Quote:
ccording to Ariel, "On March 8, the whole UKTV network will unveil a simplified new look".
What the hell is a 'simplified new look'? They've just complicated the whole naming scheme making them more awkward to pronounce. Does this mean simpler idents? I'm surprised they didn't say it would be 'more coherent' too. It's all just meaningless marketing talk to try and avoid saying 'we are making changes for change's sake'.
It's branding gone mad. UK Gold is one of the twin towers of recognised pay TV channels in the UK. It's true that it's gone way, way downhill in recent years, but it's still perceived as a killer pay channel. Even people who have never had or seen any form of pay TV in their life will probably have heard of UK Gold. The name has become recognised through it's use over the last 12 years and is surely the most valuable asset UKTV have. And they are getting rid of it just so it can toe the line with the latest daft rebranding scheme which some idiot pulled out of a hat so that he could be seen to be doing something.
And ever since 2001 they have spent a lot of time building up the idea of a family of 'UK' channels belonging to something called 'UKTV'. They don't need to stamp it in any more. This will not make it stronger in any significant way, and it could weaken the brand identity of UK Gold.
And in any case, whilst people might adjust to the other channel names, do they really think anyone is going to start saying 'UKTV Gold'? It's going to catch on about as much as 'ITV1' has (incidentally, I think the best uniform brand they've ever had is when they ran that 'ITV/3' promo - using the two blanket names for ITV which were most common). And if you've got one brand in use onscreen but a public who persistantly use another one, then you've clearly got a bad brand.
Quote:
Actually I think it stand for "Full On Television" strangely enough.
No, FTN does stand for 'Flextech Television Network', the idea being that it shows the best (read: the dregs which they don't have pay TV only rights for) from Flextech's channels. FTN is then supposed to provide 'Full on Television' (and they have various sub slogans inside that for different genres, i.e. 'Full on Entertainment' is sometimes used).
Quote:
Also why is UK Style +1 just called UK Style+? All the others are plus 1 so why is this the odd one out??
I *think* that at one point UK Style+ was a separate service, the idea being that if Style was showing a gardening programme, then Style+ could be showing a house makeover programme etc. They do largely still do this, although now it's just through creative scheduling which keeps a different genre on the + service, but it's kept the name of Style+ as part of that legacy. I'd imagine that it now does become UKTV Style+1 though.
Quote:
UKTVG2
And that's a good memorable name is it? It sounds like a callsign on an American local station.
Quote:
After all, you don't see 'BSkyB One'
Indeed you didn't, although they did take things a bit too far on occasion. There was a time when every single announcement had to start with 'from the Sky satellite network, this is Sky <channel name>' - that took so much of the junction up that the rest of the
CA was often very rushed.
Quote:
Will any of these 'New' channels be arriving on Freeview?
Someone HAD to ask it didn't they? NO THEY WON'T BE ARRIVING ON FREEVIEW. WHY WOULD THEY BE ARRIVING ON FREEVIEW?
