meridian under United, and then when Carlton took over it was moved to Central for a period, and they needed the idents to be the same length for those reasons, hence why the hybrid idents existed at all. Could be wrong on that one, it is 23 years ago!

[lookoutwales]

My really vague memory (and no doubt someone will remember better!) is that play out for both HTVs, and continuity for HTV West was done by Meridian under United, and then when Carlton took over it was moved to Central for a period, and they needed the idents to be the same length for those reasons, hence why the hybrid idents existed at all. Could be wrong on that one, it is 23 years ago!

Wales playout was handled at Culverhouse Cross until some point after the ITV1 rebrand - and West TX was done from Meridian after being transferred from Cardiff.

AFAIK, Central only handled local playout for their own region until their TX operation closed in 2004.

[Stooky Bill]

This seemed like a rather pointless endeavour given Central and Westcountry continued to have their own continuity announcers and the regional news programmes didn't change name. Clearly just a corporate directive to have the Carlton name in as many places as possible even when it didn't make sense.

Well yes that was why it was done - to give everything the same name. The retaining of continuity was partly because the 3 had different schedules but also easier operationally.

I'm not sure what you mean by the name 'not making sense' - it's a brand name, it's doesn't necessarily need to mean anything. Certainly it made as much sense as Granada or HTV. One advantage they had was that the regional news in both regions was a geographic name so worked despite the name of the channel changing.... in fact they still work now even with another channel name

[VMPhil]

Sorry, I didn't mean the name Carlton itself didn't make sense, just that using Carlton on screen instead of Central or Westcountry didn't really make sense as it was essentially complicating the whole ITV network thing even further (i.e. Central part of the Carlton network part of the ITV network)

[WillPS]

Sorry, I didn't mean the name Carlton itself didn't make sense, just that using Carlton on screen instead of Central or Westcountry didn't really make sense as it was essentially complicating the whole ITV network thing even further (i.e. Central part of the Carlton network part of the ITV network)

They never referred to a Carlton 'network'. The name was Central/Westcountry, and it changed to Carlton, occasionally Carlton Central/Westcountry, but never 'Central part of Carlton' or similar. This wasn't like 'Channel 3 North East/Yorkshire'; the network was always ITV[1].

The regional news name didn't match but then that wasn't an unusual situation on ITV.

With the benefit of hindsight it's easy to write it off as pointless but it was clearly a maneuver to something, we'll never know truly what or how successful it was but it's a reasonable guess that it was about lining themselves up to be the senior partner in any merger.