Reading the description here didn't exactly make me jump for joy, but I must say it's been quite well executed. I don't think it could be used as a Christmas ident again, but it was IMO still a very good ident.
Leading into News 24 on Jauary 1st after the New Years Eve schedules had come to an end, the announcer said something along the lines of " And it's goodbye for now to our penguin friends" hinting that a return would be be inevitable. However, I assumed that they would return at Christmas! Still, I really like the penguins and hippos so I'm not complaining!
I think they've ruined what was a great Christmas ident that could have been used Christmas 2008 as well.
Appauling music and a feel that it's Christmas again (simply because it was used during Christmas - if it hadn't been and this was a new ident it wouldn't have been a problem).
I don't see what the problem is. It's a nice bit of value for money from an ident, with just a small bit of editing, it will now be used all year round. Okay, the music's crap, but apart from that... The 'underlying Christmas feel' will soon be gone as we get used to it. It was popular, so it's good to see it back, especially for BBC Marketing.
Would people be so against this ident if this version appeared first and then a Christmas version appeared at Christmas?
If this version was used first, there'd seen be complaints that, instead of a proper Christmas symbol, we'd have a
regular
ident being used for Christmas (rather than vice versa) with nothing more than a soundtrack change and an extra graphic plonked in the middle! So either way it's going to be open to criticism.
True but then that was a one-off and they didn't bother re-editing it and changing the soundtrack to make it into a regular ident. Perhaps if it didn't look so bare and strange without the tree filling up the middle and there was a better soundtrack then it might work. At the moment there is no reason for there to be a circle in the middle and no reason why the skaters would be skating around. Couldn't there have put an ice hockey centre circle or something on the ice so there's at least something circular for people to skate around?
I agree with r2ro, the reason no-one minded the BBC2 festive idents being used outside of Christmas was because they were not altered.
With Penguins they have changed the formula and the ident, whilst still good, is no longer great. There is undoubtedly something missing (and I don't mean the Christmas decs ).
I think also it seems to have been rather pointlessly returned.
If this ident had been reworked because they were showing Dancing on Ice or the Winter Olympics or something they might have got away with it - but as it is it's just them obviously trying to milk their over-rated Christmas ident.
).