DOGs on BBC Four

I think it's obvious in this day and age that branding is so strong you know what channel you are whatching without having an unessecery logo. Sadly, many DOGs are going over the top. Many are no longer semi-transparent but opaque, coloured, animating and plain annoying. Why do we even need DOGs in the days of EPGs and branding thats so strong you know what you're watching anyway? DOGs probablly will be phased out as they were only thought up in the days of analogue Cable and Satellite so people knew what they were waching as many analogue recivers didn't tell you what channel you are watching. With digital, the EPG is compulsorary and it tells you the channel name, programme name, time and date and only appears when you want it, rather than permanant. Does anyone notice many channels remove their DOGs during adverts? This is because the advertitsers don't want their ads obscured!

I agree, advertisers don't want logos on their adverts, however, channel DOGs make a channel complete. They can be animated and they can also be part of a channels character. I think digital tv without a DOG will be a very sad day for British TV..if you can get sadder than complaining about DOG's that is...

Sorry, but I can't believe for a second that they will have to 'work hard to make people aware...' hundreds or even thousands of on-air trails will plaster BBC 1/2 as well as Radio 4. I'd take your point if we were talking about a channel without that level of cross-promotion... but I really don't believe the existence of a DOG is going to affect their viewing figures one jot!

Anyway, whenever I change channels I get names displayed onscreen, I don't need a constant reminder.

Aso, I expect DOGs are a sort of copyright notice for all TV Channels. With many, many websites dedicated to TV in the UK, and indeed all over the world, if someone captures something off a channel the people watching the clip will know which channel it came from, and would also prevent them from re-producing material and passing it off as their own.

How do they make a channel complete? They only make TV complete for the sad lazy person who can't be bothered to pick up his remote and press one button. And animated DOGs? They are a distraction, not part of a channel's character! They take your concentration away from the programme and to the DOG instead. They don't make a channel complete at all. We don't need them. We don't need to be told what we're watching in the days of EPGs and strong branding. If we should have Channel Name DOGs and Programme DOGs, we should also have a 'Television on' DOG or there would be no point having them. If DOGs were to go I doubt many people would be upset, and only the lazy and the stupid would be bothered that they didn't have a permanent reminder of what they are watching. The only remotly justifiable reason for having a DOG is so the channel can get credit if someone captures something with a TV card or lends a video to a freind, everything else is a stupid distraction & a waste of money & screen space that could actulaly be used to show actual programmes.

(Edited by james2001 at 2:09 pm on Feb. 2, 2002)

I am pleased that News 24 seem to have recently dropped the 'www.bbc.co.uk' DOG. Much tidier!

There are now three things in life that are inevitable - death, taxes and DOGs.

There is little doubt however that BBC3&4 will be covered with DOG's mess, but if the BBC wants BBC1, 2, 3 and 4 to be considered on the same level as each other, they should be treated equally - ie DOGs on all four, or on none of them (much preferably the latter).  To have DOGs only on BBC3&4 would seem to imply that they're not as important as BBC1&2.

But there is one point that intrigues me - the positioning of the URL on the BBC2 idents is exactly where BBC DOGs normally go.  So if BBC3 & BBC4's idents follow the same screen layout, the URL will clash with the DOG.  Hmmm...

Of course I still hold out this hope that BBC3&4 will be graffiti-free - but I must get back to cloud cuckoo land now. :

(Edited by RW at 2:11 pm on Feb. 2, 2002)

Well, it might mean that the DOGS will be in that position and the URL a little lower!

Well, URLs are more pointless tan the DOGs themselves,a s you don't usally have to do much guessing to get a channels website address do you? News 24's late www.bbc.co.uk DOG and MTVs mtv.co.uk DOG are stating the obvious really.

That News 24 URL DOG was just a knee-jerk reaction - as soon as they saw the forthcoming ITN News Channel was to have its URL scrawled on the screen, the BBC decided they just had to have one too! And it was done so quickly, they forgot to add the 'www' bit, so it disappeared for a day while they added it!

Of course it only disappeared to make way for the 'Press RED' thing - which we don't get on DTT anyway : - but its absence makes the screen look so much better. In the few days after it had gone, I couldn't help but just keep staring at the part of the screen where it used to be!

One DOG down - two to go...

Dogs are also used for international crediting, and also for example, the beeb have many many channels, broadcasting, so the dog is a way to clearly mark transmission feeds, thats why during learning zone, BBC TWO show a dog, because BBC Prime is showing it at the same time...

i dont mind tastefull dogs, channel 5's is fine, but when they are distracting, thats when i take offense.

Suspect it wasn't the launch of ITN news channel with a web dog, but the fact that Sky added a Sky.com to their dog at about the same time. (Interesting that since itn.co.uk has moved to being a portal more for ITV than ITN that ITN NC has dropped their .co.uk bit from their dog.

As for the beeb not putting the www on initially - this was not a cock up...