4Music channel to replace The Hits

Do they? I would say they were in a minority myself.

4Music Sundays has started on The Hits complete with 4Music ident and 4Music DOG which changes between The Hits/4Music every few seconds.

digiperson

Nice graphics, nice idents, and I like the hits dog being slightly transparent

Looks pretty good from the few minutes I've seen - love the stings, simple but very effective. I've always found The Hits and TMF blend into the same identity.


Also notice they're trailing C4/E4 programming in the slot too.

it's okay but in The Sugabaes Perfect Pop Songs Countdown, They kept Editing The Music Videos About.

Going back to the stuff on the first page, I doubt they would call it Music 4 with there already being the production company Music 4.

Yeah, I did say that's been taken.

4Music defeats the whole object of The Hits. Once 4Music takes over, Freeview won't have a continuous music video only channel. E4 Music's genres are too restrictive, and it seems 4Music may follow suit. If you're having a music channel, its got to suit all. The Hits is the most-watched music channel; why axe such a popular and well known name? I know C4 put the effort in, but I didn't like what I saw today.

Presentation wise it looks great - everything you expect from C4 in a 4 Music style, including menus, stings, bumpers etc.


Content wise I suspect these Sunday nights are a pretty good idea of what to expect when 4 Music takes over. Yes, it probably won't be 24/7 music videos any more, but at least the programming on will probably be music based programming rather than what's cropped up on MTV and TMF in recent years.

It really is though a clash of two brands - the 4 Music strand is generally pretty cool and cutting edge, while The Hits is generally popular and mainstream - so some compromise will have to be made.

Maybe a compromise would be to have a timeshare channel system for The Hits and 4Music or to continue 4Music Sundays but change them to "4Music Weekends" where 4Music goes out all weekend. That would be better than ultimate 100 greatest pop flops.

Strange to see The Friday Night Project in this strand - not particularly musical. I take it from the increasing replacement of music videos with repeats, that programmes are more lucrative viewing figure-wise than straight music (in spite of the 'kama sutra' text-ins, which I'm sure is a winner...). I guess it's a sign of the times with YouTube around for on-demand music videos without the hassle.

I'm hoping that when 4Music takes over from The Hits completely, we'll see some fresh ideas and approaches to music programming, and it doesn't just morph into another E4. We've already got enough E4 wannabes on Freeview!

News has it that 4 music will launch May 2 2008!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeview_%28United_Kingdom%29