2006 one of the most exciting, or revolutionising years?

2006, well a lof of changes, but again nothing inspiring really, the BBC One idents are not bad, but ITV's latest revamp while the quality of the idents have improved, it still means nothing to me, the fact they still slap Wales still shows how crap ITV is these days.

Don't forget the rebranding of Scottish and Grampian to stv (which included one other ITV region disappearing on-air).

yep such a forgettable rebrand as well, a few scottish geezers passing around a letter s, a very inspiring ident I think not.

They seem to have got rid of the passing around of the 'S' since the Christmas idents have came into use. Instead of the scene changing they seem to stay in the one place (ie now the ident stays on the skatepark in place of switching between the skatepark and the beach).

If that makes sense...

you mean it's just static?

Sorry - didn't make that clear. I meant that instead of the S being passed between the beach and the skatepark (for example - there are a lot of idents), it now stays on just the beach/skatepark but with multiple camera angles (which we haven't seen up until now).

I'm presuming this will be made standard once the Christmas idents go.

I see 2006 as a bit of a mixed bag with just a select few highlights. I'd say there certainly was no revolution, and TBH the channels that did get a new look this year were alright at best, but most fell below the standard of their respective previous look IMO.

ITV1 rebranding (practically twice) and not for the better, leaving behind a better package from last year.

Same goes for STV and the loss of Grampian, although STV's current set does seem better than its English / Welsh counterpart, albeit not as good as the 'squares' previous!

Channel 4 continued in fine form with the great additions to its ident set; almost faultless if it wasn't for the lack of Xmas pres...

Five has done fairly alright too this year; although I still prefer channel numbers as numerals (as "Channel 5" idents were originally) and not text. Scrapping the word 'five' in form of 'feeling' words is also a move I wasn't keen on, and for those reasons I'd probably place it below BBC 2 and Channel 4.

A lot of buzz surrounded the re-branding of BBC 1. A whole lot of people just wanted to see the back of the dancers, but truthfully now, I would rather have them back, simply because for an idea that in itself wasn't great, the majority of sequences were actually put together extremely well. The likes of Acrobats and Capoeira in particular had lovely scenery, and great music through most of the set - it all came together quite well.

I enjoyed watching the whole of the Dancers' final day for all the continuity and of course at the end, the montage, with the powerful Ballet Ident leaving what was a rather sombre last note to the end of an era.

Regarding the new 'Circle' look, the first gripe I have is still my main one - the idea was good, but it's been executed poorly; long intros, weak music, all in all it just doesn't seem suited to BBC 1. Bit of a let down really, and I may well grow tired of these quickly...

BBC 2 at its core didn't change at all this year as all the CG 2's lived on, and yet seeing the return of two old Year-2000 gems of idents in Predator, and the Frosty Xmas Ident (& stings!), were unexpected, but very pleasant surprises which I shall definitely remember.

Paul Clark - you capture 2006 very well... excellent series of points made. I used to say bring back the Balloon now I am thinking at least bring back the Dancers!!

The music to Kites is my favourite and then Windows - but I agree overall very poor execution so far...

This was also the year that ITN ditched it's traditional blue and white look and revealed their brash new colours, arty logos cut off at the side etc

Remember the "Right Content Right Now" endcaps that were dumped after only a day or two after they presumably got reminded what the purpose of an production endcap was

Here we go then...

I remember late last year the plans for 2006 were to make it the year of the comeback. I think it certainly has been (although not entirely successful in some cases). We've had gameshows return, Jackanory has returned to CBBC and recently Challenge Anneka.

ITV should be greatful for the demise of Charles Allen this year and I'm sure within next year they will see sense and celebrities will no longer have to feature in almost every single entertainment programme! Thank god for the axing of Celeb Trash Island! Hopefully the return of Dame Edna will help bring a bit of real nostalgia to the channel. In April ITV launched ITV Play - a daily dose of interactive quiz games (mainly tower words) for the plain bored or drunk amongst us. There is only room for one interactive quiz show late night on ITV (not to mention all late night TV) and that is Quizmania - randomly funny and entertaining.

The new idents on both BBC1 and ITV1 have been a joy to watch - a big shame there was no Christmas presentation on ITV1 but we can but hope in the future.

With the soaps, clearly this year as been another Corrie year - with superb mix of comedy and drama from start to finish. It was a shame to see Johnny Briggs leave his role as Mike Baldwin after 30 years as indeed it was Fred Elliot....even though he was given a poor send off in my view. Emmerdale has also had its good moments even though they've played on the same theme as the Tate family with the Kings. Lorraine Chase has been the best Emmerdale bitch for me this year even though Steph turned out to be quite helpless near the end. EastEnders has once again turned out "good ratings" with extremely poor scriptwriting and continuity! A year in which the brilliant Pat Evans has been underused in favour of an influx of complete unknowns who are so bad they make the viewer feel alienated. The year has already ended on a real whimper for them with Pauline's poorly written death and the whole "Christmas" effect. I see no future for the soap anymore and its the greatest shame in my television viewing history.

And so next week we start the New Year once again with Celebrity Big Brother and Des O'Connor taking over as host of Countdown - all the best to him, I'm sure he'll enjoy it more than Des Lynam.

2006 has not been "revolutionary" but more a case of de ja vu. Here's to 2007!

2006-good or bad?
GOOD:
BBC1 rebrand-ok, some of the circles arent up to scratch but at least we have a strong symbol now and IMO most of the circles are better than the dancers.
C4- strengthened their already amazing pack with new additions.
BAD:
ITV1-should never have got rid of the old logo. replaced it with a generic-looking (even though it uses custom font) logo and poorer idents.
five-don't like how theyve taken away the word 'five' from the idents. nice christmas ident though.
looking forward to seeing what BBC2 has to offer

For me it's been a pretty poor year - it's been the year when my interest in current television presentation has waned because it's just not that interesting any more - and indeed nor is the actual television on which makes me less likely to be watching it.

Instead of anticipating them and waiting eagerly for locked threads on this forum to open, I've actually missed all the big pres changes this year and not noticed them till a few days later.

Even though I knew it was coming, I didn't notice that the 1998 ITV logo had gone until about a week after it actually had. I also didn't notice that ITN had finally added that sparkly bit to their endcap dating from the mid-90's until a few days later, and I wouldn't even care to speculate when that stupid pastel colour on white cack they have now was introduced.

Furthermore, I didn't even notice that the BBC1 dancers had been replaced by the marginally better but still not that exciting circles until a good couple of weeks beyond the point. And when the ITV1 idents were updated (along with the final scrapping of regionally branded idents) in September, I had to read about it on here before I actually noticed that anything had changed on screen.

The only real highlight of 2006 has been the final retirement of the BBC1 dancers by something marginally (but not much) better.

ITV is more of a mess beyond understanding now than ever before. An uninspired new logo which looks even more simplistic and devoid of styling than the old one, programming continuing to be copyrighted to a regional limited company if it's an ex-Granada station which isn't LWT, or some other random Granada-derived company name if it's LWT or an ex-Carlton station, whilst all network programmes carry an 'ITV Productions' endcap, and regional programmes are coprighted simply to 'ITV' and are a 'Production for ITV1' (on possibly the most ugly endcap ever devised) without actually stating whose production the given programme is.

The recent farce of ITV plc apparently able to redraw the region map off their own back (dispanding Central South, re-allocating transmitters to other regions, and creating an entirely new region which operates without a franchise!) went through without the slightest word from OFCOM - the regulator apparently charged with controlling them, proving once and for all that they are completely out of control of their regulator.

Westcountry (and probably other stations too) continue to fight back in the few tiny ways they have left, still actively promoting @westcountry.co.uk email addresses and quoting an 01752 Plymouth telephone number at the end of Westcountry Live (and I note that ex- CA Peter Griffin appears to be wheeled out on the local weather more frequently now than ever before), but the regional ITV system has shown itself this year to have taken the biggest step in it's decline since 2002.

What does 2007 offer for pres fans? I can't see it as much myself. When the current BBC2 ident set was introduced back in 2001, it was generally derided as awful simplistic samey-crap - and quite rightly so, they were and remain weak idents in comparison to what had come before, and what was in use on the other channels at the time. This was the time of BBC1 still having balloons, the Carlton-owned ITV stations still having their magnificent idents, and Channel 5 still being Channel 5 and not 'five' - and having a half decent presentation set to go with it. The new BBC2 was pap in comparison. Yet today, the now 5 year old presentation set of BBC2 is often held up as being the best on TV - purely because it's the best of what's left; it's the last example left of a presentation set where graphic designers had more input than marketers.

But even though it might be the best of what's around today, it's still not that good. And what's more, we know that it's going. TV presentation has degenerated to the point now that I couldn't really care less what they bring in - I know in advance that it'll be uninspiring crap which is so caught up in marketing agency thought that it looses the basic point of what presentation is about - to create something eye catching that does the job of keeping the viewer's interest between the programmes.

So has 2006 been the best and most exciting year of pres for a while? Well, aside for an upgrade for BBC1 (which I have to admit does look better now, if not that much better, than it did under the dancers) I can't think of any groundbreaking introduction this year which has actually improved things; and furthermore, I don't hold out much hope for 2007 being any better.

Long may TV Forum live - for it looks like during 2007 I'm going to rely on it to be kept current on the world of TV pres; it's become so dull and uninspiring that I simply can't be bothered to chase it live any more.