The function of a television ident is to simply identify the channel. in 1953 the first ident that ever appeared on television was on the BBC channel as commercial television began to expand and viewers needed to be able to identify different channels. The first ident which was for BBC was nicknamed, "Bat Wings".
Idents have changed a lot since the first time they were invented and new technologies have played a large role in their development. In 1960 the first "BBC tv" logo inside a circle was introduced, it had appeared on top of a map of Britain split into the BBC's broadcast regions. The famous ident, "the globe" appeared in 1963. This ident had rotated as the BBC tv logo appeared and a voice was announced, "This is BBC television". In the early 1990's the increase of satellite television meant that television indents were even more important that they were before.
The television ident plays a really important part when it comes down to keeping the channel's schedule organised. They may sometimes include what would be coming up next or what will be shown later in the week. This is an ideal opportunity to provide the audience with key information about the programmes shown on that channel. The information that is shown on the ident may draw in more viewers to continue watching the particular channel rather that changing to another channel and not finding what they want to watch. Also, it stops the audience from changing the channel without knowing what was on next on that channel. An example for this would be when E4 shows what will be coming up during the night and the times of them programmes.
Channels that have no commercials between the programmes, like BBC, do not have the time that advertisements provide for commercial channels. The indents are there to add that time in between programmes to provide valid information about what is on next or promote a variety of programmes that would be on later in the week. Also, it makes the schedule regular between each programmes. It also provides breaks for studio workers, such as, News or Sports.Creating the right tone and appealing to the target audience is very important for the ident. It is a chance to provide the audience with information about that channel, the type of ident can reflect the type of programmes that are shown on that channel. It is very important that an ident sets the right tone for the channel it is on for the certain target audience. If someone is going to watch a documentary and the ident comes on and it is something to do with CBeebies with jolly music then the audience would be drawn away from that channel. When the channel BBC four arrived it built it's reputation on having more factual and informative programming. The initial indents therefore reflected this by using something very suitable for that channel. Due to it being BBC Four, the ident involves four sections of the same or slightly different clips and they are all put together. They are all very similar because they have a mood to each one. There are some that are for the morning programmes that are on. An example of a morning ident for BBC Four is the birds in the sunrise as it sets a morning mood.
As well as a morning ident there is also an evening one which is the office ident, this is because it would be targeted to adults so they set it in the evening after work hours.
The ident always need to be set appropriately for the certain age group. CBeebies and CBBC are two different channels for kids but one is for ages 1-5 roughly and the other is from ages 6-10. CBeebies is for the younger kids so they include funny blobs on their ident so it keeps the children attracted to the programme otherwise they may get bored. CBBC is more for the older kids so they have objects flying about everywhere and the letters bouncing around in each shot or something similar. These two indents are based on the age group of the programmes so the children or babies will be attracted to the shows. If there was something like birds or something that adults may see in there programme then the children will loose concentration and want to change the channel so the programmes will loose viewers.
The indents create corporate identity and television channels are no longer in just one country, they are available all around the world. This means that an ident helps to create a brand in a range of different locations. The BBC around the world uses very similar indents so they can be recognised anywhere in the world wherever you may go. The BBC brand needs to use the same idea on every BBC channel or online site so that they can be recognised easily and to retain the image.BBC seem to use the idea of different shapes and movement in their idents. This is so that the audience knows that they are linked together and gets around easier and shows other channels in one ident. They use this type of ident due to the programmes that are shown on the different BBC channels. If they just use different objects, shapes or animals then it could link to any of the programmes.
Building a brand for a particular channel is very important as it encourages the audience to stay focused to that particular channel. An ident helps to support the brand of a particular channel by allowing the audience to become familiar with the logo and the style of the channel. On some of the idents they use a particular programme that is shown on that channel for example, ITV used the voice to announce what programme was on next. If they are always watching the same channel then they will be very familiar with the ident that is shown and they will keep that in mind and remember that channel and tell people about it and makes it more likely for the audience to watch the channel again. It is a visual reminder of that particular channel.
In this ident you can clearly see that there are the judges chairs on the screen and they are blurred out to relate to the tv programme. The voice in the background is saying what channel is on next and the BBC one comes up on the screen to brand that programme.
An ident can also be used to identify that particular content or a particular program that belongs to a certain channel and therefore it "brand"s the content of the channel. It can also be used to provide a consistent theme across a range of platforms. For example E4 always use animation people and they say E4 in a low tone. Sometimes, there is another ident they use which is the boat and a man painting this is repeated sometimes but the painting always changes based on the time of the day. They always use the colour purple as well due to E4 having the theme colour purple, it imprints on the mind and makes people remember that channel.
You can also rebrand a channel, More4 have recently re-branded their channel and completely changed its image. Before the 'More 4' ident was bland and was not as interesting as there were just green lines going round on the screen. Whereas, the new ident is more eye catching. Due to the programmes that are shown on the channel, changing the ident had changed to suit the channel more. Now the ident is more colourful and are set in different locations to relate to the programmes shown. The new idents of other channels helped to do this.
An ident is a very clever promotional tool. If the season changes then the ident may change, winter, spring, summer, autumn. Also, maybe the type of day it is changes the ident as well for example, christmas or new year. The channel, ITV had used the christmas theme to show which programmes are on next and each time the ident was shown another programmes would be shown.Idents are often used to promote large events or a new series of a programme coming to the television, for example Dancing On Ice may use an ident to show a new series coming on. For example in this ident they show all the new skaters on the new series and clips of what they would normally do in day to day lives. At the end of the ident 'ITV' is shown at the bottom and the voice says that there is a new series of dancing on ice coming soon.
Excellent Jade! Well done!
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