Purpose- Identity

They are like digital identification demonstrations displays for viewers to identify what the channel is through the use of TV channels logo, name or a specific theme/colour like E4 and their love for white and purple. It is vital for any media companies to stand out from the crowd, thus creating a corporate identity is the way an institution pitch themselves to their intended audience. It is vital that Corporate communications department keep up and enhance their identity, agencies will be called up to generate a unique corporate identity in order to fit the channel’s ethos. 

An ident needs a corporate title, logo, colours and a specific assembly. If these elements are incorporated in an ident, it helps the viewers to remember the name as well as the logo.

Stuart Hall is a cultural theorist and Professor of Sociology at the Open University. He studied the role of audience positioning in the interpretation of mass media texts by diverse social groups. He came up with a model suggesting three ways in which we may read a media text:

Stuart Hall Theory:

1. NEGOTIATED: Some good qualities, but could have done better, the reader partly believes the code and broadly accepts the preferred reading, but sometimes modifies it in a way which reflects their own position, experiences and interests.
2. OPPOSITIONAL: No corporate identity, the readers social position places them in an oppositional relation to the dominant code. They reject the reading;
3. PREFERRED READING: (Audience Preference) Perfect corporate identity. When the reader fully accepts the preferred reading (audience will read the text the way the author intended them to) so that the code seems natural and transparent.

When looking at major channels, for instance, Channel 4, ITV and BBC ONE throughout the years they have gone through different styles of ident and evolved their brand identity. Taking BBC One as an example, they have aired a new identity set around the symbol of a circle; perhaps connoting eternal unity? Peter Fincham (British television producer and executive) had stated "It’s set in the everyday but shows people doing extraordinary things. It's got variety and range - everything from daredevil motorbikes to synchronised hippos. It's warm and it’s dynamic.”

Morning Saturday 7^th of October 2006, BBC released its new channel identity. The circle was published and set as their heart of the campaign, this has been recurrent in their channel, though it is updated every few years the circle concept is still around and plays a major role in their channel.  

The Simpsons idents is utilized by Channel 4 and has been the biggest show shown on the channel for a long time (3 years), it can be classed under the negotiated or preferred reading. It contains a substantial amount of fan base meaning that majority of the channel 4 viewers would probably Simpsons fans. It is aimed mostly towards younger audiences and the fact that it has been running for quite a while it could eventually grow out of them, however, this never affected their views rate and some say that The Simpsons have been embedded as Channel 4’s corporate identity.

For instance, BBC 2 Idents always shows the number 2 no matter the type of form, 2D or 3D as the channel utilizes the two dimensions to recognise their channel. With a TV channel, for example, BBC Three, their man ID is inside their logo of the word three which is spelt rather than a figure number 3, likewise with BBC three about the greater part of their Idents are CGI delivered which makes them one of a kind for most other TV channels as different channels change between genuine footage Idents and CGI Idents.

With regards to the styles decided for Idents, most TV channels keep to one, however, develop it enormously. For instance, BBC One Idents all have distinctive subjects connected to them yet all emphasis on the style of a circular shape. These Idents which BBC discharged on the seventh of October 2006 were updates as before they had Idents which depended on Rhythm and movement and begun back in Easter of 2002. In the wake of leading research into the BBC one Idents that are as of now being utilized on their channel, the circular shape in which about every one of them use is down to the letter "O" inside "One" for Identity purposes, BBC One accounted this Idea as a circle is an actually happening shape which is anything but difficult to recognise, additionally, with the additional styles which all make them the unknowing connection between each other, BBC One figured out how to have their Idents effortlessly Identified by their audience as BBC One.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Stuart Hall - Audience Positioning. (2012).