Break Bumpers 

3 August 2003 tbs.pm/3382

Break Bumpers – those small animations which appear just before the adverts start.

Most people think they’re quite a recent invention, however they’ve been used on screen since the early days of ITV (then known as optics).

Tyne Tees has had its fair share of them, some of which are below:

1991

One of the first Tyne Tees bump breakers we know of is this example from 1991. Like most bumpers it was designed to match the ident from the same time.

1992

A similar version was introduced in May 1992 alongside the revised logo with the silver background. The style was similar – the Tyne Tees logo forming from a circle in the middle of the screen. Also added were the words “Tyne Tees” as they appeared on the ident.

1998

This ITV generic bumper was introduced on Tyne Tees in 1998. It replaced the existing TTTV bumper introduced upon the death of Channel 3 North East (sadly we have neither of these on tape).

It was introduced across many of the ITV companies, well before the ITV generic logo was introduced. Based on the ITV theme of being at the heart, it consists of a heart splashing in some black ink.

1999

During the 1999 40th anniversary celebrations, Tyne Tees had a special ruby bumper, to match the 40th birthday ident.

2001

The original ITV ink splash bumper was one of a number of bumpers introduced, but only ink was used on the northern stations. However with the introduction of the ITV1 brand, Leeds started using this purple heart version as well as a re-branded ink splash. The background appears to be a form of purple crushed velvet.

The change to ITV1 also saw ink splash being updated with the new logo. Notice how much larger the ITV logo is in comparison to the 1999 version.

2002

With the 2002 rebrand, and the removal of the local brand names, the new breaker would of course be ITV1 branded. However it was hardly extravagant in it’s animation with the ITV1 merely moving towards the screen a bit.