Breakfast shows now getting promo airtime on UTV

There seems to have been an interesting change to UTV’s promotions policy lately. ITV’s breakfast and morning programmes are now being properly promoted – just as they are in other ITV plc regions.

Up until recently, there were no trails on UTV for Good Morning Britain and Lorraine, and only limited promotion of This Morning. The exact reason for this wasn’t obvious.

It may have been a legacy of UTV’s own policy prior to the ITV plc takeover in 2016, or it may have been a question of logistics – the difficulties of rebranding quick turnaround topical trails for UTV.

Either way, it led to a slightly odd scenario – often these daytime trails were covered by promos for UTV’s local output such as View from Stormont. Not perhaps the programmes which would be a promotion priority at 9am?

Since 2016, UTV has normally followed the same promotions schedule as ITV network – allowing for disruption to include trails for local output.

With breakfast and topical daytime output now being fully trailed, with UTV-branded versions, the last editorial difference between the trails policy on ITV and UTV seems to have ended. Whether this means fewer trails for local output overall – or the timing of local trails is merely different – remains to be seen.

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