Ident Report by Ben Hunt

10/5/2011

Idents are a one of the most common forms of media you will see in the media they are on TV and the Internet. Idents are short 20-30 second adverts of the TV channel they are representing they are meant to inform and persuade viewers to watch the channel the ident is from. Each channel ident has its own look and feel to it they are representations of the channels mood and show what type of audience and shows they have.

An example of how a channel be sunk and saved by idents is the channel Dave formerly UKTVG2. UKTVG2 was struggling to stand out from the rest of the channels that had the same audience and showed similar programs. The channel was not reaching out to its target audience many of whom did not know it was even meant for them. The owners of UKTVG2 went to the award winning media company Red Bee who began to rebrand UKTVG2 as Dave as we know it now the successful marketing campaign with its use of idents made Dave a smash success causing it to have two spin of channels Dave2 and Dave ja vu.

The Dave idents are a good example of another group of idents being able to represent the mood of it channel. The channel Dave is commonly known as the home of witty banter and is aimed at Males 18-40 year olds. The idents chose a quirky country retreat theme for their idents to get across the mood of wit and humor and the location is relatable to its target audience. The idents rarely show footage of the programs they show and rely on the mood of the ident to inform the viewer what the channel is like.

Some channels will have a very broad audience that watches their channel like BBC1 their idents are a collection of different styles of ident aimed for different types of viewers. What tie the idents Together are the colours (red and white), The logo and the BBC1 circle that features in most of their idents. These instantly tell the viewer this is a BBC1 ident. When the BBC1 globe was removed from the BBCs new series of dance idents in 2002 many viewers did not realize they were BBC1 idents. The BBC soon brought back the globe that has been on the BBC1 channel since the 1950s and is main part of the BBC1 idents.

(BBC ident from the 1950s also featuring the BBC1 circle) In final Idents are some of the unmentioned components that make a channel into a success or failure. Their ability to get the feel and mood of an entire channel of programs shown is uncanny and very influential to common viewers without them even realising. Idents I my opinion are crucial for all channels to have otherwise they have no identity to attract their target audiences with.