Last Updated: February 11, 2020
LWT started their broadcasting life on 2nd August 1968, taking ATV's position in London's Weekend franchise. LWT started to carry on where ATV left off in the London area, bringing top quality entertainment programmes. In fact, LWT were best known as being "The Entertainers" in the mid 80's. Broadcasting from the South Bank studios, LWT revolutionised Saturday evening programming with top quality entertainment series such as Blind Date, Gladiators, It'll Be Alright On The Night and more recently Popstars. LWT was bought out by Granada in the mid 90's, and continues to flourish as an entertainer.
The first ident was this simple b/w effort, basically using text and zoom. Strange use of electronics for the jingle as well!
An excellent use of animation for this ident, as the legend "London Weekend" appears by the rotation of the ring. A black and white version was also used, until the introduction of colour in Nov. 1969. The three lined look of the ring possibly gave birth to the idea of the next ident...
A style of logo to stay with the company for 26 years, this is the first of a series of "ribbon" idents, initially designed to look like the River Thames.
Continuing on the "ribbon" theme, London Weekend updated themselves ready for the 80's by changing their company name to LWT.
Computer graphics were in vogue by the time LWT updated their main ident set to this effect, with a local verison based on electronic billboards.
This is the first stage of the end-caps from this era, with the copyright details for 1987 engraved onto the end-cap.
LWT has always been a big player of the ITV network, constantly producing promos and trailers for the ITV network. So it would seem inevitable that LWT would embrace the generic look of 1989 with wide open arms. A small change of detail on this ident, look how the opening letters are arranged, they are slanted in a style that would last with LWT for 7 years.
Production end-cap for this era.
LWT continued to adopt and develop the ITV style of 1989 by updating their main idents with this dual-branded ident. Two versions were shown regularly, the above, and one without the ITV logo.
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LWT produced some of the best set of idents in TV history through this period. Adopting the times, LWT updated their logo to represent images of the type of programmes that they were showing, with a variety of sports variants used for different occasions.
LWT embraced the ITV generic age again in 1999, however they were apparently critisised because many people though the idents were "rubbish", and didn't reflect properly the style of LWT. These idents were swiftly dropped by LWT making them the first to reject the full generic style.
LWT retaliated to the critics by producing this generic-style set of idents. Using video wall technology and a pan-cam, LWT produced the best substitute to the generic idents.
The final day for LWT saw an unusual early start, unusual unless you were in the 1970's. Start-up's and mechanical clocks were the scene of ITV in the 1970's and this was lovingly recreated by an in-house team including Gareth Randall for show on LWT's final "local" day. The results was the following imagery, adopted to today's 16:9 world. The only thing not widescreen as such was the classic photo of the South Bank Studios. Apart from that, the entire package is a treasure and a testament to what ITV used, and should be.
Later in the day, preceding one of LWT's longest running programmes "The South Bank Show" came a recreated 1978 ident with Glen Thompsett voiceover.
Finally, LWT's last local announcement is made in the form of a backstage pass into the continuity booth, followed by LWT's visual history; 34 years in 1 minute & 40 seconds. LWT, you are the entertainer of ITV, and you always will be.
Other LWT Sites Of Interest TV World - LWT Page MHP - LWT Ident Zone LWT Logos - TV50 Transdiffusion - LWT Page RealVideos and images used with permission with thanks to the following people: Asa Hicks (TV Home), Steve Hackett (TV Ark), Steve Yates (TV50), Mike McGonagle (TV Room) |
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Current Comments
1 comments so far (Add Comment)Looking for vide archives from show Credo or Crado - about Father Jerzy Popieluszkowho was murdered in Poland in 1984
Paul Neuberg was producer for Credo Michael Snow was the editor. Time of broadcast late 1981?
Thank you - Paul Hensler
Posted by Paul hensler on Monday, 27.05.13 @ 09:43am | #8513