Christmas Presentation

Forgotten about the rather basic 'idents' used for The Matrix trilogy some while back?

I sincerely doubt ITV are in a financial situation that prevents them from being able to air even the most simple of festive symbols. The fact we've seen a tweaked trail animation and breakbumper proves they are able to produce some designs - and to echo Simon's comment, you cannot for a moment say an ident is not possible had one been modified from the existing breakbumper.

Bottom line is, they should at least have made some sort of christmas ident, no matter how simple, especially since the channel's promotions and other devices do have festive incarnations now.

Considering active trail and bumper modifications are on ITV1, the absence of an actual symbol to compliment this, stands out even more - this is no way to go about branding. Even Channel 4 can almost get away with this due to their 'alternative' approach; but this is ITV we are taking about and they reallt have zero=

God who cares. By the time Christmas arrives, I'm so fed up of it already that I'm glad not to be constantly reminded of it on ITV1.

Even if they did make a Christmas ident, you'd whine that there wasn't a sombre version or some stupid quibble like that.

Can't you people be HAPPY for once? UTV and the Beeb overdoing it more than makes up for ITV and C4's dearth of Christmas cheer.

Oh well. ITV was never really airing any decent Christmas programmes anyway, so no-one was watching the lack of festive idents.

And we can forgive C4 for it because their usual idents are so bloody fantastic. (At least IMO).

I'm really liking five's effort this year and its good to see snowball back on bbc 1. However i thought bbc2 was better last year.

Not silly, just how it was. During the 2004-06 branding era an unprecedented number of special idents were used, often kicking the usual "blocks" into touch for up to a fortnight at a time. Worst thing was, those CLI idents used to promote the first series would have meant nothing to many if a verbal announcement wasn't made to explain what was on screen.

By contrast, the Christmas ident was a grudging effort and was on screen for as little time as possible, starting on the 24th and even vanishing after the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve one year. Since I have information from a very trusty source to say that ITV1 marketing chiefs don't like Christmas to interfere with the channel's brand image, I'd say my original argument still holds up.

There were actually special idents used in the Jan-Nov period last year, not just the film Paul mentioned but also variants for I'm A Celebrity which saw sprawling greenery emerge from the ITV1 logo.

That's no excuse for no ident though - they could easily make one in the ITV1 brand style. In fact wouldn't people notice the brand more with a new ident rather than the same idents used day in, day out, all year!


Anyhow, notice that the "bike" ident seems to have cropped up again after not seeing it for a while - about the closest thing ITV has to a Christmas ident at the moment, and in fact probably more festive than those bloody penguins!!!

I was thinking that earlier.
They could have at least added the fairy element onto the bike ident, and maybe the fountains ident, but the simplest thing would have been to use the breakbumper.

They could have nicked BBC Two's yellow fairy idea, and have the fairy create a tree or a pudding or present which then dispears into yellow spark, where the logo fades in (and the breakbumper is added).

Well those little yellow fireflys do look a bit like fairys, and also as far as i've seen I haven'y seen a breakbumper for bike

The breakbumper for bike is simple the flies around the street lamp with the ITV1 logo on top.

Again I was thinking whilst watching ITV1 earlier. Maybe they could have adapted the current idents. So have the tower blocks at night with Christmas lights between them (with the fairy, or firefly coming over the logo). Though it would be much easier to just use the current breakbumper.

All of the ITV trailers have had some effort put in, with ITV1's fairy/firefly, ITV2's snowflakes (for the movies trailer), and ITV3's hanging star decorations (haven't seen an ITV4 trailer), and all could have been made into simple idents and who cares if they're used in every junction for just over a week, it's Christmas after all.

Earlier I swore I saw snow in the buildings ident!?

Still watching with a dodgy analogue reception are we?