New UKTV Channel "Drama"

Is Gold going completely - can't believe Top Up TV have persisted with the one hour slot for so long. Viewing figures must be minimal and surely while they had it using any time they had for ESPN would have made the most sense.

Do we know what mux this channel will be on - is it actually replacing ESPN?

I think Gold will be going completely.

Now confirmed... http://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news/broadcasters/blighty-closes-as-drama-opens-for-uktv/5057663.article?referrer=RSS (subscription)

Idents, idents, idents:

http://www.youtube.com/user/DramaChannelTV/videos

It's things like this that make me wonder why people get paid hundreds of thousands, if not millions, to create an identity for a channel.

Well, at least they're better than Really's....

Are you joking? They are brilliant. Absolutely perfect for the channel.

I think they do the job well. For me, the soundtracks make the idents. They sum up the channel perfectly - all about drama! If I could change one thing I'd have made the text white or increase the Gaussian blur, but apart from that they're great.

They look no different to basic stock video footage with a logo slapped on the top.

Whoever created these must've blagged it with some amazing marketing double-speak.

Oh do tell what you would have come up with that would be better.

I'm not saying they don't match the channel. What I'm saying is the price it costs for somebody to rebrand a channel doesn't seem to be justified when something like this is the result. You could easily get a few people from a university to hire out kit from their department, shoot a little sequence like a woman walking up some stairs, and stick a Drama logo on with a fancy transition from After Effects.

I think the problem some may have here is there is no real theme that links the idents to the channel branding. The scenes are of a very high quailty and clearly represent drama but they just don't connect to the branding in the way ITV's which it is clearly inspired by do.