Successes and failures of TV Idents:

Successes and failures of TV Idents:

Idents are small advertisements that market a channel. They both have opportunities and their limitations. Some opportunities Idents have are the ability to brand their TV channel and appealing to their target audience. They do this by showing images and playing music that can be used to attract a certain target audience. Also Idents are able to identify a personality of a channel. Some examples include E4 showing a load random props like toys to show to show the channel as quirky and that its aiming for a younger target audience. 

Some limitations that must be thought of when designing a ident is the resolution and the quality it will be seen when being seen on TV or on-line with websites such as BBC I player or 4OD. It is important that the quality looks right and has a clear picture on screen, especially when its an ident by UK TV Gold when it has a lot of detail and bright colours, some examples include E4 and the Sky Movie channels.

These opportunities and limitations show that are different cases of successful and failed TV idents. The first example I will be discussing is the idents made by UK TV Gold, specifically their currant ident and one of their idents from 1992. The reason the older ident is unsuccessful is because barely any information about the channel is being shown to the audience. All the ident includes is a man washing a cup in sink, with close ups of the cup.  In short no information is being told to the audience and it doesn't interact with them in anyway. The reason this doesn't work because in the ident nothing interesting is happening on screen so it’s not appealing to a target audience or getting people interested in the channel. 

The currant UK TV Gold ident from 2012 on the other hand, it does try to appeal to a target audience who would be interested in the comedy UK TV Gold broadcast. The ident does this by including images that known as comedic or related to comedy. this images include : sticks of dynamite, wind up teeth and a boxing glove on a spring. All these images are seen multiple times through out the ident to identify the channel as a comedy channel. the ident also uses bright colours on the props and text to make the channel look more appealing. Also the phrase "stick something funny on" is shown multiple times in order to identify the channel as a comedy channel by informing the viewer their content is funny.

Here’s another example of a more successful ident from the BBC’s currant ident, entitled BBC One Kites Circle from 2012.  The tempo is very fast paced in terms of editing, music and the images being shown and moving on screen. The editing uses a lot of quick cuts of the kites flying very fast in the air with the people below running behind them, this is being shown with some load upbeat violin music being played over the top. This has been done to appeal to a younger audience by making the channel seem exciting and lively with the people having fun with the kites and the fast paced editing. This ident is successful because it gives the audience a understanding of the channels personality as fun and active, it also shows the channel is aiming for adults because the ident has adults featured in the ident itself. 

However the BBC Bollywood ident is unsuccessful compared to the kite ident is because this ident is really vague about target audience, personality etc. The ident does help identify the colours of the channels logo which is red and white, which are the outfit of the dancers on screen. This ident does also show it is lively with the dancers and it focuses on topics around the world as seen with the Indian dancers. But this ident isn't too helpful in terms of identifying the target audience for the channel. So it isn't helpful in terms of identifying the channel to the viewer and isn't giving a lot of information about programming that they broadcast. 

The currant ident for Sky Movies Premier is successful because it identifies all the different styles and genres of programming that they broadcast. This we can see from the ident showing a short five second long scene in a different genre such as western, fantasy or costume drama. This also makes the ident interesting for the viewer to look at because each scene has their own different style with the ident having a huge range of tines and large colour palate with each style blending smoothly into each other. The ident also helps to attract a large range of people by showing that Sky has a large variety of programming that can appeal to people who enjoy so of different genres featured in the ident. While this ident uses a lot of pretty imagery to attract the viewers attention, it does use the images to tell the viewer about the channel itself and that's why this ident is really successful.  

However one of Sky's older idents from 1998 still has the nicely detailed and colourful images happening on screen, it is unsuccessful in terms of information that the channel gives to the viewer. While the ident does have a cinema counting screen like the ones that would be seen in beginning of a silent or old film, that is the idents only image to connect itself as a channel about movies. The imagery does use the bright colours to attract the viewer along with the loud grand sounding music, it doesn't give any information to the viewer about what is being programmed or even a personality to the channel. that's why the ident is unsuccessful due to the lack of information told to the viewer. In short this ident can be described as style over substance due to being more aimed at attracting viewers, than informing them about the channels content.