Understanding Television Idents

Purpose & Design

Television Idents have been around since the early 1950’s, they were a way of identifying different channels by there logo in 15 seconds or less, since they didn’t have all the new technology that we have today they only showed a logo in black and white and with no moving images, the BBC’s first ident was recognisable and everyone nicknamed it ‘Bats Wings’, whereas now they have developed into colourful short films weather they are animated or real life imagery, that people can recognise to be with a certain channel and also to stand out to people and be different from the other idents for different channels, as well as giving the audience some insight on what type of programmes the channel airs.

E4 has been a companion channel to Channel 4 since 2001; they are a entertainment channel aimed at people between the ages of 15-35 years old as they show programmes like ‘2 Broke Girls’, ‘Hollyoaks’, ‘How I Met Your Mother’ etc. The idents for E4 are mostly animated, some are a mix of animation and real life imagery, and some of them can be inappropriate for people who are younger than the target audience’s age. In 2001 when E4 started the idents weren’t that different from what they are today, the first ever ident was of the E4 sign causing havoc breaking down the set and breaking the channel 4 sign which shows that E4 airs shows that are more inappropriate than what channel 4 airs. Since then they have developed to be more comedic and also have real life imagery involved in some of their idents. The ident that I choose to look at was a popular one that everyone knew about and whenever it came on they couldn’t help themselves but sing along to it (E4 - My Kingdom For A Horse) This is a very good example of the idents that E4 shows on there channel as well as it being recognisable as the E4 colours of purple being involved in the ident as well.

Another example is the crime scene idents by FX, these idents not only promote FX with the red squares flying around that represent them but it also promotes the type of programmes that they air, the ident shows the red squares flying around a crime scene showing tape and holes in a wall until they form themselves on the floor making a body shape before showing the actual FX sign at the end (FX - Crime Ident). The red squares floating around are recognisable for the viewers of FX as it is the red square the FX sign is actually put on.

 Opportunities

Idents are a way of promoting a TV channel, and also a way of showing what the channel has to offer for the target audience and a creative way of gaining more people watching that channel. When ITV was re-branded they changed there logo to be more colourful this is to show the wide range of different programming that they show, it also made it so they could make merchandise with this logo. 4Music idents are another good example as they are colourful and they always have two people dancing together to new music before showing the 4Music sign at the end, this is promoting that they play music and it is also goes with there target audience of 16-25 year olds (4Music - Dance).

Limitations

There are some limitations when it comes to idents, the typography has to be readable to the audience as well as appealing to the eye so the audience can recognise it, but also it has to be reflecting what type of channel it is for example CBBC is a channel for young kids so the font for each letter is different with there signature colour of green around the letters, BBC Sport o the other hand is all in the same font and is big and bold surrounded by the colour yellow, it is a more serious logo. When logo’s are up on the screen they have to have enough time on the screen for the audience to read as well as if it is moving it has to be moving slow enough for the audience as if it is going to fast it will be to blurry and hard to read. The size is also a big thing as you want to make sure that the whole logo fits into the screen of the television as some people have smaller televisions so they can be cut off to, the aspect ratio is for televisions now are 16:3 - 4:3, which means the logo has to be between those two otherwise people won’t be able to read them without it getting cut off.

Creative Communication

Over the years idents have developed a lot from just a black and white picture on a screen to colourful moving images, BBC One is an example of the change in idents their first ident was an image of the globe in blue and green and the logo at the bottom, now BBC One has kept the circle to represent the world but it has now changed to movie imagery making the circle, for example hippos swimming in a circle, surfers under a wave ect. with a voice over involved telling the audience what programmes will be coming on. Keeping the circle for the world involved in the idents is a way for the audience to still recognise the channel.

People who are apart if making an ident have a deadline for when they want the idents to be aired, they have to make sure that they meet the deadline otherwise they could lose money. When it comes to budgets it is hard to create an ident if the budget is low as it means they have to be careful with what they purchase and to make each penny count whereas if they had a big budget they wouldn’t have to worry as much as it gives them the freedom to be able to purchase things to be involved in the ident without being too worried that they could go over their budget. It’s important when creating an ident that you remember that it has to appeal to that target audience so if it was an ident for Cbeebies than it would have to be colourful and fun for the young kids that watch that channel, or if it was an ident for BBC Three than it would have to be comedic and appealing to young adults.