In a recent episode of The Pod Delusion, Mark Thompson spoke about the good old days when ITV was still a federation of regional television stations. He outlined how, in England and Wales over the past ten or fifteen years, ITV’s regional diversity has given way to a bland umbrella brand.

But not all of the nooks on the ITV network have succumbed to the juggernaut. Four of the ITV regions are still independently owned, and three avoid using the ITV brand. In the Channel Islands, Channel Television still owns the franchise, even though it uses ITV1 branding. But in Northern Ireland, viewers are greeted by idents for UTV. And where I live, in Scotland, the two ITV regions operate as STV.

I can say with authority, given that I live here, that the reality of regional broadcasting on Channel 3 is not quite as rosy as Mark Thompson would like to remember. It certainly is not as quaint and charming as the ITV we remember from our youth — and, incidentally, it was delightful to hear the idents and jingles during Mark’s report.

Sadly, STV is a bit of a basket case. Apparently strapped for cash, for the past year or two it has been embroiled in a dispute with ITV plc that has only served to disadvantage viewers. ITV is trying to gain money that has been allegedly been owed by STV for over ten years. Meanwhile, STV is dropping as many ITV programmes as it can get away with in an apparent attempt to stop owing any more money.

This means that many of the ITV network’s most popular drama programmes have been dropped by STV. This has left Scottish viewers with no options if they want to watch some of the best British commercial television programmes.

Publicly, STV say this is all a brave stance for regional broadcasting in Scotland. That does not really explain why most of the replacements have been cheap imports, films and repeats. As amusing as South Park may be, it is not exactly an adequate replacement for the likes of Kingdom. Incidentally, South Park is seemingly supposed to count as Scottish programming because, in the words of STV director of broadcast services Bobby Hain, it is “mischievous and cheeky… just like the Scottish people.”

Bobby Hain often singles out Al Murray for particular criticism. He reckons that Scots cannot relate to a comedy cockney landlord, forgetting that there is in fact nothing Scots enjoy more than laughing at English stereotypes.

This strategy certainly is not being done for the benefit of the Scottish people. We can tell this because the ratings have largely fallen through the floor. Infamously, STV once ditched Agatha Christie’s Marple in favour of the film Blue Crush — because crap surfing movies set in Hawaii are really Scottish, right? It was a disaster for STV. You could almost have squeezed the viewers into a large football stadium. With just 6% of Scottish television viewers watching it, this made it the least watched of the five main channels in Scotland.

STV have recently broadcast Fitz, the woeful 1990s American remake of Cracker. Presumably they have done this because it is supposed to count as Scottish, despite the fact that it is American. In fact, Fitz more accurately describes what STV viewers go through when they realise that their favourite programme has been replaced by a low budget michty-me, jings, crivvens and help ma boab bag of shite.

Because when STV are showing “regional” programming, it is a parochial embarrassment. One of the programmes it’s pushing most is The Hour. Imagine a cross between The One Show and Live From Studio Five, with a twentieth of the budget and presented from a shed. That barely describes the horror.

In the evenings, STV broadcasts STV Casino. This is the sort of gambling programme I railed against in a previous edition of The Pod Delusion.

More ambitiously, STV sought to find out the Greatest Scot. Among the nominees for the title was John Logie Baird, the inventor of the television. What Logie Baird can’t have foreseen was that his compatriots would be unable to watch anything decent on it.

Soon enough, STV will run out of “Scottish” topics to make programmes about. What next? The History of the Word ‘Outwith‘? Barry Ferguson’s Greatest V-Signs? Susan Boyle’s Ten Favourite Ditches?

Maybe there will be a celebration of the Scots language and / or dialect, with a version of Countdown played in the Scots tongue. Sadly, the only exciting action would be a Buckfast-fuelled brawl surrounding the precise spelling of words like ‘airse’ (‘erse’?) and ‘bawbag’ (‘ba’bag’?).

This new found love for “local” programming really is rich coming from STV. This is a station that, just a few years ago, would do anything to avoid showing locally produced programmes. It transparently sought to meet its quota of regional programmes with cynical late-night repeats of Weir’s Way and extra editions of Scotland Today Interpreted For The Deaf.

This all makes me wonder just what the ‘S’ in STV stands for. Is it ‘Scottish’? Or is it ’stultifying’? ‘Stupid’? ‘Sellotape’? In fact, I think it’s probably ’shite’.

Mark Thompson’s idea is a nice one, but is based on a rose-tinted view rather than the reality we Scots have to live with just now. It is true that something needs to change in order for ITV to survive. But the solution to that is surely obvious when you think about it — they should bring back Blockbusters.

Channel 4 is 25 years old today. It’s really the only commercial broadcaster worth watching. Mind you, even Channel 4 is a bit shit these days.

But the important thing is that its idents are still awesome, as they always have been. It’s great to see that Channel 4’s continuity is all in the style of the original iconic designs, with a range of classic idents being shown (some of which I’ve never seen before).

The original idents lasted an astonishing 14 years. That’s an age — you’d never see an ident package lasting that long nowadays. Even more amazingly, the original ‘4′ logo has never changed, merely being adapted for each new era.

The coloured blocks were well loved and recognisable enough for Hamlet to create this spoof version for an advert. For me, it’s surprising in two ways. For one, I’m surprised Channel 4 and the regulators allowed them to do it, given that it could have easily been confused for an actual ident.

Then there is the fact that it is tobacco being advertised — something from a different era. It goes to show just how far Hamlet were determined to advertise despite all the regulations. Sometimes a restrictive environment can make you come up with the best ideas.

It was always going to be a tough act to follow the coloured blocks. I seem to remember the circles era was quite unpopular, but I thought they were quite good.

I also liked the ’squares and stripes’ era, although it dated really quickly.

So it was a bit of a shock to see just how excellent the following ident package was!

Genius.

Channel 4 have a couple of special websites up and running for the occasion as well.

• Channel 4 at 25
• Channel 4 News at 25

More classic Channel 4 idents can be found at The TV Room. BBC News Online has 25 facts about 25 years of Channel 4.

Perhaps my geekiest guilty pleasure is an interest in television idents. Many a lonely Friday evening has been spent perusing such websites as TV Ark and The TV Room. Not because I’m a sad loner, you understand, but because it’s the really cool thing to do these days.

I also love cereals. The most functional cereal of them all is Weetabix. It’s the only way to go if you have a particularly challenging day ahead. There is nothing in the world that three Weetabix can’t solve. Except perhaps indigestion.

So an advertising campaign that combines the might of Weetabix with the quaint kitsch of classic television idents cannot be anything but awesome. I don’t watch much television these days, so I guess there is the chance that everyone in the world apart from me already knew about it and this post is a bit like going, “ALL BECAUSE THE LADY LOVES MILK TRAY! LOL!”

The only way I learned about the Weetabix advertising campaign was from a post at Idents.tv. I had seen one of the adverts before out of the corner of my eye, probably when I was fast forwarding through the adverts during a grand prix. It didn’t occur to me that it was supposed to mimic idents, with their trippy ambient music and strange abstract visuals.

The TV theme is continued at the Weetabix.tv website, where all of the ident-adverts are available to view. A lot of them have clearly been inspired by classic BBC Two idents from the 1990s.

We have all seen idents thousands of times. Yet, they are forgotten by many and treated as though they are merely wallpaper at best and an annoyance at worst. Yet, idents are the most familiar sight on television; a reminder that all is right in the world. They are beautiful pieces of design that are almost always better than the programme that follows them. So it’s great to see idents being recognised by Weetabix in their advertising campaign.

Well yesterday BBC Two unveiled its new look, not too long after BBC One launched its new idents. Being a bit of a TV pres geek enthusiast like James O’Malley, I am of course interested (even though I seem to watch hardly any actual television these days).

The reception seems to have been fairly mixed, but I’m not a big fan of them. As with BBC One’s almost universally derided dancers, I liked BBC Two’s ‘personality’ idents of 2001–2007 more than most.

But for many, nothing will beat the classic sets of idents introduced in 1991 and 1997. It is true that the 1990s idents are absolute classics. I prefer the original ones introduced in 1991 — they are classy and sophisticated, but not too pretentious. The music was brilliant as well. Check out one of my favourites, Silk:

(N.B. Self-indulgently, I will be including a BBC Two ident YouTube Extravaganza ‘below the fold’.)

I preferred the 1991 idents like Silk to the ones added later on (such as the hugely popular Dog). They did inject a bit of humour, but I prefer the artyness of the earlier idents.

Still, I did like the humorous idents used from 2001–2007. My favourite was Domino. I just love how angry the one with the whistle gets.

As for the new idents, the ‘window on the world’ theme is an interesting idea, but clearly this entire new look owes a lot to Channel 4. There are also a few annoying oddities. Firstly, towards the end of Cappuccino it starts to look like one of those photographs where the photographer’s thumb is partially over the lens.

Also, I wish they would get rid of that restrictive box. BBC One ditched its box when it relaunched in September. I would have thought that BBC Two would have all the more reason to given that it’s got a massive ‘2′ logo all over its idents. Why not just place the BBC logo close to the ‘2′ logo? It’s not as if we need to be told that it’s BBC Two twice.

I get the feeling that these idents will grow on me. But I will miss the personality of our robotic friend.

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Regular readers will know that I’m interested in television presentation. People like me make the world go round, etc etc. Anyway, today the BBC unveiled the new idents for BBC One which will be launched on screen next Saturday.

Idents are neglected. Most people don’t pay much attention to them. But over the next few years these short films used to introduce the programmes will be watched by far more people than the most popular television programme could ever hope for. And most people will have an opinion on them.

An awful lot of people decried BBC One’s current ‘dancer’ idents for being ‘politically correct’ because they had the audacity to show black people doing a dance. I know I’m in a minority here, but I actually quite like the dancer idents, although they are getting a bit tired. But how cool is Capoiera (Realplayer link; nabbed off TV ARK)! There were a few truly cringeworthy ones though, like Festival. Eurgh.

So it’s time for some new ident action, and here they are. MediaGuardian also has a full video of one of them — Bikes.

It certainly looks very slick and the music is pretty cool. But I can’t really imagine it being used into a programme. It would work with a sport programme, but anything else? I guess you will only be able to tell when you see it in its context.

I quite like the logo as well. It’s much better than the current restrictive box which is hidden away in the corner as though it’s unwanted.

As for the circular theme, some people are suggesting that it is meant to be a subtle nod towards the globe, BBC One’s traditional symbol. I never liked the idea of the globe being used as BBC One’s symbol. It’s not as if there’s anything particularly global about BBC One. Does BBC One own the world?

Digital Spy has more images of the idents.

Update: And they’re A snip at just around a pound a second.