Hibernian Television (remastered)

Originally by **Rick Buchanan**
Remastered by **Ben Gia Tran**
Compiled by **Theresa Hendren**

As ITV programmes could be picked up across the majority of Ireland, the Irish Government decided, in 1962, that in addition to RTE broadcasting from Dublin, a UK ITV franchise would benefit the viewers (and the company's advertising revenue of course), and legitimise the reception of the channel across all of Ireland. Hibernian Television was chosen as the favoured bidder for the franchise, which was awarded in 1962, to broadcast to all areas of Ireland except Northern Ireland, which was already covered by Ulster. Hibernian's studios were based in central Dublin. The station could, however, be received in most areas of Northern Ireland, albeit on a different frequency to that of Ulster.

The Harp was the new channel's logo, as it was the symbol of the Irish state. The first Hibernian ident, which was static, was accompanied by, appropriately enough, a short piece of harp music.

A slight tweak of the harp, losing its box and decreasing in size.

The harp grows in size again and the text becomes a lot bolder.

For the arrival of colour in 1969, this gaudy ident was created, reinstating the 1965 typeface and layout. Note that the harp has lost its stings to create a bolder image.

By the late 70s the "colour" was dropped, the colours toned down a bit. This was Hibernian's longest running ident, but was somewhat lacking in imagination.

For 1984, the "21 Years of Service" line was added at the bottom. At the end of 1984, Hibernian reverted to the previous ident.

In 1986, the original harp was retired, to be replaced by a bolder, and less fussy version. The in-house graphics team produced this shaded ident, which had lights moving across both the harp and the text and background.

Hibernian's version of the generic 1989 ITV logo, which was produced by the Network Centre. It was used for all programme links for almost a year, before being ditched for...

... this. The ITV animated ident remained, but instead of forming the ITV logo at the end, the Hibernian harp appeared out of the blurred background. Not wanting to completely kill the ITV branding, the logo was discreetly placed at the bottom of the screen.

The ITV logo did not last for long, however. Soon, the old harp motif was moved to the side of the Hibernian name, which too increased in prominence. Unlike most of the franchise holders of the period, there was no mention of the ITV name made for some years to come.

To celebrate the retention of the franchise, and 30 years of broadcasting, Hibernian kept the same logo, but added a series of new background images, which showed various locations throughout Ireland. The images would initially be in full focus, and would then pull out of focus, before the Hibernian name and logo were faded in.

After Hibernian's 30th birthday celebrations, further versions of the locations theme were added. This is just one of a set of 10 which ran until 2001.

1998 saw a few significant developments. Hibernian started broadcasting on cable systems throughout Ireland, in widescreen. Therefore, all their idents were in 16:9 ratio. The Hibernian harp was once again re-designed, this time in a 3D format, and was considerably more stylised than previous. A new, all lower case font was used, in italic form, and the website URL was added for the first time. Note that Hibernian were still using the same background image for their ident, which had been adapted for widescreen broadcasting.

In 1999, the new ITV logo was introduced. Hibernian, along with Scottish, Ulster and Grampian, refused to use the generic "hearts" designs, but instead discreetly placed the ITV logo at the top left hand side of the screen, the first time since 1991 that ITV had been mentioned on the channel.

Hibernian finally started to use the "hearts" design, but only following the introduction of the ITV1 name in August 2001.