What are the worst idents you've ever seen?

[RyoG]

We're about 50 posts in and nobody has mentioned this awful monstrosity from the debuting Harlech Television in 1968. It's just awful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-agHZuB59N0

I really can't watch that ident without imagining an out of tune kazoo blaring over it (Thanks Victor Lewis-Smith!)

[Philheybrookbay]

All thanks to the ITV generic look in 1989, TSW decided to start the nasty and horrible ident idea of the San serif font with non description music. Here's the Winter version..

https://youtu.be/aTxsLJMPGK0

This idea became the latest thing in 90s and to a degree continues to this day. All because TSW didn't want their IVC removed and didn't like 89 package.

[Markymark]

It's well known stuff made for 405 doesn't look as good on modern sets (see also: OTT blurring of recreations for 60s frontcaps on modern repeats)

Original analogue 405 line resolution was higher grade than some of the sub SD low bit rate sludge channels we have today.

The issue for 60s b/w TVs was what was that they usually had no black level clamp, so a fade to black would get rendered as a fade to grey. Any sudden transition from black to white or vice versa would lead to instability for most domestic sets, and the ad break opticals of that era would gently ramp the signal from black to white, so that the first few frames of a commercial were not impaired by any picture bounce of the TV.

It looks to me as if this Harlech ident was an attempt to not induce such black level instability in TV sets of that era. However, yes, it's unwatchable !

[LukeHarrison]

The issue for 60s b/w TVs was what was that they usually had no black level clamp, so a fade to black would get rendered as a fade to grey. Any sudden transition from black to white or vice versa would lead to instability for most domestic sets, and the ad break opticals of that era would gently ramp the signal from black to white, so that the first few frames of a commercial were not impaired by any picture bounce of the TV.

I never knew that. I’d always just assumed they were a narcissistic branding exercise but didn’t realise they had a technical purpose too.

[Stuart]

Moving on, I never really liked this. It just looked like an animated letterhead to me. Oh and I found the jingle on a library music CD once, but it had also been used by the IBA for their Ident into “engineering announcements” back in the day too.

https://youtu.be/yT7C2bhrnCM

But it was so much better than the soundless and static idents I had to grow up seeing.

You may be able to guess that I have considerable bitterness that they did this on the week I moved out of the region.

[VMPhil]

Great example here of why the dancer idents were so unsuited as idents - Top of the Pops introduced by some seriously unhip middle aged people salsa dancing.

https://youtu.be/8pPFXSNg3cY

[Jamesypoo]

Great example here of why the dancer idents were so unsuited as idents - Top of the Pops introduced by some seriously unhip middle aged people salsa dancing.

Surely that's just a case of a less than ideal ident choice being made and they could have used something like Festival instead?

[reworP wehttaM]

Honestly for the lowest of the lows, you can't get any worse than the idents featured on TV Offal:
https://youtu.be/4r8P86mpdcU?t=619
https://youtu.be/5o6vZktTovo?t=680
https://youtu.be/a-d2LeSgBKg?t=334
https://youtu.be/Mp3JtP4q-Og?t=372
Aside for Ulster and Harlech, I can't really be mad at the producers though: they're either students or working with inferior hardware

[nwtv2003]

I’ve been thinking about this, as there are tons of idents you may not have liked personally, for instance for me it is the BBC1 dancers. But these and the vast majority of idents were still very well made and executed. It would be easier to write this post at how rubbish Oneness is, but it’s not original.

For me, I would say a short lived Sky One ident package was truly awful. It was simply a case of slapping the existing logo onto a seascape. The previous orange set of idents had their limitations, but they had imagination. These didn’t. Fortunately, these were gone within 9 months, and replaced by the Sky Onc logo.

https://www.tvark.org/?page=1354#/

[LondonNewsBites]

The CBBC

Not necessarily the worst but certaintly weird and annoying was CBBC's short lived idents from late 2014.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaxDBjYn_Bg

The previous set were very solid and reflected what the channel was about. This new set was very jabby and the voices sounded very young, as someone on the old thread on TV Forum said, it was very weird having such a 'kiddy' ident leading into a programme like Wolfblood, which was very much aimed at the upper end of the CBBC audience. Furthermore, there were multiple programmes included in each ident, but many references were outdated, e.g. a couple of weeks after the idents launched, a new look Newsround was launched, meaning that one of the idents was then outdated. Needless to say, they didn't last long, and a new set (and a more thorough re-brand) launched in early 2016.

The promo endboards from that era were so awful, it's like something you can easily recreate in PowerPoint...
https://youtu.be/T9wC61agUQs?t=33

[ChrisOnTees]

Runners-up:
BBC Parliament | But you have to remember it doesn't really need multiple idents as the programmes are like 2 hours long, so the likelihood the tiny audience will stumble upon them is very low.

4Music | Their idents are pretty generic, with decent music, but it's kind of satisfying to watch in a way. What ruins it for me is there's just 3 idents.

Worst idents (excluding oneness):
ITV2 | It's the same batch, except in different orders. Whilst satisfying, it can be annoying. Ever since they got the rights to Family Guy and American Dad!, my perception of the channel is now a 4Seven channel with only a few fresh programmes a night.

[Jonny]

A post in the Easter idents thread reminded me of this modern day disaster:

https://youtu.be/5EUB00FATCM

Revolting colours, plus the start and resolve are the wrong way round. Looked vile on a big TV.

Also, the BBC2 Tagging idents from the Window on the World era, if they've not already had a mention. Technically poor and completely out of the place next to the main set. I think only 2 were ever aired, and only the "Football" one stuck around.

[AxG]

Other than the BBC One idents that won't be named.

Channel 4's bizarre 2015 idents.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWvUJATjJDE

[VMPhil]

Great example here of why the dancer idents were so unsuited as idents - Top of the Pops introduced by some seriously unhip middle aged people salsa dancing.

Surely that's just a case of a less than ideal ident choice being made and they could have used something like Festival instead?

Yes, but that or Music Video were the only suitable ones really, and I'm sure they didn't want to use the same one every time they introduced TOTP. Compared to the balloons, you were a lot more limited with the choice of ident depending on what programme was being introduced.

[LukeHarrison]

We're about 50 posts in and nobody has mentioned this awful monstrosity from the debuting Harlech Television in 1968. It's just awful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-agHZuB59N0

That might be because it's actually quite beautiful, and one of my all time favourites. It'd be great to find a film copy and do a nice HD transfer of it.

Having been unable to get this one out of my head all weekend, and with nothing better to do, I've had a quick (and rough!) stab at 'updating' it for colour.

https://youtu.be/mJpafnrPyDw

It was only after doing this that I found Dave Jeffery had done it five years earlier, and much better.

I know I may be skating on thin ice posting this here as it's maybe more for The Gallery, and if that's the case then please feel free to remove it Rob.