TV Idents

Density of information
The 2 TV idents I will be using an analysing in this assignment is the BBC One retro 2016 Tai
Chi Ident and the 2016 BBC Three TV Ident. The BBC One Ident does not give much
information at all, The Ident starts with a group of people in Tai Chi uniforms the same
colour as the BBC One logo and they are performing Tai Chi on a rocky edge by a lake so
their movement is being reflected over the water, making it look like there is twice as many
people doing Tai Chi. From the start the BBC One logo is in the left corner so straight away
you know which TV channel this Ident is for and their audio in this Ident is a very
stereotypical Asian music to also represent the origin of Tai Chi, this is the main TV Ident I
will be covering.
Another TV Ident I have watched is also for the BBC but for the BBC Three channel, This
Ident is very different to the BBC One Ident because its all animation instead of people of
something being filmed on a camera. This Ident BBC Three tells us a lot more and has a lot
more depth into it because when the animation transitions its always an animation referring
to a topic to which BBC Three will broadcast on their Channel, from Music and Media to
Health care, Medication and Industrial work and Pollution. The animations style used in this
Ident is a very abstract style and the audio is electronic movement sound effects, synced
with the transitions animations.

Space & Time

All TV Idents really vary in duration and the space in which the TV channel decide to slot
them in. Many TV channels decide to show their TV Idents at the start of an advert break or
at the end, some TV channels do not have an advertisement break and they will just play a
TV Idents with a longer duration in-between programs. Both of the BBC One and BBC Three
TV Idents are quite long TV Idents, being 30 seconds and 39 seconds in length, so I think it is
Idents like these which will be used between programs when there is no advertisement
break. These 2 TV Idents definitely can be played during an advert break but the TV
company will just be losing out on money which they could get from other people wanting
to advertise.
Screen tempo
The screen tempo and tempo of all TV Idents vary massively and I think the two TV idents
produced by the BBC are two perfect TV Idents to compare in the huge difference of screen
tempo they have. The first one is a TV Ident for BBC One and is 30 seconds long, this TV
Ident is very slow tempo and very methodical because it is people doing Thai Chi so it makes
a lot of sense to keep the tempo slow and calm, also because the movement and camera
movements and angles are also very slow it would make no sense to make it really fast
tempo with the Thai Chi. The second TV Ident is also a TV Ident produced by the BBC but this
one is for the BBC Three channel and is completely different to the other. First of all, this
Ident for the BBC Three channel is all animation and the BBC One Channel Ident was filmed
with a HD camera, this has nothing to do with the tempo of the idents but it is the most
noticeable difference. The tempo of this is very different to the other one from the BBC One,
it is a lot faster with lots of funky animated transitions. I prefer the tempo of this Ident
because it is lots of movement and cool transitions. I believe this kind of Ident is very clever
because it tells you a lot in a short amount of time and because its also very eye catching,
most people will definitely watch the whole Ident.

Interaction with viewers

Interaction with viewers is how your TV Ident affects the viewer after watching it, some TV
Idents dont really have a story or much depth / meaning. Some TV Idents are simply just a
short video or image or the TV channel name. Many TV Idents dont really have a lot of
meaning for example the Ident I have been overviewing of BBC One Thai Chi does not have
any depth / meaning really, it is just a group of people performing some Thai Chi, no relation
to the TV Channel. However, the BBC Three TV Ident I feel has a lot more meaning and depth
to it because its transitioning to many different things which have relevance to most viewers
and a lot the subjects which are being shown in the BBC Three TV Ident are all to do with the
genre of programmes which are broadcasted on the BBC Three channel. I think that once
you know what type of TV channel you will be making a TV Ident for then you really need to
think and make a TV Ident which is relevant to the TV channel and many of the programmes
which are aired on it because then its mostly likely to catch peoples attention since the
Ident will have some similarity to the programmes they are tuned in to watch on that TV
Channel anyway.
Information-led
Information-led is all about the actual information which the TV Ident gives the viewers. Like
the BBC One TV Ident many Idents are simply just a video clip which just shows the logo of
the TV channel such a E4 and the BBC One TV Ident I have been studying. Other TV Ident
such as the BBC Three Ident I have previously been talking about doesnt give any direct
message to read but when you watch the whole Ident through you can get the message and
what they are trying to get across in the Ident. The Ident transition through many
animations of wide known subjects and topics which people go to BBC Three to watch so
when you watch the BBC Three TV Ident and pay attention, every different animation is a
topic which is broadcasted on BBC Three. Some Idents are a lot simpler than this and will
just be a still screen telling you which channel your tuned in to and it may have some other
text on screen telling you when some of their featured channels will be broadcasted.

Entertainment-led
Entertainment-led is the way a TV Ident tries to keep the viewer watching the channel it is
featured on for the whole duration. these Idents can vary dependent on their viewers. For
BBC three they feature and Ident which is very fast and there is a lot of information
regarding to many different topics. they try and make the Ident featured as interesting and
as entertaining as possible because a lot of people and I think they do that from all the
animations and transitions they use.

Purpose: Identity
The easiest and most obvious way to show the identity of your TV channel to the viewers is
to use TV Idents which show your channel name and logo so people remember it. When you
keep the same name, logo, lay out and colour scheme. Doing this will make a channel stand
out and be unique to others because eventually people will just see the colour scheme and
know that it is a certain channel or just the logo on its own. Playing Idents often on your
channel will really help build your TV channels identity because people will see it so often to
the point where they will recognise it from a mile away. Another way where a TV channel
can greatly build on its identity is promoting and advertising the featured programmes of
your channel on the TV Ident, telling people when your features channels will be aired.
Eventually over time and once the channel has been promoted enough people will know
that if youre going to watch that one certain programme, your TV channel is the one to tune
in to.

Branding
Branding is very important, especially when your target audience are concerned for example
if your TV channel had a target audience of 18-29 and was a music channel but you are
broadcasting music from many years before any of the target audience was born, you are
definitely doing something wrong. Many companies that broadcast many channels like to
keep the same branding, making them all similar so they can keep their brand recognised as
one. However, you also have companies like the BBC that also broadcast on many other TV
channels but they are vastly different! Different logos, colours scheme, different
programmes and definitely different TV Idents for each one!

Marketing
The marketing strategy to build recognition and trust with your target audience with TV
Idents is to use them often at the end or start of a programme, most people watching TV
dont like adverts so if youre going to play your TV Ident often and its 30 seconds long like
most BBC Idents. Eventually people will get sick of seeing them idents so the longer you have
the same Ident broadcasted for I think shortening it and playing it slightly less is a good idea
because people will be able to recognise it by the logo very easily. You cant use the same
Ident every break, every day because your audience will not appreciate this so new style of
idents is a very good thing to do because it will always be something your target audience
will not have been expecting to come show on their TV next and it will catch their attention.

Packaging
Packaging is where the TV Ident has collaborated with TV channel assets like the channel
logo, channel name and colour scheme. This is the usual way in which an ident is made and
presented to the audience so as in keeping with the corporate so instead of an Ident show a
featured programme it is more of TV Ident which is representing the whole company /
organisation. Usually it is the same company which owns many different TV channels so they
do not always keep the same name, the top company who owns all the channels will change
the name for different TV channels of different genres etc. Instead of having the same name
for every single channel they own and there will be different TV Idents for each one of these
specific channels. There are some TV channels like Fox and Fox news that dont hide that
they are owned by a parent company that still get a large audience and bring in a lot of
money.

Repackaging
Re-packaging is when an Ident uses other means and other assets to create an Ident for the
TV channel which isnt really of the companies prime goals to bring in the target audience
and keep their current viewers these are more novelty Ident, more for entertainment
purposes and to get more interaction with the viewers, viewers will like to watch these type
of Idents since they are very different and unusual so it keeps the audience watching and
they general will like and appreciate these Re-packaging type TV idents. It is not always just
the type of scenes and Idents which are made, when a TV company changes their logo and
layout which they do quite often to modernise their branding, this is also Re-packaging.
The images below are an example of the BBC Three channel repackaging their TV Idents, 2
different types of TV Idents for the same TV channel.

Scheduling
Ident are very commonly used to clear the gaps between programmes, this is mainly with TV
channels which do not run advertisement breaks. These type of TV channels use Ident
between programmes to of course advertise their channel for marketing but they will also
use this short amount of time before the next programme starts to tell the viewers what
featured programme is coming up soon etc. For example, a programme might finish and in-
between that and the next one an indent may say EastEnders at 8PM or something very
similar. It is very common for these type of Indents to have audio / voice over the clip, so
someone will also say EastEnders coming up later on BBC at 8PM or something very similar.
This is very good because it lets people know whats coming up soon when they may have
not known at all, keeping some viewers to watch and stay tuned in for longer.

Segmentation within scheduling

TV channels such as all the BBC channels and some Sky TV channels such as the Sky movies
TV channel dont run any advertisement breaks in-between programmes and it is at these
times where they run a TV Ident within the gap of one program ending and another program
starting. Since the only break between each program is there TV Ident for the channel this
means that their TV Idents are a lot more important and five a lot more information than
your average 5-10 second TV Ident. These Ident will usually be at least 30 seconds in
duration and give a lot more information such as what exclusive and featured programs will
be broadcasted later on that day or even days in advance.
These types of Idents are very effective because it will tell the viewers of your TV channel
what other programs are coming up later so some viewers will see that and want to keep
watching until that program which was being featured on the TV Ident is broadcasted. These
channels may play more Idents than most TV channels since they dont have any
advertisement breaks between programs so you will see at least 2 TV Idents played every
hour on these type of TV channels I think.

Comparison
The 3 TV idents I will be using an analysing in this assignment is the BBC One retro 2016 Tai
Chi Ident and the 2016 BBC Three TV Ident and an ITV Ident. The BBC One Ident does not
give much information at all, The Ident starts with a group of people in Tai Chi uniforms the
same colour as the BBC One logo and they are performing Tai Chi on a rocky edge by a lake
so their movement is being reflected over the water, making it look like there is twice as
many people doing Tai Chi. From the start the BBC One logo is in the left corner so straight
away you know which TV channel this Ident is for and their audio in this Ident is a very
stereotypical Asian music to also represent the origin of Tai Chi, this is the main TV Ident I
will be covering.
Another TV Ident I have watched is also for the BBC but for the BBC Three channel, This
Ident is very different to the BBC One Ident because its all animation instead of people of
something being filmed on a camera. This Ident BBC Three tells us a lot more and has a lot
more depth into it because when the animation transitions its always an animation referring
to a topic to which BBC Three will broadcast on their Channel, from Music and Media to
Health care, Medication and Industrial work and Pollution. The animations style used in this
Ident is a very abstract style and the audio is electronic movement sound effects, synced
with the transitions animations.
The third TV ident I have watched is the ITV Ident. This Ident is also very different to both of
the Ident I have covered. I think this is very different because it is even simpler than the BBC
One Ident which was also filmed with a HD camera but there are 0 effects in this Ident. The
Ident is simply a man driving a jet ski in a circle with a person riding a water jetpack behind
going in a circular direction. About half way into the Ident the ITV logo slowly fades in and
towards the end it slowly fades out again. Something which I find very strange about this
Ident is that there is no audio in the whole of the TV Ident is silent and I am not completely
sure why. Overall I think this is a very bad Ident compared to the other 2 BBC Idents I have
analysed.
All 3 of these TV Idents have a lot of differences when it comes to appearance and the
appearance effects used to make the Idents look so unique. The BBC One and the ITV TV
Idents look somewhat similar in a way because they are both scenes with water and some
kind of what reflection within both Idents. The big difference between these 2 is that the
BBC One Ident has a mirror effect where the video clip of the people performing Thai Chi by
a lake is mirrors vertically, The ITV Ident does not have any kind of effects such as this mirror
effect but is still similar in the way that both are water related scenes.
Now when comparing both the BBC One TV Ident and the ITV Ident to the BBC Three
animation TV Ident there are many differences to the point where the only similarities these
TV Idents have is that they are being broadcasted by the same company, the BBC. The BBC
One and the ITV TV Idents were both filmed with a camera however, the BBC Three TV Ident
is just 100% animation, no camera work or filmed footage.