Hello there from India (though studying in Singapore)! I am mostly found on Logopedia where I have a similar username, and I make edits for TV channels and other brands from India, Europe and all over the world. I have always been fascinated by TV graphics and presentation from both Europe and the world, and I had registered to have a look at the BBC rebrand forum, but then I came upon this thread and saw the absolutely FASCINATING discussions a couple of months back regarding TV presentation in the UK versus the rest of Europe.(Apologies if I should not be quoting old posts!)
This will be a very long post as I am simply overwhelmed by all of this, and I would like to share my opinion on it.
As an Indian, I am used to seeing TV graphics and presentation from India (where there are usually no idents whatsoever) and continental Europe (where the idents are minimal, and graphics elements that animate between show promos take up a lot of screen space). So it came as a huge surprise that you in the UK (and Ireland too!) place disproportionate importance on idents and continuity announcements, with the bare minimum of on-screen graphics elements.
In India we place great importance on on-screen graphics, such as moving elements for the end cards and show names, and we even have dedicated graphics titles for programme sponsors as well as opening and closing credits. You can check them out if you like on YouTube as I believe there are several videos of Indian continuity, including Indian feeds in the UK. An example is this:
Sony Max, where you can see that we lay lots of emphasis on sponsor graphics, countdown timers and other things that are unheard of elsewhere.
Some more examples of Indian graphics in this playlist (yes, we have lots of ads!).
No wonder then that the UK is the only country — and the BBC, specifically, is pretty much the only broadcaster — to have dedicated Wikipedia pages for TV channel ident history for Balloons, Circles, Oneness and other things that I mostly do not understand!
I would like to share my point of view here, and I mean no disrespect whatsoever for you, as they are just different ways of doing the same thing: presenting show information and identifying the channel. I am so far used to the Indian and Continental European (except Scandinavian) way of doing TV graphics presentation, and it was fascinating to know about the British (and Irish) way.
It was certainly very jarring to compare channels that I am used to seeing (anything from Germany, France, Spain, Central and Eastern European countries, etc.) to what you have in the UK — and, as it turns out, many Nordic countries as well in addition to the Netherlands and Belgium, which mostly follow the British continuity principles with announcers, which I am not at all accustomed to.
dbl post_id=33170 time= user_id=966 Wrote:theduytv post_id=32923 time= user_id=1516 Wrote:- How's the difference between UK and continental Europe presentation (minus Central/Eastern Europe)? (from past to present) (I know that UK presentation are always differ with continental one, but don't know exactly why)
UK presentation currently is very ordered, structured and personality led to inform the viewer, using continuity announcers. The main channels such as BBC One, BBC Two, ITV*, Channel 4*, Channel 5* have live announcers to be able to 'react' better to a dynamic reactive live schedule.
*pre-recorded in the daytime.
There's more thought on how a junction flows and emphasis on idents (and what type should be used before certain shows) are one of the tools to convey information to viewers other than promos and navigation. If something goes wrong, there's more likely to an apology rather than pretend the issue didn't happen, compared to some other countries.
We also aim to start the programme times on the hour/half hour - if a programme is over 5 minutes late and there hasn't been an attempt to let viewers aware - it would break Ofcom's rules.
Ireland also follows the UK in this presentation style, with Scandinavia closely behind.
Source: this is my dayjob
Someone has done a video comparing presentation between ITV and TF1 in France, you'll see there's more continuity messaging on ITV and more prominent in the schedule.
When I first saw the new BBC idents today, I thought, "Oh good god, why is someone speaking in the middle of the idents? Aren't idents supposed to last just 5 or 10 seconds?" Then I understood that you Brits place great importance on these continuity announcers. This, I think, is what separates you from other European countries, where you show a 5- or 10-second ident and be done with it. It seems Scandinavian countries have continuity announcers as well.
Kunst post_id=33053 time= user_id=1292 Wrote:theduytv post_id=32928 time= user_id=1516 Wrote:Among the "mOrE oR lEsS" guys, Portugal DOES HAVE 10 sec idents between programmes, but no announcer.
Spain has a lot of "return in n" (with n a time value) bumpers.
Italy... hmm not sure what can I say
To be fair, many continental Europe (especially western countries, but not only them) countries have gone pretty basic with their presentation, this includes Southern Europe.
Mediaset in Italy basically have never had a solid presentation for a long long time, for instance
Some stations like Discovery stations, have a more British-like presentation here in Italy (but with an Italian flavor),which I honestly like
Let me give the example of three recent rebrands in the past few months: TVN7 from Poland, RTL from Germany and TV 2 from Norway, since I am more familiar with those examples than with British channels that you may be more familiar with.
With TVN7, I felt right at home. This is exactly what I am accustomed to. Colourful graphics, three-second bumpers announcing advertisements and other spots (Poland has lots of them!), a catchy theme music tune, the name of the show and the time displayed prominently on the screen, a corner logo animation with the current and upcoming programme: all of these are things that I expect to find on a TV channel. It is a different matter that this is a so-called "trashy" channel for youngsters, like RTL Zwei or W9, or (to give a more familiar example I believe) ITV2. But I wanted to highlight that to me this just felt like a "complete" graphics package to me with a prominent theme music and ident package.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpep2RbP16M
Similarly with Polsat, another Polish channel that rebranded on the same day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoFr8AfnqBY
Then you have RTL, and on the whole I really like German TV graphics such as Sat.1 and ProSieben, which are colourful yet slick. But when I saw the graphics presentation video, I could not help but feel that something was off. Some text moving on the bottom of the screen (watch from 1:44 onwards) and enlarging near the end of the trailer. For all their talk of becoming more colourful, I think RTL got a lot less colourful with this rebrand. And RTL has never been known for having any theme music like Central European or French channels do, apart from that four-note jingle. I thought it was really becoming close to British and Scandinavian channels, minus the announcers!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei7LmgpE-Pg?t=101
Finally you have TV 2 Norway, and sadly there is absolutely no coverage on YouTube about it. It seems that Norwegians and Swedes do not like to record TV continuity and upload them on YouTube, except during Christmas, as there are plenty of continuity videos from Scandinavia around Christmas, but not at other times. As a result I could not make much sense of how the continuity animations take place, and how the text and visuals are going to move around the screen. This was a head-scratcher. The only video there is is the identity presentation video. Other than that, you can understand nothing about the graphics of these Scandinavian channels because there are no videos.
https://player.vimeo.com/video/622798616
Kunst post_id=32925 time= user_id=1292 Wrote:There's no proper continental Europe pattern.
Nordic nations, especially Norway and Sweden for instance, follow quite the "British" model , with idents and no flow.
Flanders and Netherland are kind of intermediate between the UK and Germany.
Italy, Spain, Portugal , Greece is a case of morre or less anything goes .
France is know for its Pub idents, but not many kdents or no idents, and so on
Something that France and Central European countries (but not Germany) do very well is that they have a consistent audio branding scheme for their channels and idents, and often you find yourself humming that tune in your head. You can find them in TF1's Pub idents, as Kunst mentioned, or in any other French channel. Or, for that matter, TVN7 as mentioned above. It seems that in the UK some idents have a music score and others are either natural sounds or a blend of different sounds. Again, I do not know much about British TV, so pardon me if I've said anything wrong!
Kunst post_id=33184 time= user_id=1292 Wrote:But yes, in general TV presentation is one of these things UK does very well, in general, even if it requires some more effort.
Italy has some creativity going on (but without the planning that goes into British TV) but since I'm also somehow familiar with French TV, I think there's a huge gap between French and British presentation.. French TV presentation tends to be very "orderly" in a quite boring way, with announcers using the same kind of pitch and so on..
It gets bland and even screams of "tacky" and "over-the-top", especially when there are things like a soft-spoken female voice saying the name of the channel on the jingle (but German TV is similar), those long introducing end boards (you can see everything in the video) etc.
think of all the banners during promos, everything seems structured.. but in reality, it isn't.
I hate the "Pub" idents concept, and the lack of "classic" idents.
And I know it's trendy to confuse "in" and "un" (especially in Paris), but it's TF1 te-e-fun", not te-e-fin"!
Again, I could not help but be reminded of the rebrand of France Télévisions in January 2018, and it is so consistent and cohesive, even three years later. It is close enough to today's BBC rebrand, except that the BBC one was very long-drawn-out and many things are still left to be corrected, but they are still remarkable in their scale.
That is the end of this very long post. Thanks for reading through!
![[Image: SporTVRebrand2021.png]](https://up.metropol247.co.uk/BoveJobaMX/SporTVRebrand2021.png)