The Christmas TV Thread

Were you watching on Sky? I noticed a lot of jerky camera movements on Deal or No Deal earlier..I just put it down to bad weather.

Channel 4 have been having a lot of encoder on DSat problems recently

What you're looking for is a long plastic thing with buttons on it.

Have fun.

It was on Freeview, but it wasn't a reception issue as far as I could tell.

Well since lunch, I've seen the rollercoaster ident on Channel 4, so evidently Channel 4 haven't botherd with Christmas idents. Are More 4, Film 4 or E4 doing Christmas idents?

Overall Christmas TV not too great this year IMO, but the odd gem still worth watching. I highly recommend A Child's Christmas in Wales, which will be shown on BBC4 and BBC2 (nationwide) over the next few days - easily the best thing on this year, and if you like Gavin and Stacey and The Royle Family (more the latter really), you should really enjoy this.


Back to presentation and don't know about idents, but Film4 have had festive endboards on the trailers, whilst I've seen a couple of festive E-Stings on E4, but regular idents.

As mentioned on my thread in the website forum, there are quite a few bumpers on E4 (I've picked up at least 4 (edit: 5 now) of them, but I'm not watching it every minute so there could be more), with two random characters dancing round in the snow. I'm guessing these have been done inhouse, unlike the usual viewer-made E-Stings they show.

1/5
http://www.tvwhirl.co.uk/testvlogos/e4breakxmas2009.mp4

edit: 5/5 (just because it's so nice)
http://www.tvwhirl.co.uk/testvlogos/e4breakxmas2009e.mp4

I suppose given the small amount of money normally spent on pres (ie - keep it fresh by having a yearly competition and getting the public to make the stuff for you for a £1000 prize ), they've got some money left to splash out on these things.

Elsewhere, S4C have quite a big pres set running. CITV, CBBC and CBeebies all have festive lifts, albeit very similar to last years on the BBC's channels. Quest and Dave didn't seem to do anything, nor did any of the other ITV channels (ITV2 didn't even tweak their idents with the usual tacked on sparkles this year - I thought that was an ITV tradition dating back to the celeb days).

Yes, I did do some fun things over christmas too!

Again, why don't you 1) tape the junctions or 2) just watch yourself?

The E4 stings are rather good - definitely Christmassy, but not too so, and definitely in keeping with the E4 brand. And with a little bit more effort they could easily have made some of those stings long enough to use as idents.

As for S4C - as usual they make the effort, and I like the concept of the idents, but I'm not sure they're as festive as they could be - some of them could easily be used all year round.

What idents are S4C using now - is it still the ones that react to the announcers voice?

Not sure where else to put this, but some very unfortunate wording on the repeat of the 2006 Big Fat Quiz Of The Year: Jade Goody unable to finish the London Marathon was described as "Like a trapped creature struggling through its final moments".

My Grandma tuned in that moment and thought they were joking about her death.

BBC One cut to the feed a bit early at the start too.




I guess your Grandma would have only thought that for a few seconds though. No harm done.

I'm almost certain that a very similar fault occurred last year.