Grampian Television Idents The Picture Gallery

The development and evolution of the Grampian Television logo is charted through four decades, including a look at some rarely seen variations.

This is the original black and white logo used by Grampian Television when they launched in September, 1961.

This is the colour logo used by Grampian Television in the 1970s and early 1980s.

This logo was introduced in 1985, but it only lasted a few years...

...before being replaced by this one. Can you spot the difference? The St. Andrew's Flag has been rendered in 3D using a computer.

In recent years, the St. Andrew's Flag has been tilted on its side, although the non-tilted version could often still be seen if you watched carefully. When the in-vision continuity was phased out in the summer of 1998, programme announcements were initially made over this image.

This new version of the logo was introduced on Wednesday 7th October, and was used for continuity announcements, especially in those places where the generic ITV ident had previously been used. Replaced less than one week later, this is one of the rarest Grampian logos.

This is continuity ident was introduced in the second week of October 1998, less than one week after the introduction of the above logo which it replaced. It remained in use until February 2000, when it was replaced by...

A brand new image for Grampian, and startling new logo. Breaking with a tradition stretching back to the early 1960s, the St. Andrews Flag is gone and a dazzling blue sapphire effect sparkles onto the screen!

At the same time, this new break bumper is introduced. Visit our New Look for 2000 pages for a full guided tour of the new idents now seen on Grampian!

Here are some variations of the above idents, starting with a Gaelic version of the current logothe . This is typically shown at end of Gaelic programmes such as Telefios na Seachdain.

An end of programme caption from 1990, showing the Grampian logo presented in the generic ITV style of 1989.

An end of programme caption from 1991. Interestingly, this caption actually features the 1985 version of the Grampian logo rather than the three-dimensional version which was already in use by the end of the 1980s.

An end caption recorded in December 1997.

This caption was shown before programmes featuring in the OKTV experiment. Mike Clarke explains:

OKTV was a joint venture between Grampian and Scottish run on Teletext. You had to buy a special handset, then tune in to certain programmes (Soldier Soldier was one example). You then set the Teletext to a particular page (somewhere in the 600-699 range, can't remember the exact page) and certain questions would come up on the screen (for Soldier Soldier, these would be on the programme, the characters and the real armed forces). You typed the answers into your OKTV handset, then a special code number which the Teletext page would give you. Finally, you connected the handset to your phone and "downloaded" the answers to OKTV. The incentive for all this fluffing about was a prize of (I think) £100 on offer for each OKTV programme.

Recommended Links

The 1989 ITV Corporate Look includes examples of all the regional variants of the generic ITV logo
The Transdiffusion site has a page celebrating Grampian idents
The grampian tv site is the official source of information about Grampian Television