Television 101: An introduction to idents.

The importance of television idents (85mb) >> To comment and see other videos visit www.idents.tv

Post author By John Beohm
Post date August 3, 2008
14 Comments on Television 101: An introduction to idents.

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David Mitchell, from That Mitchell and Webb Look recently narrated a Channel 4 series called TV is Dead? all about the “challenges the television industry is currently facing as a result of the digital revolution”.

One part of the series looked at the often over looked importance of television idents, something Australian television loves to dismiss, and something that this site is all about promoting. The clip should serve as an interesting introduction to the world of idents, and also offers a great peek into the UK television industry.

– Enormous thanks to Andy for the video.

Tags bbc one, bbc two, channel 4, mitchell and webb

14 replies on “Television 101: An introduction to idents.”

Great little vid there

I’d love to watch the rest of that show.

Please put the rest of the show when you have the chance.

Thanks for sharing that.. very interesting! The British TV industry seems to put more importance on idents than the Australian networks – given that the commercial networks here don’t use them much in prime time anymore. For instance, Ten could probably do so much to create some buzz among it’s so-called youthful audience with some decent eye-catching idents, but in reality they are very plain.

ABC and SBS of course still maintain the idents, but I don’t think either of them match the spectacle of the UK ones. They’d probably love to if they had the money to do so.

Neat video.

Sadly, the production values illustrated in that are not embraced by the networks here in Canada. Though, if they didn’t spend so much time selling their specialty networks, there might be enough cash to make some distinctive work.

Ugh. Richard Woolfe (Sky 1/2/3) is an absolute turd.

It’s weird how they managed to make ITV1’s idents look cinematic and watchable in that!

Great Mini Doco, is there any way we can get the full Thing?

I may be able to upload the episodes (there’s 5 in total, but I’ve gotta find the fifth one)

Cool! That would be great!

Episode 1:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=L2MYRLVO

(193mb, Xvid AVI)

Looks like an interesting show, i’d love to watch the series… it would be fantastic if you could upload all the episodes when you get around to it, thanks!