Presentation beyond the idents

Spinning off from the mention in the Big Breakfast thread I thought a bit of nostalgia about arguably the classic ident package in a thread of it's own would be interesting - specifically C4 from 1982 through to 1996, and perhaps more specifically the efforts in the nineties to freshen up the channel presentation, but keeping the original idents, although with a new score.

This video is a good snapshot of what they did beyond the idents (Note: it does go beyond 1996)


It's quite interesting how they used the surrounding presentation to freshen up the look of the channel, rather than the main idents themselves, something we don't really see happen as much today.


Of course though that wasn't uncommon at the time so worth expanding the discussion a little - BBC1 may have had the globe for every single ident but they had a huge variety of stings featuring the "1" during the 90s, which I think often changes every season.




I think it was quite common too in the regions - I'm sure others can add examples here. Arguably though the sting has somewhat gone out of fashion in recent years, though it is one element Oneness has kind of bought back.

(Credit to original posters of the content on Youtube)

BBC Four used to use "live" (ish) idents as they responded to the voice/music of the announcer and were done on the fly I understand:


This of course had the effect of no two idents being the same.

Then of course 2005 comes along with a new package, most of which is still in use today. Another three years or so and they'll overtake The Learning Zone in terms of longevity

S4C did something like this a few years later.

All I can think after watching that, is that my God Channel 4 (and all other broadcasters), you have become so boring with your presentation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9g-xh40CkRQ

Next time, please embed it using media tags.

Those Channel 4 stings were occasionally used like idents to lead in to programming, particularly Brookside (with no CA, foreshadowing the later circles/squares idents which were designed to go out as idents, normally without a CA - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJvrk92wMdQ).

I think the Channel 4 circles era was probably the biggest wasted opportunity pres wise, if you look at the TV Ark page, by 1998 or so the new idents had already dropped the connections theme and were just using one circle with the '4' in it

https://www.tvark.org/?page=152

Judging by the difficult history of its birth at the top of that page, I guess it's not a surprise it didn't last too long.

EDIT: Turns out today is the anniversary of the circles launching! Complete coincidence I swear.

Well that page is missing the rather nice revamp which lasted the best part of a week and was replaced by the single circle.


They certainly had break bumpers in this style but not sure if they had a promo design and ECP too, or indeed what they did with the surrounding presentation once they switched to the simple circle. I think the promos may have lost the 4 circle endboard by then and just been text over an image with the logo top right anyway.

That's interesting, I've no memory of that at all - I wonder why they were so shortlived? I wonder if there was an epilepsy concern or something like that?

That original circles promo endboard design barely lasted a year before they went back to the "anything goes" approach to promo endboards, so it was already gone some time before these came in. But on the other hand, they were still using the original programme slide design up until the end in 1999 and I think they were still using some of the original generic idents alongside those new ones.

This was a period when Channel 4 were trying all sorts of different things with their presentation, like going straight from a promo into the start of a programme or those in-vision links with a camera in the announcers' booth.

Going back to the original Channel 4 coloured blocks presentation, I remember finding it really odd how virtually every junction in the late 80s/early 90s was a static ident with no fourscore music, apart from closedown. I now realise this was probably to avoid having to pay royalties to composer David Dundas, which begs the question why did Channel 4 agree to the arrangement when they started. They kept doing it until 2 November 1992, the 10th anniversary of the channel, keeping the original idents but changing the music which this time was used at every junction. Which makes me wonder, were they contractually obliged to use only the original fourscore and nothing else for the first 10 years?

The fourscore arrangement was never heard again on the channel until 2 November 2017, the 35th anniversary. Again, I can't help thinking if 35 years was the time limit after Channel 4 were free to use it without paying royalties. Of course I could be talking nonsense, it's just the timing in 1992 and 2017, both milestone anniversaries, seemed a bit coincidental to me.