TT
What a wide range of on-screen information graces our TV screens these days. Personally I call it on-screen clutter, garbage or junk actually. Look at what there is:
DOGs (Digital On-screen Graphics)
Astons
Next Banners
ECPs
The question is, do we really need it?
DOGs (Digital On-screen Graphics)
You know what I mean, putting the channel logo in the top left or top right hand corner of the screen. Most channels do it. I’ve hopped through several channels on Sky today to compare DOGs.
When Channel 5 launched on Easter Sunday 1997, it was the first analogue terrestrial channel to have a DOG, and that was highly controversial. When it rebranded itself as Five in September 2002, it dropped the DOG. However when it launched its sister channels Five Life and Five US nearly a year ago, it went and put DOGs on those. Fair enough, the DOGs on Five Life and Five US are translucent white DOGS which are discreet and merge into the background. Other channels with DOGs of this nature include Sky One, Sky Two, BBC Three and More 4. But still, why bother having a DOG at all, no matter how discreet you try and make it?
Some channels have DOGs which are more obvious. In many cases, they may be transluscent white, but still obvious. Most of the UKTV channels are like this (Gold, G2, Drama, Style, Gardens, Food, Bright Ideas, Documentary, People and History). So are E4, Paramount Comedy, Sci Fi and Boomerang. TCM has a DOG like this. Fancy a film channel having a DOG? At least the Sky Movies channels and Film 4 are DOG free during films. Worse still are opaque white DOGs, including MTV One, MTV Two, VH1 Classic, abc1, and Hallmark. Some film channels have opaque white DOGs, e.g. Movies 24, Movies 4 Men, True Movies 1 & 2.
Until recently ITV2 and ITV3 had translucent white DOGs, which were quite discreet. Suddenly they decided to have coloured DOGs to match their logos, i.e. green for ITV2 and burgundy for ITV3. ITV4’s DOG is also coloured, turquoise. Why the need to change to a coloured DOG. Coloured DOGs are gaudy, and stick out like a sore thumb.
Loads of other channels have coloured DOGs. Several Discovery channels have coloured DOGs, including Discovery Real Time, Discovery Real Time Extra, Discovery Home and Health, Discovery Travel and Living, Discovery Turbo and Animal Planet. So does Nickelodeon, and its partner channels Nick Replay, Nick Toons, Nick Jr and , Nick Jr 2. Performance has its rather ugly purple P. Other channels with coloured DOGs include Trouble, Challenge, Ftn, Men and Motors, CNN, Legal TV, Living In Spain, Fashion TV and Information TV.
Some channels aren’t content to have a brightly coloured DOG, they have to animate them as well! WHY? On CBeebies the DOG rotates between the CBeebies logo and some other graphic, e.g. sun, bug or moon depending on time of day. I’ve tried to spot other channels on Sky which have animated DOGs.
Are DOGs really necessary? I don’t think so. It has been said that they are there for branding. Just like you might have a Levi-Strauss or Wrangler label on a pair of jeans, Adidas, Nike or Umbro on a football shirt, or a Hitachi / Mitsubishi / Philips badge on the front of your TV and VCR, the DOG on a TV channel serves the same role. I disagree totally with this claim. Another idea is so that you can see what channel you’re watching, out of the 40 odd on Freeview, or few hundred on Sky. Why? When you navigate to a channel on Freeview or Sky, the channel name pops up on screen for a few seconds. If you want to find out what channel you’re currently watching, press the side arrow keys on your Sky handset, or the relevant button on your Freeview box remote (it’s marked Info on my Pace DTVA handset).
Astons and scrolling text
Another gripe with me is Astons on the bottom of the screen. They should only appear briefly to tell you someone’s name during their first appearance in a news bulletin. Tune into BBC News 24 or Sky News and what will you find? Scrolling news text at the bottom of the screen. Whilst the reader is telling you about news story ABC (and there is a report about it), text about news story XYZ is scrolling away at the bottom of the screen. For example, on BBC News 24 just now, they were doing a report on ITV dropping the Comedy Awards, and simultaneously text was scrolling at the bottom about the flooding in Africa. Confusing and downright distracting to say the least.
Next Banners
These appear towards the end of programmes. The ITV channels do this with a narrow strip appearing in the top left hand corner, it scrolls towards the centre. For example, towards the end of Emmerdale tonight, you may well get one of these banners appear to say Next ITV1 Coronation Street. Sometimes the banner shows ITV1 first, then changes to show what’s next on ITV2, and finally ITV3, before undrawing itself right to left and disappearing. It spoils the picture, especially if you’re recording a programme you want to keep.
Mind that’s discreet compared to some. Recently CBeebies has started to put up a big yellow bug in the bottom right hand corner near the end of programmes, with a cloud showing you what’s next, e.g. Numberjacks. This totally spoils the picture.
Why do we need next banners? They only ruin the picture. Look at all the ways you can find out what’s coming next:
TV magazine (channel your watching, and others).
Freeview eight day guide / Sky EPG (channel your watching, and others).
On Sky: right arrow – get next and later programmes on current channel.
On Freeview: Info button – now and next on current channel
In the case of a two year old (who can’t read yet) watching Teletubbies on CBeebies, just wait for the interval – Chris Jarvis or whoever else is presenting will announce the next programme.
ECPs
These appear during the closing credits. They squeeze the credits up, so in some cases, they become more difficult to read, and put a column at the side detailing what’s coming up. ITV channels do this. For example, at the end of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire on ITV1, it may say Next, Then, Later on ITV1. Alternatively it may list Next on ITV1, ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4. BBC channels did this until recently, now they have the split picture approach to achieve the same goal. Bad enough doing it with EastEnders or Coronation Street, but they tend to do it with films as well. What if you want to want to record (for keepsake), say, “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”, and at the end, they spoil the closing credits by squeezing them up to put in an ECP? Some people are interested in the credits. Again, for the same explanation as Next banners, why do we need ECPs? They spoil the picture.
Summing up, why do the broadcasters insist on cluttering our screens with all this unnecessary garbage? They should all stop it at once, and let us viewers enjoy the programmes without this on-screen junk.
DOGs (Digital On-screen Graphics)
Astons
Next Banners
ECPs
The question is, do we really need it?
DOGs (Digital On-screen Graphics)
You know what I mean, putting the channel logo in the top left or top right hand corner of the screen. Most channels do it. I’ve hopped through several channels on Sky today to compare DOGs.
When Channel 5 launched on Easter Sunday 1997, it was the first analogue terrestrial channel to have a DOG, and that was highly controversial. When it rebranded itself as Five in September 2002, it dropped the DOG. However when it launched its sister channels Five Life and Five US nearly a year ago, it went and put DOGs on those. Fair enough, the DOGs on Five Life and Five US are translucent white DOGS which are discreet and merge into the background. Other channels with DOGs of this nature include Sky One, Sky Two, BBC Three and More 4. But still, why bother having a DOG at all, no matter how discreet you try and make it?
Some channels have DOGs which are more obvious. In many cases, they may be transluscent white, but still obvious. Most of the UKTV channels are like this (Gold, G2, Drama, Style, Gardens, Food, Bright Ideas, Documentary, People and History). So are E4, Paramount Comedy, Sci Fi and Boomerang. TCM has a DOG like this. Fancy a film channel having a DOG? At least the Sky Movies channels and Film 4 are DOG free during films. Worse still are opaque white DOGs, including MTV One, MTV Two, VH1 Classic, abc1, and Hallmark. Some film channels have opaque white DOGs, e.g. Movies 24, Movies 4 Men, True Movies 1 & 2.
Until recently ITV2 and ITV3 had translucent white DOGs, which were quite discreet. Suddenly they decided to have coloured DOGs to match their logos, i.e. green for ITV2 and burgundy for ITV3. ITV4’s DOG is also coloured, turquoise. Why the need to change to a coloured DOG. Coloured DOGs are gaudy, and stick out like a sore thumb.
Loads of other channels have coloured DOGs. Several Discovery channels have coloured DOGs, including Discovery Real Time, Discovery Real Time Extra, Discovery Home and Health, Discovery Travel and Living, Discovery Turbo and Animal Planet. So does Nickelodeon, and its partner channels Nick Replay, Nick Toons, Nick Jr and , Nick Jr 2. Performance has its rather ugly purple P. Other channels with coloured DOGs include Trouble, Challenge, Ftn, Men and Motors, CNN, Legal TV, Living In Spain, Fashion TV and Information TV.
Some channels aren’t content to have a brightly coloured DOG, they have to animate them as well! WHY? On CBeebies the DOG rotates between the CBeebies logo and some other graphic, e.g. sun, bug or moon depending on time of day. I’ve tried to spot other channels on Sky which have animated DOGs.
Are DOGs really necessary? I don’t think so. It has been said that they are there for branding. Just like you might have a Levi-Strauss or Wrangler label on a pair of jeans, Adidas, Nike or Umbro on a football shirt, or a Hitachi / Mitsubishi / Philips badge on the front of your TV and VCR, the DOG on a TV channel serves the same role. I disagree totally with this claim. Another idea is so that you can see what channel you’re watching, out of the 40 odd on Freeview, or few hundred on Sky. Why? When you navigate to a channel on Freeview or Sky, the channel name pops up on screen for a few seconds. If you want to find out what channel you’re currently watching, press the side arrow keys on your Sky handset, or the relevant button on your Freeview box remote (it’s marked Info on my Pace DTVA handset).
Astons and scrolling text
Another gripe with me is Astons on the bottom of the screen. They should only appear briefly to tell you someone’s name during their first appearance in a news bulletin. Tune into BBC News 24 or Sky News and what will you find? Scrolling news text at the bottom of the screen. Whilst the reader is telling you about news story ABC (and there is a report about it), text about news story XYZ is scrolling away at the bottom of the screen. For example, on BBC News 24 just now, they were doing a report on ITV dropping the Comedy Awards, and simultaneously text was scrolling at the bottom about the flooding in Africa. Confusing and downright distracting to say the least.
Next Banners
These appear towards the end of programmes. The ITV channels do this with a narrow strip appearing in the top left hand corner, it scrolls towards the centre. For example, towards the end of Emmerdale tonight, you may well get one of these banners appear to say Next ITV1 Coronation Street. Sometimes the banner shows ITV1 first, then changes to show what’s next on ITV2, and finally ITV3, before undrawing itself right to left and disappearing. It spoils the picture, especially if you’re recording a programme you want to keep.
Mind that’s discreet compared to some. Recently CBeebies has started to put up a big yellow bug in the bottom right hand corner near the end of programmes, with a cloud showing you what’s next, e.g. Numberjacks. This totally spoils the picture.
Why do we need next banners? They only ruin the picture. Look at all the ways you can find out what’s coming next:
TV magazine (channel your watching, and others).
Freeview eight day guide / Sky EPG (channel your watching, and others).
On Sky: right arrow – get next and later programmes on current channel.
On Freeview: Info button – now and next on current channel
In the case of a two year old (who can’t read yet) watching Teletubbies on CBeebies, just wait for the interval – Chris Jarvis or whoever else is presenting will announce the next programme.
ECPs
These appear during the closing credits. They squeeze the credits up, so in some cases, they become more difficult to read, and put a column at the side detailing what’s coming up. ITV channels do this. For example, at the end of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire on ITV1, it may say Next, Then, Later on ITV1. Alternatively it may list Next on ITV1, ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4. BBC channels did this until recently, now they have the split picture approach to achieve the same goal. Bad enough doing it with EastEnders or Coronation Street, but they tend to do it with films as well. What if you want to want to record (for keepsake), say, “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”, and at the end, they spoil the closing credits by squeezing them up to put in an ECP? Some people are interested in the credits. Again, for the same explanation as Next banners, why do we need ECPs? They spoil the picture.
Summing up, why do the broadcasters insist on cluttering our screens with all this unnecessary garbage? They should all stop it at once, and let us viewers enjoy the programmes without this on-screen junk.