BBC One

lol certainly caught me off guard.

I doubt they'll be in hurry to do this particularly with regards to the current financial situation.

Mind you my mate who works for Red Bee Media has told me the BBC have a new " Saturday Night " Ident earmarked for Feb/March

I hope this means that Neon isn't going to be retired? They should use it during the week to introduce sitcoms or light entertainment programmes. And I hate one ident being used for a whole evening. HATE IT!!

Do you have anger management issues?

Let's hope you can't remember anything prior to the late 90s...

Well we've all been spoilt after the last few years and forgot how it used to be.

But perhaps, we are rather at the other end of the spectrum now; it's too disparate. And yet the idents are arguably the pres that requires the strongest, clearest, erm... symbolism! So I tend not to take the viewpoint that we really are being spoiled at all.

Since a few decades back and well into the 90s, it was always the trails that were given the diversity - with all sorts of wonderful interpretations, some of them clever, some artsy or abstract, some were just pure glitz - but it never seemed unsuitable, because it was in the context of programme trailing, not the main identity.

Now that wasn't necessarily the 'correct' way round, but it definitely did seem more appropriate!

If you put it that way, I think Channel 4 are still almost there. Their idents are all based on bits forming their logo, same as the originals. There's no hidden metephors, no colours linking things together or shapes to suggest how people come together.

Their bumpers and trailers though have had a much wider and varied way of doing things. Linked to the main identity yes, but quite often getting the result in a different way (think the "neon" music season trailers - it ended with the logo, but it also used the original colours throughout the trailers).

They show, as did the balloons and 90's BBC "2"s that your channel logo can be your symbol and can be the centre feature of the ident. You don't need to go and think one up to make it connect.

Has Chris Evans hosted any shows yet - isn't he supposed to be the stand in?

Only Matthew Wright and (K)Nick Knowles have acted as stand in presenters IIRC.

I think Dan Snow may have presented too, but he is a regular reporter for the show so maybe they just used whoever happened to be there on that occasion.

Dominic Littlewood and Nicky Campbell have been stand-ins too.

Chris will be standing in when Adrien hosts The Apprentice: Your Fired in a few months. Hopefully he's finally realised it's not 1994 anymore.

In a way, you could say that is what BBC Two is doing now, ie lots of special trail endboards, extravagant 2Dimension promos whilst completely neglecting to expand on their tired, samey idents.

But I do agree with what you're saying. I never grew tired of seeing the paint hit the 2 or the ITV logos forming over the Hearts and yet these were both incredibly simple concepts in comparison to the idents on screen today.

Simple but very effective at symbolising the channel. And isn't that the whole point of an ident?