Compare and contrast at least 10 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. 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 E4’s ‘parent’ channel BBC4 V E4