Is British style continuity unique?

It's even more redundant now that all TV is digital and every channel has an EPG. Although it's still nice to know what programme is starting, the US style of putting programme name and the channel logo on a caption at the bottom of the screen briefly is quite nice

Sky One did that for many, many years, from 1989 up until about 1997, not at the start of the programme, but after returning from ad breaks. TV3 also did it in the exact same way as Sky One (ironically enough just as Sky had stopped doing it) from their launch but don't any more.

It appeared not to be very popular with ITV, anyway, because the idea of the 2004 idents was that they could incorporate menus within them, but they seemed to abandon the idea after about five minutes.

When I was on holiday in the nineties I watched Meridian for a week and they had a slightly unusual presentational style in that they would promote the programme coming up after the break with a slide, but the announcement into the programme would never introduce it but instead promote what was coming up later. Although if you switched on during the ad break, you wouldn't know what it was.

Well cinemas still play idents, even though you know which film you're going to see. DVDs have studio idents too. I don't think it's redundant to have a channel ident inbetween programmes to chat about what's coming up later and set the scene for the next programme.

I never liked the overpaid programme names. The programme, as delivered by the production, should not have cluttered added to it by the broadcaster. A full screen slate at the end of the ad break does the job much more elegantly.

In the early days of Meridian it was not uncommon for programmes to be preceded by an ident and no announcement at all.

It might well have been that it was too much of a faff to produce the menus, the example above doesn't look like it was generated live.

Yes, but at the cinema you never have someone coming over the PA system and tell you what you're about to watch


Only if necessary though, which it isn't for every programme.

The problem for me is the convention that there must be an ident and announcement into every programme. It's not always necessary and it does slow down the flow of the presentation

Well, it'd be a faff to clean up after every screening.

.........

Yep - see my comment above. NRK in Norway still has IVC, SVT in Sweden has very recently stopped (and now have VOed idents.)

On reactive channels such as BBC 1 and BBC 2 live continuity announcements play a vital role in keeping the viewers informed when schedules change.

When done well, continuity announcements can also be a very effect (and relatively cheap) marketing tool, navigating viewers to other content... while also creating a mood/identity for the channel.

As for the idents themselves; along side the voice of the channel they should help create and maintain the brand. Recent research I've been told of suggests that a familiar musical signature on channel's idents really does help to bring viewers' attention back to the TV, if they have been off doing other things during a break/junction.

Oh, and of course in the BBC Nations the announcers are also directing/playing out the content.

Yep - all very good points. A familiar music sting can be particularly effective - some of the ITV franchises used these very effectively in the 70s and 80s (Thames, LWT, TVS, Anglia all spring to mind)

The BBC balloons also had some very memorable music.