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Last year it was the Doctor and his TARDIS, this year the BBC gets homely with some Christmas lights to celebrate the festive season. Meanwhile ITV1 and Five deliver some slightly less ambitious holiday idents.

- Big thanks to Craig for the videos.

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Earlier this year British soap opera Coronation Street made the switch to HD and debuted a new look title sequence. A much larger milestone for the programme is just around the corner, on December 9th the soap will celebrate 50 years on-air.

Along with a live episode and the usual dramatic storylines the anniversary is being celebrated right across British television. Even if you’re not a fan of the show I have to recommend the fantastic BBC Four telemovie “Road to Coronation Street” that details the tumultuous birth of the programme and its 23 year old creator.

I can’t help but further be enamored by the soap opera format and its clearly enormous cultural impact on British society, alas I’m not sure Home and Away lives up the same standard.

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The British soap opera Coronation Street is one of the longest running television programmes in the world, and if its network promotions are to be believed its also “The Nation’s Street”, a sentiment I actually quite like.

Earlier this week Corrie began broadcasting in High Definition, and to mark the occasion they updated the opening sequence, bringing with it a depth, warmth and intimacy missing from the earlier incarnation.

Despite the fact I don’t watch any soaps I’m actually a huge fan of the format. The daily, long running nature of the programmes open up huge creative possibilities that can reflect the life of a nation, and really engage a wide audience.

And while these long running stalwarts of the genre have a place, I hope we see some new takes on the soap opera format appear on the scene as well.

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ITV’s flagship news program News at Ten was resurrected last week for the second time since its inception in 1967. The shows original run ended in 1999 before being brought back again from 2001 to 2004.

The latest incarnation is fronted by the newly unretired Trevor McDonald and Sky News’ Julie Etchingham, and takes place in the “Theatre of News“, which to an outsider is somewhat bizarrely meant to be behind the clockface of Big Ben, and seems more suited to the secret lair of a Bond villain then to a news broadcast.

These videos come from the first nights broadcast and show the opening and closing of the broadcast, along with an incredibly smooth live cross to Antarctica, which just looks stunning considering the distance and the fact its live.

- Kudos to Craig for the first night videos.

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In November last year Whitehaven, Cumbria became the first region in the United Kingdom to switch off its analogue televisions service. Even more sites are planning to switch this year, and by 2013 when the Channel Islands go digital its expected all of the UK will have ceased analogue transmissions.

All the channels are busily reminding its viewers to make the switch and above is Channel Five and ITV’s attempts to convert anyone left in the UK who hasn’t already ditched analogue.

For more UK digital switchover videos check out another one for Five with John Suchet, the Digit Al series and Penelope Keith on the benefits of Freeview. Australia has some similar spots promoting digital from the ABC and a cool animation from SBS.

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ITV1′s good-looking-but-confusing idents got a refresh recently with the addition of four new spots. This is just one of them; fountains. Check out the rest of ITV1′s idents here. When ITV isn’t broadcasting conceptually odd idents, or documentaries about sex, they’re running premium rate telephone competitions, which they’ve been apologising for after the jump.

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ITV1 had an unfortunately long technical fault the other day at the beginning of their live broadcast of Hell’s Kitchen. Fortunately for me though its the perfect chance to show off what happens to a network when everything goes to hell. For over seven minutes the ITV technical fault caption graced viewers screens, along with an announcer apologising for the problems.

Besides the rather cool graphic used during the downtime, I wanted to mention that I’ve never seen something like this happen in Australia, I’m not saying we’ve never screwed up a live TV broadcast, but what happens when their is a technical fault? I’ve certainly never heard an announcer come on and apologise for it, is that a purely British oddity or do I just not watch enough television?

Thanks Andy for the video, and check out ITV1′s idents collection here.

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The Bill isn’t a show I’ve ever really watched, but at 3000 episodes theres obviously an audience for it. I believe the above video is the refreshed opening sequence, and while its no Six Feet Under, it certainly has a memorable tune I’ve been hearing most of my life.

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You’ve probably all seen the conceptually challenged ITV1 idents by now, and while these ITV2 idents stick to a theme at least, they don’t have much depth, but from a channel that describes itself as being personified by Cameron Diaz maybe thats what they were going for.

But none of that really matters, because ITV2 is the UK broadcaster of The American Office, a show which makes TV worth watching, and work worth going to.

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In the first video Dead Ringers pokes fun at all the standing-up-and-walking-around that goes on ITV’s Theatre of News, the second video is from the actual ITV News where just as much standing-up-and-walking-around goes on, although slightly less dancing.

I’m really surprised that none of Australia’s television networks have copied this approach to news yet, most of our commercial news is so trashy now anyway, it might as well have fancier sets and more camera swoops.

For more standing up mockery check out Melanie Bellamy and her standing news, or watch Jeremy Clarkson do his best impression of the Channel Five news.

More video from the real ITV lunchtime and evening news continue after the jump…

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- Thanks Craig for all the ITV news videos,

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As I’ve mentioned before it was literally an episode of Dead Ringers that first introduced me to the BBC One idents, so its probably that hilarious show I have to thank for even starting this site.

Series seven of the show started last week in the UK, and above is the parodied idents from the first episode.

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Another of the new ITV1 idents. See the rest of the series here.

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Another of the new ITV1 idents, and while I can’t deny it looks great, I still don’t get what its all about. See the rest of the new series here.

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I’ve always thought that the best idents series were the ones that followed a simple premise, with a constructed visual grammar, from which a varying and interesting set of channel identifiers could be produced.

Channel 4 for example has idents from the one series shot at dockyards, public housing estates, highways, bowling greens and markets. What they all have in common though is the concept of creating the ’4′.

These new ITV1 idents (updated since January’s relaunch) are visually pretty splendid, but I think I’m still probably a press release away from quite understanding the whole idea…

- Thanks to Graham as always for the UK vids.

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The ITV and BBC branding of the FIFA World Cup 2006.

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In a week that I blogged Australia’s three commercial network and two public broadcaster news openers I thought I’d round it all out with these three commercial news openers from the UK.

I’ve already posted the BBC News openers, and while they remain my favourite I do like the Channel 4 set.

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ITV relaunched their idents on Monday the 16th. The channels seperate themselves a lot better then before, and according to ITV, if each channel were a celebrity;

ITV1 would be Robbie Williams; youth channel ITV2 would be defined by Cameron Diaz; drama channel ITV3 by Sheila Hancock and men’s channel ITV4 by Daniel Craig.

More videos below the fold…

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(Thanks Graham + Andy)

> RealPlayer Stream: ITV Ident (670kb)

I only managed to capture one ITV ident while I was away, and compared to the other British broadcasters they aren’t really that engaging. However, something a little more interesting from ITV are their 50th anniversary promos. Its very polished and although I don’t recognise some of the celebrities its still very well done.

> RealPlayer Stream: ITV 50th (2mb)

(With thanks to Martin from Mocksfactory)