End boards are usually the final image to be seen on a TV show, explaining the name of the production company or copyright owner and sometimes also the year of production. In the modern television era, these graphics are animated, but the phrase ‘end board’ dates back to the ‘golden age’ of television with which TVARK is preoccupied, when they actually were small, flat pieces of card with artwork mounted on them, perhaps 3 x 4 inches in size and mounted on a stand. To compliment our history of LWT idents, here is our collection of the company’s end boards from 1968 to 2004; we’re always on the lookout for more!
Unlike many other ITV regions, including Thames in London, LWT tended not to clutter its end boards with copyright symbols or dates of production, except for a brief period in the mid-1980s during the Genesis/Solari idents era. Closing credits rollers for LWT programmes also omitted copyright production dates until at least the late 1970s. For a short while in the 1990s, LWT featured two sets of end boards – a chrome-effect “LWTP” graphic with a date, followed by a white “LWT for ITV” design. When Granada and later ITV got its teeth into the company, programmes reverted to using one board only without a copyright symbol or date. From 2002 – 2004, full frame boards displayed the logos of LWT and its parent company Granada. Then in 2004, Granada made the decision that every show made within its empire would be known as a Granada production, which meant that LWT programmes were branded Granada London Productions. These days everything is simply boarded as an ITV Studios Production.