Stories featured on this page:
- MON 10TH JAN (12.25AM)
Two DOGs for the price of one on BBC Four - MON 10TH JAN (1.30PM)
ITV recycling ITV Creates idents on a weekly basis - TUE 11TH JAN (9.15AM)
Confirmation of BBC Three linear TV launch date - TUE 11TH JAN (10AM)
RTÉ One falls silent overnight - TUE 11TH JAN (1.40PM)
RTÉ News uses old closing theme tune on 1pm programme - TUE 11TH JAN (11PM)
BBC Three airs edited down pre-launch preview loop - WED 12TH JAN (10PM)
New graphics and opening titles for BBC NI’s The View - WED 12TH JAN (10.45PM)
More gripes about BBC network programme trails - THU 13TH JAN (7.15PM)
The BBC Three DOG is added to the pre-launch test transmission - FRI 14TH JAN (9.15PM)
Newswatch plays news title sequences from the black and white era
Monday 10th January
12.25am Two DOGs for the price of one on BBC Four
The edition of The Sky at Night going out just now on BBC Four features footage from a past edition of the programme. However, the archive material has the old BBC Four DOG burnt on. The result: old and new BBC Four DOGs on screen together.
1.30pm ITV recycling ITV Creates idents on a weekly basis
As of the 1.28pm junction, ITV has begun reusing the ITV Creates idents produced by Anna Berry, which first aired on the channel in November 2019.
Last week, we saw the reappearance of the idents produced by Stuart Robinson in 2019.
Late last year, it was confirmed that no new ITV Creates would be aired beyond the Christmas season.
EXTERNAL LINK: view every ITV ident shortly after it airs – on TV Home.
Tuesday 11th January
9.15am Confirmation of BBC Three linear TV launch date
The @dragraceukbbc Twitter account this morning confirmed BBC Three’s launch date as 1st February. The BBC has been a little vague about the date, even recently referring to “early February”.
BBC Three is coming to TV on February 1st, save the date! Drag Race UK vs The World will premiere as part of the launch night extravaganza.
Twitter account @dragraceukbbc
10am RTÉ One falls silent overnight
Is anyone manning the RTÉ One fort overnight? In the early hours of this morning, the final part of the Claire Byrne Live repeat failed to appear, shortly after 2.30am.
Viewers were left with black and silence for over 12 minutes. At 2.45am, a programme promotion appeared before RTÉ One quickly moved on to the next programme – a Nationwide repeat.
1.40pm RTÉ News uses old closing theme tune on 1pm programme
An example here of the importance of housekeeping video and audio files on your servers and removing old branding elements.
RTÉ One’s 1pm news programme managed to use an old version of the closing theme tune today. This music was decommissioned almost two years ago.
An old commercial break audio sting was also used today.
11pm BBC Three airs edited down pre-launch preview loop
At 7pm this evening, BBC Three launched a revised version of its pre-launch programme preview loop.
Unlike last night’s sequence, the new version contains very few hints about the channel’s on-air presentation. Previews of new programmes also appear to have been stripped out.
A lower-third graphic animates on to the screen at regular intervals during the 18-minute sequence, telling viewers that they can “watch BBC Three live on this channel from 7pm February 1st”.
It’s perhaps worth noting that technically, this material is being transmitted as part of engineering tests, on hidden channels, and is not intended for public consumption just yet.
The preview material aired last night may have been earmarked for broadcast at a later date. Little did they know, the anoraks were out in force!
Wednesday 12th January
10pm New graphics and opening titles for BBC NI’s The View
BBC Northern Ireland’s political analysis programme The View returns tomorrow after the Christmas break with a new look.
The programme set remains unchanged – it shares BBC Newsline’s set in Studio B at Broadcasting House, Belfast. But there are new opening titles and on-screen graphics.
The programme airs on BBC One Northern Ireland tomorrow at 10.35pm.
10.45pm More gripes about BBC network programme trails
The inconsistent use of colour ranges in the encoding of network trails continues to cause problems. To demonstrate, here are the iPlayer boards from two different trails in the same BBC One junction this evening (10pm).
One has a slightly lighter background (The Apprentice) which is potentially the correct representation of “broadcast black”. The other board (from The Responder) is darker and is true black.
Separately, a new trail for Great British Menu is missing the “BBC” and “TWO” logos at the beginning. There’s also an odd cut to black immediately prior to the transition to the closing “mood” (Sparky) at the end.
UPDATE: on 13th January, the errors highlighted above were corrected and an amended version of the trail was being aired (below).
It’s worth noting though that there appears to be an issue with colour ranges. The iPlayer board background seems to be true black (RGB 0/0/0) and the BBC blocks true white (RGB 255/255/255). The colour issue is demonstrated nicely at the point of transition between the mood and the ident (at 29 seconds in our clip below):
Thursday 13th January
7.15pm The BBC Three DOG is added to the pre-launch test transmission
This evening at 7pm, we have the first appearance (we think) of the BBC Three DOG as part of the pre-launch test transmissions for the new channel (on DTT/DSAT).
Friday 14th January
9.15pm Newswatch plays news title sequences from the black and white era
There was a short segment at the end of tonight’s edition of Newswatch about old BBC News title sequences.
The item was triggered by a viewer request:
To celebrate 100 years of BBC News, I would love to see all through this year the News at 1pm, 6pm and 10pm use the graphics and theme tunes dating right back as far as practicable.
Michael Szymanski
I remember up to the ’70s and not before, but would find it so nostalgic to have ‘Celebrating 100 years of the BBC’ at the bottom of the screen whilst playing the original graphics and music.
RELATED ARTICLE: Timeline: 2022 Week 1.
RELATED ARTICLE: Timeline: 2022 Week 3.
Acknowledgements
PICTURED: ITV ident. COPYRIGHT: ITV plc.