FX announcers problems

I watch FX quite a bit for Law and Order and the Seth MacFarlane shows and I've noticed that the announcements have been increasingly erratic, with the usual anomaly being the announcements being cut off mid-sentence. I wonder why that is.

Not really that interesting but still...

I find it strange when they say 'next' rather than 'now' just before the programme.

I'm the opposite. "Now, Next & Later" is a relatively new thing, designed to cram as much promotion in as possible.

"Now" makes no sense when an announcer is talking. By definition the next thing you see is "next", surely?

Completely agree with Gavin there. The way some channels announce their programmes is just plain odd in my opinion. 'Next' is the next thing you see on-screen which is the programme preceding the continuity.

I really like FX's transitions betweens programmes, trails and idents. Just a pitty they only seem to have 2 idents - at least I only ever seem to see 2 (Swimming Pool and Casino)?

As I referenced in the BBC Three thread, I find FX's announcements odd - especially in this ident where the following programme is both 'now' and 'next'.

Also, BBC1 have been using 'Now' for over 30 years as evidenced by clips of their symbol on TV Ark!

"Now" only really works if the only words that follow are the name of the programme. Going into 10 seconds of description afterwards warrants a "next" imo.

They're clearly using the Welsh meaning of now, which means "in a minnit like butt".

Why do many pan-European cable channels even have these announcements just before a program starts ("And now on the Travel Channel, Jane Doe explores Sumatra")? Their American counterparts don't have them, and neither do any terrestrial channels, at least in my part of Europe (Slovenia and surrounding countries). I've often wondered why they're really necessary. I understand the value of promoting upcoming shows, but if a program is starting anyway, why not just go ahead and start it?

Just because it's... nice to actually introduce a show rather than to just press play? It's a bit of a brand-awareness type thing, I guess.



There's a stand-up comedy and a crime scene one as well, but they don't seem to be used as often as the others.

Anyway, I think I prefer FX's use of the word 'next' instead of 'now'. As long as they don't start using a mix of the two like in the clip that was posted earlier, 'cause that's just odd and a tad confusing.

I think it's a hangover from the days when ITV stations had to go to something coming from a camera - whether a studio camera or one built into a slide scanner - before going to a network programme.

This was because of the way the network was reconfigured between programmes as each programme during the evening could come from a different company and they had to lock their sync pulses to the incoming programme to be able to cut to it cleanly.

They couldn't re sync while the adverts were on because doing so would upset the machine playing out the ads, and as the station's source of income, they were clearly careful not to do that. So they went to a camera before the programme so they could sync, as cameras didn't object too much.

I suspect that it's that convention which has remained and it has become part of the grammar of television that before a programme there will be an announcer.

I don't think that is true to be honest.

ITV stations used to frequently go straight from an ad-break or trailer into a programme (YTV didn't as I recall, which is where the confusion may come from).

TTTV, in fact, "crashed" into the next programme more often than not as I recall. The announcement usually came before the break. In fact it was only really in the mid-1980s, after ITV stations had installed digital genlocks, that the concept of an ident/announcer to introduce a programme became the norm on ITV (even after this TTTV bucked the trend). This I always saw as a branding exercise more than anything else.

I have to say that the ident with announcement I have always found to be a jarring and unsatisfying method of presentation -- especially when the announcer speaks over the music. It just doesn't work IMO and I wish TV stations would get rid of it.