What is the best Ident of all time?

What do we people think is the all time best ident for a TV station that we've seen?

Not just in terms of personal preference but in the context of the ident that best advertises the channel.

My choice is not from ITV, BBC or whatever, my choice is the 1993 set of Sky Idents that they used for their main channels, such as Sky One, Sky Movies, Sky Movies Gold and The Movie Channel. Even though i was barely 8 when these idents were around, they were so memorable because they had such impact. The music was brilliant, the graphics were spectacular, and the voiceover was very powerful too. And lets face it compared to the idents around on terrestrial at the time, these stood out very much.

Some very good clips of some of them here, from The TV Room:

Sky One

Sky Movies

It's odd isn't it? We complain about ITV1 being too corporate these days yet I think that Sky has become less and less corporate in the last few years, yet I much prefer it when they DID have corporate branding.

Discuss..

A difficult decision, but the final set of Central cake idents remain technically and visually excellent.
I have always wondered how the cake idents would have developed if Carlton (and later itv) hadn't imposed their corporate presentation, especialy as Central's designers managed to create such stunning idents with much less capable hardware and software than is currently available:
http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/itvmidlands/itvmidlands/idents/central1997f.rm
http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/itvmidlands/itvmidlands/idents/central1997e.rm
http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/itvmidlands/itvmidlands/idents/central1997d.rm
http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/itvmidlands/itvmidlands/idents/central1997a.rm
http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/itvmidlands/itvmidlands/idents/central1997b.rm
http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/itvmidlands/itvmidlands/idents/central1997h.rm

Also, look at the Central News (west) titles from the same period:
http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/itvmidlands/itvmidlands/news/centralnewswest1997a.rm
And the ending:
http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/itvmidlands/itvmidlands/news/centralnewswest1997b.rm

Many thanks to tv-ark.

Incidentally, does anyone have a full-length version of the above Central News theme?

i think that was the golden era of central news, the look was superb (you have to think back to what everyone else was doing back in 1997) very upbeat and fresh - especially compared with the look that preceded it. the format of the show was spot on too.

i'd love the full version of that music - to my knowledge no-one has found it yet.

The best set of idents would, in my opinion, have to be the 1991-2001 2s.

Partly, as someone pointed out on another thread, because they actually made such a major difference to the feel and perception of the channel.

IMO, the best TV idents have to be ATV from the 70's up until Central took over, and the LWT "River" ident from the 80's.

Absolutely. I think the combination of excellent editor (John Bolieau) and general excitment about the new building really made it such a great period for the programme. It retained the best elements from the previous era such as really well produced hard-news, and combined it with a fresh and visually exciting set and truely awesome titles.
I think it is such a shame that Central News west has deteriorated so much, to become so tabloid and sensationalist, especially considering how amazing it was.

I would have to go for the BBC1 COW globe, which I loved right from the first time I saw it on its debut outing in 1985. The Doctor Who Ghost Light DVD which I got for Christmas contains some continuity announcements with this globe and being able to see it in high quality for the first time in nearly 14 years reminded me of how simple and yet stunningly effective it is.

It is difficult to comprehend that it is very nearly 20 years since it was introduced, and computer graphics have come so far yet it still doesn't look the tiniest bit dated. This is what an ident should be, not a load of people prancing around the screen!

I agree, those idents were great. Visually impressive logos, and like you say good music. Each channel had a different version of the same tune, each suited to the actual channel. They also used to do special idents as break bumpers. I remember the X-Files one had the logo changing from

(SKY) ONE
to
(SKY) TRUST
to
(SKY) NO
to
(SKY) ONE

good stuff! Sky News had a nice top of the hour menu (at Christmas they put sleigh bells on the music). During downtime on channels such as as Sky Movies Gold they would play all the ident music over various slides. I think I still have a tape of it somewhere.

But the best of all time has to be the BBC1 1985 COW. It was a good logo for its day, and now. It was the classiest of all the channels and I remember it well.

I Also Like the COW, as well as the Following Globe with a Number that had a big chunk out of the middle.
And then there's the balloon. I Remember a huge Controversy on Points of View about when it came to an end in 2002

Although I was young when it was in use, it has to be the COW. Looks great! x10 better than the dancers!

http://thetvroom.com/images-bbc-one/bbc-one-85/ident2.jpg.http://thetvroom.com/images-bbc-one/bbc-one-02/03-ident-cap-1b.jpg
Pictures from The TV Room
Thought it would have improved in 20 years hehe.

Well for me, THE best has to be the LWT shutters Ident. It meant 'We're here - We're on - and it's the Weekend' Having said that, LWT never had a bad Ident, they we're all produced by people who had a passion for telly.
You could be making a cup of tea in the kitchen and just by listening you'd know it was London Weekend Television - The BEST view of the Weekend.
It beats the pants off anything you see on ITV1 ITV2 or ITV3.

http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/itvlondon/lwt/idents/lwt1987.rm