I think Central deserves a full Ident Review video in the future. This video seems to only touch the surface, as Central has a lot of different and impressive idents throughout its life compared to the other ITV franchises, perhaps the best ones among all of them.
I love this channel. Central TV is infamous to viewers of Challenge nowadays thanks to repeats of Bullseye which is one of my favourite programmes on there. The ITV regional idents are amazing to me, it wasn't just one channel across the UK like the BBC and Channel 4 were. These were Independent TV companies for local areas and it gave local people the chance to give their local area the chance to shine. Life seemed much simpler then. Keep up the good work Adam
Brilliant! Been waiting for a Central ident review for ages! The Central logo still remains my favourite TV logo to this day, even beating the BBC Two idents for me! I love the fact that they did almost everything with it, from CGI to live action! I think my favourite Central ident though has to be the one where the coloured balls fall into the crescent part of the cake, colouring it in, it's a simple sequence but I've always thought it has a certain charm to it that TV idents don't have these days!😁😁
A trip down memory Lane. I remember another one where it was static but each block spun on its axis from top to bottom one after the other. For the 80’s it felt so cutting edge!
I lived in the Central TV area in the last few years before they moved to the ITV / Carlton branding. I must admit I don't really remember them that well. One thing I do remember was that one of the requirements was a requirement to produce more content in the East Midlands, and hence they built the Lenton Lane studios in Nottingham. There were pieces of sculpture placed on its roof which from the train into Nottingham lines up to look like their logo. The studios were short lived and are site is now a university of Nottingham campus.
Nice video, Adam. By chance I'm enjoying your 'Doctor Who' ratings guides, only to find that by coincidence you're also a fellow vintage TV continuity/ident fan as well! I recall that, in terms of ITV, Central was pretty much the big first to go with the whole early-computer generated imagery stuff for their idents, suddenly making some of the other regions idents of the time rather dated (though I loved those for their sheer charm; never really enjoyed computer-y graphics quite so much). I guess this is why so much of ITV's children's output of the era - including the original Children's ITV continuity itself - came from Central, as it lent itself well to their whole "fancy, exciting graphics" outlook on things. From memory (bearing in mind I was in the Thames/London Weekend region so only got to see very select Central output), whenever Central brought in their latest fancy new idents, starting in 1985-ish, at first they would go delightfully overboard with it (Kind of akin to ... nerdy reference... when Homer Simpson did his own web page and threw in literally EVERY POSSIBLE effect and graphic going to the point of overkill!!) ... maybe verging a bit too full on in some instances, and by a few weeks later would have generally refined all the 'bells and whistles' slightly, making it far nicer and slicker to watch. Looking forward to you covering the LWT and truly world-famous Thames idents. :)
Note as well that when Central launched the cake ident, the “structure” of their continuity junctions changed, especially using special idents with programme names over them instead of using traditional programme caption slides. Also gone were the lengthy periods of in-vision announcers talking to camera. They’d fill every moment with adverts, trailers or idents between programmes.
I think Central must have been one of, if not THE first, to phase out the in-vision continuity announcers. In most regions, they were still a staple of local continuity well into the late 1980s and even early 1990s. I have to say, I do miss that in a way; everything felt a bit more sterile and less personal when they all eventually did away with "less people, more graphics". :)
@@pjgathergood6987 LWT had mostly phased them out from about 1982 onwards, only having them appear in-vision when they were reading out the late night “London News Headlines”.
@@stickytapenrust6869 True but with a "yes and no", they did indeed remain for the news links but sometimes 'bled over' into early-ish evening continuity, though this too was gone by about 1987-ish. They remained on Thames more regularly for several years after that. I've got a compilation of "continuity that I liked from the era"(!) that I made aged about 10 that I really must try and upload some year soon. ... It's reassuring i wasn't the only nerdy one into such stuff. 🙂
@@pjgathergood6987 In fact, IIRC Granada did without IVC from launch until the late 70s (after Sidney Bernstein retired, as he didn’t like IVC), then returned to only out-of-vision announcing for a few months during 1982. Yorkshire TV had in-vision announcers early on but they had gone by new year 1969.
The Cake is something I only really discovered in all its glory in the internet age, as I'm sure most of us did living outside its region. Mostly it would only be seen at the end of programmes, and if you watched ITV Schools on Channel 4, you'd sometimes see it in motion, with it's stirring jingle. The Cake's initial idents, with its coloured blocks and black background, were so much like Channel 4, I've often wondered if they were made by the same company, before the technology improved enough in the 90s for Central to do it themselves.
I'm 30 now so I just caught the tail end of the Central cake era (in the 90s), I do have fond memories of the central idents, even in the 90s they felt fresh and modern still.
Great video Adam Central TV was awesome epsically with Crossroads and Bullseye and a bunch of other good shows even tho Crossroads originally aired back on ATV back in 1964 it was still great when it aired on Central TV
The Central Television Logo Is Also Appears On ITV Studios Shows Like Thomas The Tank Engine And Friends The Original Series In 1984 And Tots TV In 1993 And Rosie And Jim The Original Series In 1990. Thanks Mate. X
Central has my favourite idents. Safe to say, Central is my favourite ITV Franchisse ident wise, but history wise I prefer smaller companies (Tyne Tees for example)
To be honest it didn't make it past 1999 when Carlton ditched the cake for crap idents and then ditched the name altogether. I for one was glad when 2002 came and never heard the word Carlton again!
I think Central deserves a full Ident Review video in the future. This video seems to only touch the surface, as Central has a lot of different and impressive idents throughout its life compared to the other ITV franchises, perhaps the best ones among all of them.
I love this channel. Central TV is infamous to viewers of Challenge nowadays thanks to repeats of Bullseye which is one of my favourite programmes on there. The ITV regional idents are amazing to me, it wasn't just one channel across the UK like the BBC and Channel 4 were. These were Independent TV companies for local areas and it gave local people the chance to give their local area the chance to shine. Life seemed much simpler then. Keep up the good work Adam
Channel 4 wasn’t the same across the UK, it was S4C in Wales.
Thank you Owen!
Brilliant! Been waiting for a Central ident review for ages! The Central logo still remains my favourite TV logo to this day, even beating the BBC Two idents for me! I love the fact that they did almost everything with it, from CGI to live action! I think my favourite Central ident though has to be the one where the coloured balls fall into the crescent part of the cake, colouring it in, it's a simple sequence but I've always thought it has a certain charm to it that TV idents don't have these days!😁😁
I like how these CGI blocks in the idents forms the Central "Cake" logo.
A clever sequence for the time for sure!
A trip down memory Lane. I remember another one where it was static but each block spun on its axis from top to bottom one after the other. For the 80’s it felt so cutting edge!
I lived in the Central TV area in the last few years before they moved to the ITV / Carlton branding. I must admit I don't really remember them that well. One thing I do remember was that one of the requirements was a requirement to produce more content in the East Midlands, and hence they built the Lenton Lane studios in Nottingham. There were pieces of sculpture placed on its roof which from the train into Nottingham lines up to look like their logo. The studios were short lived and are site is now a university of Nottingham campus.
Nice video, Adam. By chance I'm enjoying your 'Doctor Who' ratings guides, only to find that by coincidence you're also a fellow vintage TV continuity/ident fan as well! I recall that, in terms of ITV, Central was pretty much the big first to go with the whole early-computer generated imagery stuff for their idents, suddenly making some of the other regions idents of the time rather dated (though I loved those for their sheer charm; never really enjoyed computer-y graphics quite so much). I guess this is why so much of ITV's children's output of the era - including the original Children's ITV continuity itself - came from Central, as it lent itself well to their whole "fancy, exciting graphics" outlook on things.
From memory (bearing in mind I was in the Thames/London Weekend region so only got to see very select Central output), whenever Central brought in their latest fancy new idents, starting in 1985-ish, at first they would go delightfully overboard with it (Kind of akin to ... nerdy reference... when Homer Simpson did his own web page and threw in literally EVERY POSSIBLE effect and graphic going to the point of overkill!!) ... maybe verging a bit too full on in some instances, and by a few weeks later would have generally refined all the 'bells and whistles' slightly, making it far nicer and slicker to watch. Looking forward to you covering the LWT and truly world-famous Thames idents. :)
The 'gentle yet catchy tune' that went with the original Central (moon) logo was composed by Brian Bennett. I believe.
First time watching your videos in a good while and it feels like I haven't missed much (that's in a positive uplifting way)
Note as well that when Central launched the cake ident, the “structure” of their continuity junctions changed, especially using special idents with programme names over them instead of using traditional programme caption slides.
Also gone were the lengthy periods of in-vision announcers talking to camera. They’d fill every moment with adverts, trailers or idents between programmes.
I think Central must have been one of, if not THE first, to phase out the in-vision continuity announcers. In most regions, they were still a staple of local continuity well into the late 1980s and even early 1990s. I have to say, I do miss that in a way; everything felt a bit more sterile and less personal when they all eventually did away with "less people, more graphics". :)
@@pjgathergood6987 LWT had mostly phased them out from about 1982 onwards, only having them appear in-vision when they were reading out the late night “London News Headlines”.
@@stickytapenrust6869 True but with a "yes and no", they did indeed remain for the news links but sometimes 'bled over' into early-ish evening continuity, though this too was gone by about 1987-ish. They remained on Thames more regularly for several years after that. I've got a compilation of "continuity that I liked from the era"(!) that I made aged about 10 that I really must try and upload some year soon. ... It's reassuring i wasn't the only nerdy one into such stuff. 🙂
@@pjgathergood6987 In fact, IIRC Granada did without IVC from launch until the late 70s (after Sidney Bernstein retired, as he didn’t like IVC), then returned to only out-of-vision announcing for a few months during 1982.
Yorkshire TV had in-vision announcers early on but they had gone by new year 1969.
I was originally from the Midlands area so me and my mom remember it. We are in the anglia area now for nearly 16 years.
The Cake is something I only really discovered in all its glory in the internet age, as I'm sure most of us did living outside its region. Mostly it would only be seen at the end of programmes, and if you watched ITV Schools on Channel 4, you'd sometimes see it in motion, with it's stirring jingle. The Cake's initial idents, with its coloured blocks and black background, were so much like Channel 4, I've often wondered if they were made by the same company, before the technology improved enough in the 90s for Central to do it themselves.
I'm 30 now so I just caught the tail end of the Central cake era (in the 90s), I do have fond memories of the central idents, even in the 90s they felt fresh and modern still.
Great video Adam Central TV was awesome epsically with Crossroads and Bullseye and a bunch of other good shows even tho Crossroads originally aired back on ATV back in 1964 it was still great when it aired on Central TV
The PSB version of It's A Sin was played on Radio 2 today!
Even better! Really makes me like I've hopped on this new marathon now, I'm exited as to what will come next.
More will come soon! Got a long way to go! 😁
@@AdamMartyn Thanks so much Adam
I mean, after ATV there is Central, it's natural! Good video Adam!
Thanks Roger!
@@AdamMartyn No worries!
Moon ident was the main ident that stood out for me
I preferred it to the ‘cake’.
Central has a LOT of idents. You could dedicate a full length Ident Review episode to them.
The Central Television Logo Is Also Appears On ITV Studios Shows Like Thomas The Tank Engine And Friends The Original Series In 1984 And Tots TV In 1993 And Rosie And Jim The Original Series In 1990. Thanks Mate. X
Great video. I miss central. Where I lived we lost central and got put with Yorkshire for some reason, then they got rid of it.
Central has my favourite idents. Safe to say, Central is my favourite ITV Franchisse ident wise, but history wise I prefer smaller companies (Tyne Tees for example)
this isnt my region, yet! I kinda want to make a cake based on the central ident!
I was in the Anglia region growing up.
Anglia will have its time in the spotlight soon! 😁
Next episode for the ident review:nick at nite 1985 idents
I'm obsessed with 90s Idents... Help.
You and me both 😂
@@AdamMartyn lol. Bit off topic, but I miss that slowed down rhythm is a dancer song at the end of you're videos.
Does anyone know what the piano instrumental is that is playing in the background?
Sky Channel and The Children Channel had the best logo in the early 80s 1984
Next episode:london weekend television
Great video
Thanks Thomas!
@@AdamMartyn can't remember if I've already asked this LoL
Sorry if I have
What doctor who Blu ray collection would you want next
I'd love for it to be a 60s season! That or S22!
@@AdamMartyn oooo. Season 2 if I had to pick from the 60s. I'd want season 15
When is the 7th Doctor viewing figures coming out my man?
Haven't decided on a date yet so I'm not too sure! The Season 24 video is completed though and is available on Early Access via Patreon or Ko-fi :)
To bad central television didn't make it past 2002
To be honest it didn't make it past 1999 when Carlton ditched the cake for crap idents and then ditched the name altogether. I for one was glad when 2002 came and never heard the word Carlton again!
Vibing with the amount of colour tbh 😍😍😍😍🌈🌈🌈🌈
big colourful vibes woooo 😍😍😍😍
Total contrast to Anglia.
Would Central/ATV have served the west midlands as well?
Yes i remember the central cake and im from the west mids
Baaaa-daaaaa-bup-baaaahhh!
Whoops sorry - wrong channel.