Comparison of TV idents

1
Compare and contrast at least 10 idents
2
The C4 ident is trying to appeal to those that
like US culture as the yellow taxi and
skyscrapers show this is related to some of the
TV shows that C4 show e.g. True Blood and
suggests the audience could be mainstreamers but
also aspirers as they may look up to some of the
US characters in the TV shows. The BBC1 ident
with the hippos suggests a channel that makes and
shows natural history programmes like Life with
David Attenborough, and as BBC is a Public
Service channel it is supposed to educate and
inform as well as entertain. Both C4 and BBC1
do have quite expensive idents The Cbeebies
ident however looks cheaper as it has been
animated using drawings and there would not be an
expensive production budget fro this as there is
no filming underwater or filming in the USA
involved.
3

• BBC4 V E4

It is immediately evident that these 2 channels
have very different audiences as the BBC4 idents
look a little calm but also dull the
mise-en-scene of thousands of books in one ident
and seagulls floating on a breeze in the other
would clearly not appeal to an audience that is
looking for entertainment, but rather one that
may want educating (which the books suggest) or
informing perhaps by a natural history
programme (seagulls) or a documentary. If we then
think about the soundtrack for these idents the
music is also quite relaxing and perhaps for a
younger teen audience boring this and the fact
that there is no editing and very little camera
movement, or action within the idents also
suggests a channel aimed at amore educated
audience. The channel obviously wants to express
this as part of its identity as an intelligent
channel that is less mainstream than BBC1 and
quite a strong alternative to the other BBC
satellite/digital channel BBC3 which is much more
entertainment oriented and aimed at a younger
audience. The E4 idents on the other hand will
obviously appeal to a different target audience
(perhaps one quite similar to BBC3, in fact) the
use of animation in the teddy ident shows us
the audience is different also the strange
contrast between a cute teddy and broken cars in
a scrapyard suggests a channel that sometimes
tries to shock or even offend as part of its
identity suggesting it may appeal to
reformers who like challenging TV sometimes
but it is also quite mainstream as it shows
Hollyoaks and Friends. The two E4 idents are also
trying to be humorous by including some strange
mise-en-scene, a 70s band in over the top purple
suits playing on an airfield is as bizarre as a
teddy bear about to be crushed or torn apart in a
scrapyard. Something else that I noticed about
the two idents is they both use the colour purple
suggesting the colour as being part of the
branding of the channel as well as its
recognisable E4 logo. It looks like a much more
fun channel than BBC4, which is clearly part of
the message E4 want to put across to appeal to
their audience, this is in some ways related to
Channel 4 which is E4s parent channel