Unit 32 - AS1 - Task 1

An introduction to TV idents

Tv idents are the little animations in-between programmes on a television channel. There are many functions that the ident can provide, the most basic function is to remind the viewer what channel they are watching. The first TV ident to be used was by the BBC which was nicknamed the 'Bat's Wings'. It first appeared in 1953 and was just a still image that is much simpler than todays idents which include animations and brighter colours. The most famous BBC ident was a globe rotating with the "BBC TV" logo on top of it.

Another use for the ident was to inform the viewer the scheduling of programs on the channel. This may be used to try and entice the viewer to stay tuned on the channel just in case a program that sounds good is coming up. This can boost the amount of viewers who will watch the channel itself if they hear something thats sounds good mentioned during the ident of the channel.

For non-commercial channels such as the BBC, it can provide and break to fill in some time so the programs stick to the schedule if they are a little ahead of time. This is because they cannot use advertising to fill in the gaps. This is used just in case they are a little behind or in front schedule.

An ident can also be used to create a brand for a channel, this can encourage brand loyalty to the channel. It helps to make the logo of the channel familiar, it helps to "imprint" the brand/channel. However the channel may want to re-brand itself and doing this through the indents is a great way to do this. For example, more 4 did this. They changed from a channel who primarily show documentaries to a channel show more day time shows, for example; 'Four in a bed' & 'Come dine with me'.
This is the type of feel that more 4 were known for:

This is when they decided to re-brand and the new idents:

The re-brand of the channel encouraged a wider range of audiences to start watching the channel. This is because the idents can set the tone and feel to a channel so depending how the ident looks may entice certain audiences.  This is what more 4 took advantage of by changing the feel of their idents. A good example of different channels using different feels to their idents according to their audience is BBC. BBC 1, BBC 2, BBC 3 & BBC 4 all have different feels to their idents as they have different types of audiences. BBC 1 have shows like the news and eastenders so shows that aim more towards adults. However BBC 3 have shows like 'Family Guy', 'Cuckoo' and 'Snog marry avoid', so the idents reflect the feel of the type of shows that are on the channel.

The idents can also include themes from a popular show that they show on the channel that may be coming back to the channel, or a new show that they want people to watch, so including themes from that show may entice people to watch that show. They may also include themes from things such as sporting evens like the olympics or the world cup, or even events coming up like christmas, easter or halloween. This is to show to the audience that they may have coverage of that event such as the world cup or may have christmas shows.

These are idents from ITV which contain a theme depending on when they were shown. This is to add to the feeling of the event coming up and to show that they have coverage of the world cup or have christmas themes shows that are the channel. This will attract an audience when the event is coming up as they want to watch shows to do with that event.