Task One - Understanding the purpose of television idents and the opportunities they present
The television idents simple function is to identify the television channel. The first ident appeared in 1953 on the BBC commercial as television began to expand and viewers had to know what television channel they are watching, which would help them realise they wanted to watch on what particular channel. Idents have played a great deal and technology has played a big role in the development.
TV idents are important, it plays a big role when it comes to keeping a channel's schedule well organised. While the ident appears it gives key information about when the television programme they are going to show and what time it will appear on TV. This information may keep the viewer on to this channel, rather than the viewer changing the channel.
The segmentation of scheduling is that, for a channel like the BBC, they don't show advertisements because they are paid for by the viewers through the television licence. Advertisements provide for commercial channels such as ITV, E4 and so on. Idents are implemented to provide information, so that the audience would know whats coming up at what time. Promoting a variety of programming, so the viewer will know what new shows are coming up and series that could be on a return. For things like sports and news, this can then provide workers a break.
Creating corporate identity, an ident helps to create a brand in a range of different locations as television channels are not restricted to one country. The consistency across a range of channels such as the BBC helps to establish corparate that can be sold around the world.
Building a brand for a channel is really important, it really makes the brand stay true to the particular channel. An ident helps to endorse the brand of a particular channel by showing the logo and the style of the channel. It visually reminds the audience what channel it is, which makes the audience more likely watch the channel again.
Branding of particular content, an ident can be used to identify that particular content or a particular program that belongs to a certain channel, and therefore the content will be branded.
For a television ident the right tone to make it appealing towards the viewers, for example the television channel More 4 ident was dark green type. This was changed because it's not appealing than the one now where it is more colourful and more bright.
Using idents is also a marketing opportunity, to show what type of television soaps and series that they have in store. They also do seasonal idents to show the soaps that is going to be seen, they may also showcase specials, as in christmas specials as the ITV Christmas ident shows what drama series they will show.
Creating corporate identity, an ident helps to create a brand in a range of different locations as television channels are not restricted to one country. The consistency across a range of channels such as the BBC helps to establish corparate that can be sold around the world.
Building a brand for a channel is really important, it really makes the brand stay true to the particular channel. An ident helps to endorse the brand of a particular channel by showing the logo and the style of the channel. It visually reminds the audience what channel it is, which makes the audience more likely watch the channel again.
Branding of particular content, an ident can be used to identify that particular content or a particular program that belongs to a certain channel, and therefore the content will be branded.
For a television ident the right tone to make it appealing towards the viewers, for example the television channel More 4 ident was dark green type. This was changed because it's not appealing than the one now where it is more colourful and more bright.
Using idents is also a marketing opportunity, to show what type of television soaps and series that they have in store. They also do seasonal idents to show the soaps that is going to be seen, they may also showcase specials, as in christmas specials as the ITV Christmas ident shows what drama series they will show.
When it comes to packaging and re-packaging a series of programmes or an event, idents are mostly used to promote the large event or series. For example BBC had a strictly come dancing ident, they used it to show that its coming back, this is helpful to the audience who love strictly come dancing so they know when it will be on the BBC. This also shows that, this is only going to be on show for the BBC.
"...for a channel like the BBC, they don't show advertisements because they don't have the time to show them" This statement is in correct. The BBC is paid for by the viewers through the Television Licence - this is why it does not have adverts. ITV, C4 E4 etc, they are not paid for through the TV Licence and so need the adverts to raise money to pay for making the programmes.
ReplyDeleteExtend your "Building a Brand" section to include an example. E.g. Embed one or two idents from E4 and then explain how the idents use similar colours, logos, themes and content which means they are all easy to recognise as E4 products. You could then add a screen grab of something like the E4 website so you can explain that the design of the idents link clearly with the design of the website (colours, logo, font) so that helps to build a brand across different platforms (platforms = different medias,i.e. tv, internet etc).
Extend your "Branding Particular Content" to include an example. Channel 4 used idents to "brand" the Paralympics as belonging to Channel 4. Add an ident that demonstrates this and explain how branding particular content is a great way to attract audiences to watch that channel. Not only to watch that content but also to hopefully keep them on that channel after that programme has finished by "embedding" the thought of channel 4 on their minds as a great channel.
Hope this helps. Miss