Idents in Television

What they do, and some examples.

What’s an Ident?An Ident (short for Identity) is a brief animation shown before programs, usually showing the name of the channel. The content of an ident is different for every TV station, and will change depending on the target audience.

BBC 2This is an example of a successful ident from BBC 2, circa 2007. It’s simple in design, calming, and pretty obvious what the channel is, helped out by the blue box, in the corner. Target audience: Middle-Upper class, still references gossip and sports.Shows: Dragons Den, Mastermind, Antiques Roadshow.

BBC ThreeOften seen as BBC 2s younger sibling, BBC Three has a younger, less serious audience, as you can tell, compared to the previous ident. Using wacky imagery and bright colors, this ident gives across the feeling of it’s show well.Target Audience: Teens to young adult. Popular shows: The Inbertweeners, Russell Howards Good News.

E4In a similar vain to BBC Three, E4 is Channel 4, but for a much younger audience. This ident, using almost exactly the same colour scheme, and shows things melting, distorting, etc. I would say this is a good ident, as it suits the feeling of the shows, and the channels strange personality.Target audience: Teens to young adults.

History ChannelThis is the ident for the History Channel. With a much older audience than my previous two examples, the History Channel tries as hard as it can not to look boring, out of fear of it being slanged off as a boring channel, with gunshots and broken glass, even hints of cocaine, just to try to make itself look exciting to a younger audience. And as far as idents go, this one is longer than the others.Shows: Storage Wars, Documentaries.Target Audience: Adults.

SyfyI highly dislike this ident, though it’s more of an opinion. It shows the name of the channel, with bright colours and streamers, and then reverts to it’s original form. I feel this ident neither gives off the feel of the target audience, or the shows it airs.

Thanks for watching.