Problems on BBC ONE

Bordering on the irrational there Joe. Not really a firm basis on which to hate someone now, is it?!?!

There is an increasing tendency to use every last nanosecond of airtime to promote programmes (a decree from above no doubt). Whilst this is understandable, I do find that some announcers are stepping in a little prematurely over ident soundtracks and trying to cram as many words in as they can. The idents have clearly been designed to have v/overs coming in at a certain point. I do think that in some cases, the overall result comes across a bit clumsy.

Yes, there is a message to be conveyed but let's have a few seconds set aside so that it can be done a little more professionally and a little less rushed.

Channel 4 have got it right. Stylish idents, allowing plenty of scope for chat.

Friendly warning Joe - you're entitled to your opinion but tread carefully. I was nearly sued last year.

Hi Mike.

Depending on the style of each announcer, some may write scripts that are longer than others'. Generally the playout director will put longer symbols in the schedule to accommodate this, but of course there are fixed points in the schedule that have to be met, e.g. the 10 o'clock news. If it's not possible to lengthen a symbol because of this, the director may direct the announcer to speak earlier than they otherwise would, but the alternative could be scripts that are pared down to the bare facts which some might argue wouldn't be as interesting. After all the idents are seen hundreds or thousands of times but each edition of a programme only gets introduced once.

I suppose some people might prefer the idents to run for longer before the announcer speaks, others may prefer more creative announcements, but it's not always possible to have both. The main point I was making to Joe was that it's not the announcer's decision how long the symbol runs for, and even the director whose decision it is may be constrained by other factors.

Dan

Hi there Dan.

Totally understand your point about who makes the decision on the length of symbol. I suppose the point that I'm trying to make is that the tendency to jump in with a v/o almost right at the top of the ident is in some cases a personal trait, rather than an exceptional case. Fascination with presentation and idents aside, it just sounds clumsy.

Wouldn't bother 99.9% of the population I'm sure!

I do agree with the earlier comments about Stephanie Sabine though - I remember one instance with Haka, the rugby players hadn't finished shouting when she announced. Now I am aware that you can't have creative announcements and long playouts all the time but some announcers manage to do it (Dean Lydiate a prime example) therefore it can't be an impossible task. What I want to know is, why don't they give long clean playouts into programmes which don't get too many viewers, such as N24 early in the morning or into the late night film. I'm sure it can be possible to provide both long clean playouts and those will a considerable amount of information, so not much clean, in the same day.

Yes, but then if you had your way there'd be 15 hours of Ceefax in vision every day!

Does anyone have any video of the clean idents?

Go to these sites, since they have lots of idents:

The TV Room
TV Ark

Edit - Fixed URLs.

The videos still seem to work on that TV Home site.

That's right, however none of them are to do with this thread.

Plus, neither of the other two links you've provided work. Doh!