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The excessively clunky “ABC for Kids on 2” brand has been relaunched as “ABC 4 Kids”. Running from 6am-7pm on ABC2, this channel-within-a-channel has long deserved better positioning, if not its own dedicated slice of the airwaves.
Thus concludes the refresh of the ABC’s suite of channels with ABC1 in February and ABC2 in April.
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The on-air look of ABC2 has ranged from the interesting to the ordinary. While easily the most intriguing channel on free to air television, ABC2 has always struggled with its identity.
Thankfully this new lime-and-pink design is the most mature branding to grace the network, even if the execution of the new idents is a little sporadic (the fish look great, the knitting.. not so much).
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Encapsulating the scope and relevance of the national broadcaster is the goal of this new brand campaign, and having people jump into the embrace of the ABC’s famous lissajous is the approach they’ve taken.
Beautifully produced and visually distinct these new spots have the unenviable challenge of trying to represent an organisation with as much history and depth as the ABC, something any thirty second promo will struggle to achieve.
Created by Sydney agency Moon.
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ABC News Breakfast has been on air for about six months now, and the more I watch it, the more I find myself enjoying it.
It’s very much ‘radio on the television’, with rolling news, interviews, weather and quite literally radio on the television when they cross to interviews around the country being conducted on various ABC radio stations.
Available on the digital only ABC2, or streamed live online, its a fresh change from the infotainment formats adopted by its rivals. It presents itself as an honest and often frank outlet for news, with the daily look at the front pages of the papers often devolving into an interesting analysis of the media.
The programmes Twitter page; @breakfastnews has become essential tracking during the broadcast, with insight from the shows producer about whats coming up, whose running late, and what’s going on behind the scenes, it’s easily one of the first actually useful applications of Twitter I’ve seen a TV show use.
But now, back to the title of this post.. The one thing I hate about ABC News Breakfast is the entire branding of the programme, and its the one tip of my hat I’ll give to rival Sunrise. “ABC News Breakfast” is not only a clunky name, but the on-air design, sets and graphics don’t do the show any justice.
The whole thing needs a refresh, it could really look a lot better, because if there’s one thing we all know, people judge you on how you look, especially when your taking up 40 inches of space on my living room wall.
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The free to air digital multichannel revolution may finally-perhaps-kinda be upon us. From March 26th the Ten Network will be the first of the commercial networks to launch a fully fledged 24/7 digital multichannel in the form of ONE, a sports dedicated free to air channel.
Ten’s decision to launch a whole new brand for the channel, instead of simply launching ‘Ten Sports’ seems to be working. The look and feel of ONE is very polished, contemporary and inviting, no surprise though from the only commercial channel that seems to have any idea about how to brand.
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Long time morning television rivals Sunrise and Today will face new competition from Monday morning, with the much anticipated launch of ABC News Breakfast.
The new service fronted by Virginia Trioli and Barrie Cassidy (formerly Peter Lloyd) will run weekdays between 6-9am on ABC2. With the resources, and the reputation of the ABC behind this new program, its likely to carve out an audience under whelmed by the commercial networks offerings.
It should also do wonders for the publics increasing recognition of ABC2 as a distinctly separate offering to ABC1, with the recent Paralympics also helping the networks impressive audience growth.
All this of course showing that one thing, and one thing only is going to drive the take up of digital in Australia: content!
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When ABC2 switches off at around midnight each night, this somewhat cutesy, yet charming footage rolls. And while there’s probably more creative ideas than this one, at least they’re doing something.
As ultimately useless as it is (like the entire contents of this blog), its the little things about how a channel operates, whether its some awesome idents, a mesmerising test pattern, or some creative programming that creates the connection with a viewer that makes a channel special, and not just a vending machine of trash.
UPDATE: It turns out they have a pretty similar video for when ABC2 turns back on in the morning around 7am, check it out below.
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While I was a fan of some of the old ABC2 idents, and am still getting used to the new ones, something about the network that always left me unimpressed was the murky-green-water theme that dominated their promos and other on-air branding. The new ABC2 however has got a fresh coat of paint, and with its bold use of red, green and orange gives a distinctive look, that for me at least gives the network a feeling of independence, and some even footing with ABC1.
The new look was developed by Tactic, check out what they did to ABC1 here.
UPDATE: It turns out the ABC has never had a unifying channel brand like they’ve just adopted, and whats on-air right now isn’t the gold standard that was intended (the third video above for example), so while whats on-air catches up with what was intended, check out the screenshots below for an idea of what we should expect soon.
Download the whole H264 bunch in one swoop here (81mb *.zip).
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ABC2 got its best bit of PR to date on Friday when ABC TV formally became ABC1 and reminded, or alerted people for the first time that there was in fact a whole other channel available from the National Broadcaster.
Like everything the ABC does, the old look of ABC2 had its hits and misses, some of my favourites from the previous set of idents are here, but again they were far outweighed by all the ordinary ones.
Now though we have a whole new on-air look to dissect, and the first thing I thought when I saw these was… hey, its ITV4! Back in 2005 ITV4 used a similar split screen device to create visual puns, ABC2 on the other hand seem to be using the split screen to highlight various juxtapositions, city-nature, young-old, casual-professional etc. Which is fine, although it completely falls apart about half way through and I find myself wondering what two girls drinking a milkshake is meant to represent..
Comments in a previous post have already pointed out the similarities that the first of these ABC2 idents above have to the video clip of “Concrete Boots” by After The Fall, check it out and see what you think. It’s a good song either way.
Then finally, to dislocate the entire series a little more they’ve introduced two other idents (below) that are based on “parkour“, the ‘art of displacement’ which again is a fine concept for a series of idents, but why only throw in two of them.
I guess what I’m saying is that I like consistency and a central theme to my idents, something that can be explored and developed, not just random images linked at times, but then not at others.
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(The idents were produced by zspace, who also did the new look ABC1.)
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ABC2, the digital sibling of Australia’s national broadcaster launched on March 7th 2005. Although originally restricted in the content it was able to play, those limitations were removed in 2006 allowing the network to expand its programming options and broadcast “comedy, drama, national news, sport and entertainment”.
Tomorrow, ABC2 will turn another page in the history of Australian multichanneling, as it is rebranded and repositioned as a network focusing on Australian arts delivering unique programming and completely different content to that of ABC1.
The quality of ABC2 branding has been mixed, with idents and on-air looks ranging from the subtle, to the bizarre. The basic premise however that the idents of ABC2 are built on has always been solid, and its delivered some of the most entertaining spots on any Australian network.. above are a selection of those.
