International Presentation

MTV Networks are rolling out the new Comedy Central logo internationally. Starting Monday, February 21, the new logo will be launched on the Polish version of Comedy Central and its sister channel Comedy Central Family. The logo for the latter can be seen below:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YADbPUqoafM/TV1M3YHVakI/AAAAAAAAAGw/RTrTnzHeSG8/s640/Comedy%252BCentral%252BFamily%252Blogo%252B2011.png

Will Comedy Central Extra also get the box treatment?

Spanish media group Prisa are on strike until Friday and possibly until Sunday.

Their pay tv platform Digital+ is being affected, no live sports are being shown with NBA, Tennis and Golf which was scheduled not being broadcast. Its not clear if tonights Europa League will be shown either.

Most channels are showing an automated schedule but this seems to be breaking down with a few channels showing black screens and an apology slide has been showing on Canal + Deportes HD 2 this morning:



It just says "The broadcast of this channel is temporarily interrupted due to a strike by workers at Digital+. Sorry for any inconvenience. "

http://i56.tinypic.com/raw6pz.png

CTV, which is perhaps the Canadian equivalent of ITV, recently announced that they were rebranding their sister network "A" as "CTV Two".

I have to say, there is something BBC-esque about that logo...

CTV has one of the worst logos in television history. Never mind the CTV Two one above.

Wow, that's quite horrid. The primary colours, the 'light' on the red circle of the C yet the lack of light on the square and triangle, the font..., the huge flat 'two' ... hmm ... not doing anything for me. If that was posted in the Mocks Gallery it wouldn't get much love I don't think...!

CTV's logo is sooo dated and reminds me of some nursery activity.

I believe that is because the circle appears as a red ball in idents, where the triangle and the square are just flat objects. See here.

http://i52.tinypic.com/2a8i4xi.png

I think there is a certain elegance in the idea behind the CTV logo. The three "primary shapes" in the three primary colours. How the C fits in the circle, how the V fits in the triangle, and how the T is somewhat comfortable in the square.

However, when you put together three shapes that are so different, it looks very unbalanced. It doesn't have the rationality of the BBC squares.

Especially the V and triangle is troublesome in many ways, and there isn't any good way to improve on it. Never mind the irritating whitespaces around it, the combination itself is unbalanced. As it is now, it is very top heavy, but you can't move the V up, because then it won't align with the other letters, and you can't move the triangle down, as it won't align with the other shapes.

At the same time, I can't think of a good way to improve on the idea, and I would doubt if they could benefit at all from getting a completely new logo. They are basically stuck with this forever.

They look far better than anything the BBC has given us here in the last decade.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mswndxBQRf4/Tf41zUdQZNI/AAAAAAAABmY/ls7-K8yRzJo/s1600/Zee+logo+2011.png

Today, a new Z logo was unveiled by the Zee Network. It will be used by all their channels (Zee TV, Zee Cinema, Zing etc).

Improvement from the previous logo that was stuck in the mid-90's.

It reminds me of the Stars network logo.

Another test card bites the dust, as SVT2 retired its test card on June 9. The triggering reason for this has been that SVT2 started broadcasting in HD last autumn, which has meant that HD viewers have seen an image that was upconverted from 576i to 720p, while SD viewers have seen an image that was first upconverted to 720p, and then back to 576i again (or "432i" on analogue cable).

If you know Swedish, there's lots more to read in this forum thread: http://www.minhembio.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=283000&st=60&start=60

SVT1 retired its testcard several years ago. On SVT2 it was retained mostly for nostalgia.

I don't know what SVT2 are showing instead in their downtime, but the image below was posted on the previously mentioned forum shortly after the test card was dropped.

http://www.minhembio.com/forum/uploads/monthly_06_2011/post-71616-1308238711.jpg

R.I.P. SVT widescreen test card 1 March 1999 - 9 June 2011