HTV West Ident

[scottvideos100]

I use to love watching different presentation Regional itv networks just before programmes started, i'm from the Anglia tv Region, so i remember this HTV jingle Quite well, shame too see ITV Regional ident gone, But dont worry folks, a new local uk tv Channel 6 could be heading to our screen very soon. local tv on your door step, coulding to media.

[mrspivvy]

shoestring...

[agfagaevart]

Children of the Stones...

[agustinmotta111]

the S is like Screen Gems 1973 in 0:03

[darren2514fv]

i have it on DVD on The Doombolt Chase 1978

[NewboldHicksProd]

Sshhhh!! Robin of Sherwood is about to start!

[marmite400]

Haunting. In a a good, wet afternoon way. I lived in the Thames region in the seventies and I remember, it seemed, the spooky supernatural children's show were preceded by this Logo.

[smiffy1071]

I think it's very sad that ITV ditched its local identities, in favour of one single brand. The BBC get away with it, because appart from regional news, that is all they have ever been. ITV don't even have that anymore, because they aren't making enough advertising revenue. (too many channels, not enough advertisers)

Frankly, I can't be bothered to watch commercial TV anymore!

[unicentre]

did they ever producea network programme?

[45collector]

@unicentre There were some childrens' drama series - 1972 Arthur Of The Britons (starring Oliver Tobias), 1977 Children Of The Stones, 1984 Robin Of Sherwood (might have shared that with another company), plus they made Mr And Mrs before Derek Batey did it in Border country. And Paint Along With Nancy.

[ctomarctus]

The concluding two notes remind me of the Nelson character on "The Simpsons", saying "HA-ha!"

[TomthatiscalledTom]

Raaawwwww binnnnn!!!!!

THE HOODED MAN!

[brucedanton]

Many thanks for the posting. HTV of course, had both Wales and West versions of this ident as I remember.

Well done!

[davidpar2]

cool music and graphic. another station i.d. i've never sen before (u.s. here)

[TUFCGULL2002]

I always liked this one.

[krakenwave]

this was how you knew the horizontal hold on your b&w telly was truly fucked

[CleanLineFilms]

reminiscent of throbbing gristle's "lightning" sigil - which - like the nazi SS symbol - was meant to evoke the sensation of "hard paranoia".

[JHollowayNetwork]

1970-1987: was Royal Blue, until the arrival of S4C in 1982.

[keithc1977]

The Waterfall.

[JohnnyTheWolfLupino]

The punk rock of ITV idents!

[FILABJBOY]

Reminds me of the 70s and 80s as a kid watching school and childrens tv......

[pooka1967]

That frightened me a bit as a child.

[iwantchoccy]

@pooka1967 me too, no idea why, just convinced the htv west logo was going to suck me into the telly and eat me... never an issue with the htv wales one though...

[alphabetaxenonzzzcat]

Ahhh always remember this logo on before Robin of Sherwood started!

[LollieSmith]

scary

[iblob666]

My first child was born with this playing in the background. Great memories (yeah right!)

[SlimeTron5000]

@iblob666 o really?

[allen1jeremy]

This ident was shown before the game shows Definition & Three Little Words

[darrowby1972]

@allen1jeremy - Three little words? with Ray Allan & "Barbie" - wow! There was also "Keynotes" with Alistair Duval!

[allen1jeremy]

Keynotes began in 1989 a year after ITV ditched the frontcaps

[SlimeTron5000]

I think a full version of the 1970s jingle exists.

[robmorganmedia]

When I was a child I was in a HTV drama called the Clifton House Mystery, I used to get goose bumps as the control room used to run this ident before filming the opening of each episode through out the whole studio. Great memories

[UKSazzy67]

That bit of trumpet at the end sounds really westcountry to me, I don't know why. It doesn't say to me "Harlech". I didn't know until 1992 that the "H" in HTV stood for Harlech. You live and learn.

[darrowby1972]

But you just knew a dull and boring programme was to follow!

[carlosvandangos2]

haha yes i agree!!!!!

[donjabroni]

Was it done on a Scanimate or was that done by pure animation?

[gallafey]

in the Granada tv area if you lived anywhere like Leigh or St Helens Or Wigan u can easly pick HTV up a little bit fuzzy though

[Woollylinnet]

@gallafey Indeed, we could pick HTV up from Wigan during the 1980s, and S4C right up until analogue transmissions ended.

[jinshanling]

reminded me of a motorway when I was a kid, or maybe BR/Sealink :)

[hermitageboy]

wow, brings back memories! i love these old tv intros!

[bens1972]

It's called the waterfall ident

[greendiamonte]

this is great, brought back some memories

[LollieSmith]

I remember this. It reminds me of dark trees and a river. Dont know why..

all of these old idents are terrifying

[iwantchoccy]

@LollieSmith yes! It can't just be me who was always terrified the HTV ident was going to eat them as a kiddy? Right? the replacement htv logo (the itv with the dove into htv) was much less creepy

[RobertTheDodger654]

Nice ident - pity the music reminds me of someone drowning in a river.

[KentuckyFriedGunman]

That's pretty morbid...... lol

[parakalow]

Hooter!

[unseenglow]

One of my favourite idents that one. HTV should really still be going.

[seagullonthewind]

The HTV ident was my favourite from those times. Think it's sad that ITV has given up its regional identities for a single brand. I don't think they really made the case for it either.

[BuddyFantastic]

true. Sadly in todays TV business world, money matters more than anything else.....Even if it means ridding us of regional TV identities. A few years back, up here, we lost Grampian TV to Glasgow's Scottish Television (STV). Needless to say, it's gone downhill.

[donjabroni]

Money always mattered in TV business. That's why TVS got the shaft. Nothing was different back then than it was now and nothing will change in the future.

[bluesbrother37]

Not as good as the Southern tv ident!

[panda792]

that music on it reminds me of the apointment with fear start up theme tune

[j4wn]

these idents would confuse the fuck out of people under 25. It would be like "wtf are these?"

[BAYCITYROLLERBOY]

The best TV series they made was Robin of Sherwood in the early 1980s,with Micheal Pread as Robin.

[UKSazzy67]

Why were there 2 TV stations covering the West of England? There was also Westward Television. Did their transmission areas ever overlap? Please sort out this confusion for me?!

[natethegalah]

Westward covered the South West region (now ITV Westcountry) & HTV West covered the West of England (Bristol, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire) The 2 regions do have quite a large overlap area into Somerset & HTV (now ITV West) also overlaps with parts of the Meridian region in parts of Wiltshire & Dorset.

[DFORCE1969]

Residents of gloucestershire could also receive Southern (later TVS); oh how lucky we were! 3 different regional news programmmes to chose from;Wow!

[kingofthecastle1]

Paint Along With Nancy was shown at lunch time before The Cedar Tree and Crown Court.... The golden age of afternoon TV...

[JimShadyUK]

Oof - you just floored me with that! "The Cedar Tree" - I hadn't thought about that for years!

The HTV theme means Robin Of Sherwood to me, so good memories!

[kingofthecastle1]

makes me think of the scarey 'King of The Castle'.....the serial where Roland gets trapped in a lift shaft.....

[bidanton]

Yes, I remember King of the Castle as well!

It was made in and around Bristol by HTV West and shown on ITV in the Spring of 1977.

When Roland lands at the bottom of the lift shaft, he meets all kinds of strange characters. Welsh actor Talfryn Thomas was in it, and he kept a set of keys as I recall.

[Toecutter421]

Reminds me of supergran.

[fenn23x]

its so warm n cosy

[BNCA70]

I recorded this and now use it as a text alert! cool

[hellsbells36]

excellent very nostalgic!!

[fenn23x]

i love the music , its cosy and heart worming , it makes me want some hot choclate yum

[parakalow]

Brilliant! This ident is so unusual. I love to hear it.

[ATVmidlands5581]

i remember this well. great to see again. pity these regional stations all closed. this was when ITV had integrity and individuality. stations like ATV, westward, Thames, LWT, Southern etc all contributed to the ITV network and brought rich diversity and quality programming. ITV1 just puts profits before the viewers these days. thanks for posting

[imcadam121]

I certainly remember this one.

It used to spook me as a kid!.

I'm certain the it preceeded a networked programme at dinnertime,but I can't remember which one!.

[bidanton]

It may have been About Britain, Mr and Mrs or Paint Along With Nancy as these were all produced by HTV West at one time.

[imcadam121]

Thanks for that!.

[bidanton]

That's quite alright!

Paint Along With Nancy was a series with Nancy Kominsky in which she did various paintings. It ran in the 1970s in the daytime as I recall and was made at HTV West in Bristol.

HTV also had the Wales franchise of ITV broadcasting from Cardiff. It still makes Welsh programmes that are shown on S4C as far as I know.

Glad to have been of help though!

[kraftneu]

You could be right.

[TvTimes1966]

I thought it was done with a Stylophone :)

[kraftneu]

I assume the tune is done by a EMS VCS3 Synthesizer??, with a light brass orchestra??

[gilhams]

Sounds like a close miked hammond organ with some brass and maybe a clarinet and flute thrown in. The last two notes were reputed to represent the word "Harlech". Not sure I can hear that myself!

[Hoddersrevenge]

IIRC a Hammond organ is definitely there with a spot of brass.

[spankmonkey73]

The original was lower pitched with a shorter final note, making the last two notes sound a lot more like "Har-la" than in this version.

Have a listen to the 'harlech tv' video in the Related Videos section on the right and see what you think. (No, it's not my video.)

[spankmonkey73]

'lower' should read 'higher'

[smiffy1071]

I always wondered why it was "harlech television" and not some other name. After all, culverhouse cross (cardiff) is nowhere near harlech castle in north west wales.

[dublinbrazilianblue]

I think it was called Harlech because the owner of the channel was Lord Harlech!!!!

[smiffy1071]

that would explain it!

[dublinbrazilianblue]

I'm not from that part of the world, in fact ITV don't have a franchise in the Rep. of Ireland but we do receive UTV, u can receive HTV Wales in some parts of the country, I love my TV history so I research as much as possible. These old clips are telly gold, and that ident is great though I never saw it as a kid, front caps must have been dropped by the time it launched :(

[bidanton]

As you can receive UTV in the Rep. of Ireland you are perfectly welcome to comment on British tv history-and why not?

HTV Wales is nowadays shown as ITV1 Wales by the way though.

[dublinbrazilianblue]

I'm thinking of the 1988 ident incidentally I can just about remember the one on this video!!!!!

[AidanLunn]

That tune freaks me out!

[AntarcticaTelevision]

Classic ident used from 1970 (when colour arrived at Wales and Western England) to 1987 (when HTV introduced a new, slicker computerised ident). Featuring Harlech/HTV's famous "wobbly" ident, originally used on the 1968-70 "Harlech" ident, and continued to be used on the ident seen here.