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BBC Oneness - idents and presentation

"Watch this space" as BBC Creative respond to ident change request (December 2016)

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RW
Robert Williams Founding member
dbl posted:
Judging by Netflix, no. But I suspect long-winded idents become much shorter, you really don't need 30 seconds just to push some station imaging (a very British way of doing things), 5 seconds is more than enough, it's the concept.


That's what I'm getting at - hence the "as we know it". I'd hate to see us going down the American route of what are effectively short, unimpressive stings. There's a happy medium to be had here. Channel 4's durations are excessive. 5 to 10 second globe junctions were pretty common in the 70s, 80s and 90s. The introduction of elaborate soundtracks and visual build-ups has increased the duration of channel idents. Back to basics - but with something visually impressive - is what's needed here.

This is what I didn't like about the original versions of the BBC One circles - they took around ten seconds to get to the point, which was far too long. When the build-up was cut down drastically, it made the idents feel so much more snappy, and somehow more traditional.
BR
Brekkie
A bit of breathing space is fine though, especially on the BBC. Idents should do much more than just reveal the logo. If that's all they had to do we wouldn't be 150+ pages in to this thread.
SP
Steve in Pudsey
The other difference here is that the (pointless) location caption now apparently needs to state the bleeding obvious by telling us that they are skaters or birdwatchers.
LS
Lou Scannon
All of this does pose an important question though - with so little funding being directed at on-air branding now (relative to the past) and no negative impact on audience figures, could the days of the channel ident (as we know it) be numbered?


They could do worse than to have some sort of "Now/Next/Later" menu type thing effectively serving as the "ident" into the start of each programme, with a general layout that matches whatever the accompanying trailer endboards look like.
SP
Steve in Pudsey
They could, but that would massively complicate things if a region opts out during the evening, they would have to cover several extra junctions locally.
DG
Dan Gooding
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dbl posted:
Idents have a simple purpose. As I've said, we need to get back to basics - make them shorter, clearer, impactful and visually impressive. And let's stop all the secondary meaning trash ('Oneness', 'Coming Together' etc etc).. And above all else, let's get away from all this bland live-action stuff.


This is why those short idents at the start of 2015(?) with the cup, bird etc were nice - a different step which could have been explored much more. If they were to be shorter/less reliant on people then I'd vote for something like those
ST
Steve Founding member
The other difference here is that the (pointless) location caption now apparently needs to state the bleeding obvious by telling us that they are skaters or birdwatchers.


They've always done that - 'sea swimmers', 'fitness class', etc. Now they're over two lines though.
:-(
A former member
Into the realms of inconsistency already.
DP
D.Page
Skaters Sting #2:

DP
D.Page
I prefer Skaters ident like this:

Last edited by D.Page on 15 March 2017 8:25am
WI
Wicko
So, 8 weeks after Mountain rescue and Wheelchair Rugby, we get two more idents. I don't think they're too bad. They need to use all 6 though to give variety, but, the idents now have kind of grown on me. Not brilliant, but could also be much worse.
:-(
A former member
Has both versions of the two new idents been used today? I take it the swimmer are now gone thankful?

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