Universal Channel

Unlike the rather slick rebranding of Sci-Fi to SyFy earlier this year, this morning's rebrand of NBC-U's Hallmark Channel to Universal was a sloppier affair.

The old DOG faded out midway though a trailer, only to be followed by some random switching between 16:9 and 4:3, a garbled final playout of the old jingle against a static Hallmark logo, before jumping straight into a Universal ident and the first programme - all without even a mention from a Continuity Announcer.

http://vid273.photobucket.com/albums/jj219/StuartPlymouth/Hallmark-Universal-2-181010.mp4

Thanks for uploading this. I forget this was happening despite it being on the TV Forum calender.

What time was it? 6am?

Yes, 6am.

Yeah, I thought the switch-over was abysmal. Hardly the best way to launch Universal Channel in the UK, but then I guess very few people would have been watching at that time. The rest of the on-screen presentation has been quite slick since then - although it does feel like their trailers are unbelievably repetitive compared to other channels.

Is it as bad as Discovery repetitiveness?

The trailers are, but some of the programmes are quite good.

After I'd exhausted my fondness for the CSI franchise on C5/FiveUSA/Living, I found a new source of US crime drama available from the 900+ episodes of 'Law & Order' available on Hallmark/Universal.

The advantage is that Hallmark/Universal also premier new L&O in the UK (about 9 months behind the US), and don't mangle the excellent theme tune and titles, like C5 have done.

Actually, I think most of Hallmark/Universal's programming has been quite good - Law & Order, SVU, Monk, Without a Trace etc. It's just the frequency at which they rotate their trailers - it's really annoying (although I can't speak for Discovery, as I hardly every watch it).

Does the UK version use the same idents as the other versions of Universal Channel? By that clip, it appears they just use shots of characters from their shows.

The presentation package and idents for Universal Channel is perhaps a bit generic and too colourful, but very well executed. Especially the audio (by Radium Audio) is superb.

You can see a montage of the idents with the audio here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcOyESv3CK4

And here's a long excerpt of the pause music:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnNR3o1Myd4

I haven't seen any of those on the UK Universal Channel, yet. I certainly hope they introduce them, they are quite nice.

The set introduced on Monday are quite similar to those used by Hallmark before, which generally include characters from the most popular programmes.

Loving that hold music from the second clip, Thinker. Very simple but really catchy.

Radium also did the music for the last Hallmark UK rebrand in 2009, which was an excellent package as well.

Interesting failure a few nights ago on Universal.

Does this mean someone turned off the feed from the server?

It only appeared briefly before a cut to a commercial break.

http://i51.tinypic.com/33coeo0.jpg

Usually you get MEDIA OFFLINE when the vision desk or server fails which is playing it out, as as happened on This Morning...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONhKR_6FgWU