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TV Tropes, 66.135.32.134 port 80. Coming up next, an entry on stations announcing themselves.
In broadcasting, it is common for stations to give some kind of announcement as to what station you are on. This typically happens just before a feature begins. Many network mascots and logos are born in idents. They also may contain a theme tune, carry a common motif, or carry no common element at all. Early idents, which were basic and fairly static, can accidentally be
Nightmare Fuel to younger viewers.
In recent years these have waned in the United States, though a few notable channels like HBO soldiered on. The major TV networks have less need for this practice over the years, thanks to persistent onscreen logos and announcing their brand at the end of every commercial anyway. Typically, Top of the Hour announcements come in the form of a blurb for the Late Night
Talk Show guest list or a new episode of a primetime drama. Local stations' afternoon and late news slots are a different matter, as individual station screen bugs aren't really possible in syndicated shows.
Idents are still quite popular in British television.
The BBC has a fairly consistent design of idents across its TV channels, as does ITV and Channel 4. British idents often have a
continuity announcer, a disembodied voice that informs you of the next program or two and whether you might want to put the kids to bed for this one. British idents aim to entertain or mystify rather than simply inform, and sometimes their onscreen display may be relevant to the content of the show to follow.
Shorter versions, which tend to appear in the space between programmes and adverts, are known as Stings, or
Break Bumpers.
Some stations come up with variants for holidays and special events.
Compare with a
Vanity Plate, which shows up at the tail end of a show and usually is about the production company instead of the broadcaster. Another form of broadcaster identification would be the
Radio Jingle.
Many examples can be found at the
idents.tv
blog, which covers this kind of stuff with a vengeance.
The Ident Gallery has videos of some of the British ones mentioned here.
American Examples:
- NBC's peacock and chimes were common elements in idents. The peacock dates back to the debut of colour television, while the six-feathered version (by Chermayeff and Geismar) debuted in 1986.
- Before The Tonight Show during Jay's tenure, "NBC, America's late night leader!"
- CBS has a stylised eye as its station identification logo. It is the longest tenured network TV logo in the United States, debuting in 1951. It was designed by William Golden.
- ABC's current slogan, "Start Here" has been used since the 2007-08 season. Both of the campaigns using it were done by Troika Design Group, who has done work for them in the past. The current logo was designed by legendary designer Paul Rand and debuted in 1963.
- HBO's 1980's "Feature Presentation" is almost certainly the most recognized American ident of the cable/satellite age, which is a bit odd when you consider it's a pay channel that a lot of people don't subscribe to. A 21st century refresh made an even more complex city in CGI that is zoomed through before the message appears and a quickened version of the theme plays.
- This is CNN.
- Cartoon Network has had a number of afternoon blocks over the years which typically feature CGI hosts as continuity announcers. On the other hand, continuity in Adult Swim has no voices at all.
- Episodes of Star Wars The Clone Wars on Cartoon Network featured characters from the series in front of the regular logo. One starred R2-D2 "accidentally" knocking over a couple of letters to leave "Artoo Network".
- Syfy: Prior to the name change, they had an ident campaign where the letters "iF" sat in the air. Something ordinary came up and upon making contact with the letters transformed into something amazing via Conspicuous CG, and the iF would expand to SciFi. Many different firms were responsible for these IDs. The current IDs were done by Proud Creative and feature various objects forming the Syfy logo.
- The CW has used the same logo since its debut, which was designed by the aforementioned Troika Design Group.
Canadian Examples:
British Examples:
- BBC One had a globe hot-air balloon motif back in the day, as did other BBC projects. They switched for a number of years to a series known as Rhythm & Movement, featuring people in dancing or moving in synch with a heavy dose of red in their clothing or on the set. These were often attacked by viewers as boring and Political Correctness Gone Mad due to the number of different races and cultures featured. The present theme is round objects or things moving in a circle. Some of these are also used on BBC America.
- BBC Two has animated number 2's (except for the 1987-1991 period); in particular, the 1991-2001 idents are cult classics. The current series is the shape of a 2 appearing in some kind of surreal or arty sequence. Often related to the show about to premiere, expect to see the 2 shape as a car sunroof or side mirror before Top Gear. An ident of a tent door in the shape of a 2 unzipping open revealed many other tents outside to open broadcasts of the Glastonbury outdoor music festival. The tent ident also has varying levels of daylight outside, which seems to reflect the current time in Britain.
- BBC Three's idents are bit more abstract than the above, and heavy on CGI representing the youth it's targeted at.
- BBC Four's are even more abstract than Three's. The original ident was basically a computer-generated 3D waveform of the continuity announcer's voice, meaning that no two idents were ever exactly alike. Now they have scenes with a surreal duality, like water reflecting in a pond, and a drop in the water causing the sky to ripple.
- BBC HD, the BBC channel which airs high-definition shows, has it's own set of unique idents. In them a rather ordinary scene is shown (Such a boy fishing, or an asian couple sitting on a park bench). A diamond-shaped pane enters the screen, and through the pain a dramatised, fun, over-the-top, colourful, high-definition version of the scene is seen. For example, a queue for the ice-cream truck viewed through the HD pane is a musical song-and-dance number. These usually end with the BBC HD logo.
- BBC News has two major idents: a fifteen second animation of radio waves emanating over the globe, and a minute-long montage of CG news transmissions making their way to the BBC Studios at White City, both accompanied by techno-style music that wouldn't be out of place at an apocalyptic rave.
- ITV's four stations tend to have a lot of art-house idents that make heavy use of the channel's assigned colour. The sole exception is ITV 4, where the 4 from the logo shows up in different genres like sports or an action movie.
- In the days when ITV was a single regionalized network the Vanity Plates from the various regional stations often doubled up as station I Ds on local programmes.
- Channel 4 likes to use heavy CGI to make flybys and zoom-throughs of real locations where objects at different distance appear to form the channel's logo in an optical illusion. One is at the top of this entry, and that's one of the EASIER ones.
- The original Channel 4 idents from the 1980s consisted of coloured blocks flying together to make the "4". The current logos pay homage to the originals by having the logo come together from various objects and then fly apart as the camera moves past.
- More4 does some screensaver-like effects with the logo's elements.
- 4Music has had several sets, including an Elevator Gag.
- Film4's idents are tropes themselves, including Slow Motion Drop, Chase Scene, and Soft Glass. Expect a lot of Bullet Time.
- Channel Five spinoff Fiver likes bright pastels on a black background. Their continuity announcers are prone to commenting on the previous programme and engaging in occasional snark.
- Five USA uses numerous Eagleland subtropes, where you can expect skylines and people playing street sports and American Football.
Australian Examples:
- The ABC logo is probably the most famous of our lot, being a distinctive "squiggle", created to reference the network's radio origins. It is the only logo to have survived virtually intact since its inception, with the only major changes being the general design (it's now best explained as being a twisted loop of metal pipe, and now has several slightly differing versions, depending on which ABC station you are watching).
- The Channel 9 logo has, over the years, remained basically intact, but whether or not it features nine dots next to the "9" is a matter of the era.
- The Channel 7 logo was, until 2000, some kinf of depiction of a 7 in a circle. These days, it's some kind of stylized ribbon.
- The Ten logo has had a few variants. Most of them involve the word "ten" in a circle, but there was a "Ten" under an X in the early 80s and, briefly, the number 10 next to a depiction of Australia.
- The SBS logo has also undergone several varieties. Early versions of the logo incorporated some kind of ball, but the logo used throughout the 90s involved five pointy ellipses (resembling overturned kayaks). The version from the 90s used some positively ingenious idents, with indigenous (or microscopic) objects ranging in number from 1 to 4 appearing. The current logo is a variant on that logo.
Fictional Examples Within Other Media:
- BBC One's idents are frequently the target of Take That on other shows, sometimes on the BBC itself, either as a statement on the quality of the shows or on the network's branding image. As the channel introduced the Movement & Rhythm idents, BBC Three's adult toon show Monkey Dust frequently made fun of them. Another comedy spoofed the circles motif by plastering the BBC One name over footage from a colonoscopy camera.
- In a similar vein, topical live-action comedy satire Dead Ringers used to occasionally parody the idents voiceover person, featuring the original ident with a new comical commentary.
- Monty Python regularly spoofed the BBC One globe idents and continuity announcements. Most famous examples:
Announcer: We interrupt this program to annoy you and make things generally irritating.
Announcer: It's eight o'clock and time for the news now on BBC Two, with on BBC One, me telling you this.
Announcer: Well, it's five past nine, and nearly time for six past nine. On BBC Two it will shortly be six and a half minutes past nine. Later on this evening it will be ten o'clock, and at ten thirty we'll be joining BBC Two in time for ten thirty-three. And don't forget tomorrow when it'll be
nine twenty. Those of you who missed eight forty-five on friday will be able to see it again this friday at a quarter to nine.
- The WKRP In Cincinnati Theme Tune is meant to resemble this.
- The video to the credits even looks like an old community ident for a TV affiliate until the roll call begins.
