BBC One

Did you notice the little magic sound effect at the start? I can't remember which cartoon that came from. And for the first time in a long time we had a Neon sting tonight.

Saturday night on BBC1:

http://vid176.photobucket.com/albums/w191/2007TopGearDog/0920173823DVB-TBBCOneNEC3.flv

BBC One Saturday Night Promo
http://i38.tinypic.com/5flp4i.jpg

http://i34.tinypic.com/n6vsj8.jpg

http://i33.tinypic.com/2ebz4up.jpg

http://i38.tinypic.com/1zoiaa1.jpg

Video: http://www.watelevision.com/site/upfiles/BBC_One_SaturdayNightPromo.avi (5.5mb)

Stings are back in use tonight.

I think they might be new ones and not the ones that were used before.

The one just a minute ago had a couple of the neon people dancing.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that one was in use before, so no sting additions AFAIK.

I taped them all on the first night and that was an original one.

Nice to have a Saturday night trail and one which is a bit different to the rest but a shame they're reluctant to promote the whole evening of programmes.

http://www.rp-network.com/tvforum/uploads/satbbc1.jpg

There's an image...I remember the skyscraper '1' animation and jingle, which complimented that menu. We've got 4 or 5 different stings now, but none of them are quite as glitzy as that old sequence.

The thing about menus these days is, they seem to have become 'archaic' and unnecessary amongst modern pres. The ECP is doing half the job (and only half as readable), so really, the menu has faced the same fate as the programme slide - if there's a schedule change on the night and you're lucky, you might see one.

The only exception of recent is a non-network one (surprise surprise...) when BBC Two NI showed their Gaelic programmes at post-6am, breaking away from Ceefax to show their own holding menu over more music.

I've been moaning about this on the Digital Spy forum.

Before you would have individual trailers for shows but also a main one telling you what time the shows were on during the night, but now you get several trailers for shows on Saturday night and you have to piece the information together yourself like a detective. ITV are still doing trails like that for some of their shows and it's quite effective. What BBC1 should do is have a trail for a programme and at the end say 'and that's part of Saturday night on BBC1' and then show a slide with the complete line up at the end.

I love this animation, it was the first time the '1' stings were done by computer and I think that was from 1994. They had two others, a computer circuit and a pinball table one. It was a shame they never went with the '1' as the main logo.....but we'vehad this conversation many times before.

Surely it's a bit redundant though? There's an EPG out there and call me old-fashioned but also TV guides.

These days people often flick around so it's probably a bit more strategic to just promote the next few programs, as opposed a lengthy trailer showing the entire evening's.

And yet people still say I didn't know it was on, I never saw a trailer for it, when is it shown again etc. I think trailers can still point people in the right direction for a show and still help to build up interest. But I agree with what you say and it was a similar strategy that ABC used back in 2004/5 I think in America. Instead of promoting loads of shows they instead promoted a handful they thought would be hits. These were Lost and Desperate Housewives, the shows became big and helped turn ABC around. So sometimes I suppose a concentrated effort on one or two shows might work better than the old style approach. However I still think it would help if they for example had a trailer for Merlin and then at the end of the trailer showed and endboard for the whole of Saturday night (with Merlin in bold), then the message would subconsciously get through to the viewer about what's on for the whole evening.

Just been watching some old CBBC Continuity videos, and found this:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_3oRtezQOyY
The old BBC1 Control Room and Continuity Booth before digital.