Local's remake Ch4 ident:

After seeing the original for a decade, regardless of the motives behind it, it'd be a nice change.

Unless you watch Channel 4 for long periods of time each day, you will probably miss it - if it is to be shown only once or twice. Channel 4 have already made it clear that they have no intention of dropping the original ident, so, for most viewers, they will probably not catch any showing of the new version, and will continue to see the original every now and again, as usual.

I realise that most "normal" viewers don't generally know the right terminology, like us pres geeks do (e.g. they usually call an ident a "logo"), but how can anybody possibly think to describe an ident as an "advert"?! An ident is not trying to get you to buy a jar of coffee, or a package holiday, or insurance, or to go to the cinema, or anything else. Therefore, it's not an "advert" in any sense! Peasants! No wonder I'm a misanthrope. Gah.

It advertises what is coming next on the channel so that you stay tuned to that channel rather than another so in a sense an ident is a form of advert.

When the story was covered on BBC London News, the presenter, Riz Lateef, described it as a 'Channel 4 promotional video'. Then, during the proceeding report, even one of the interviewees (local resident Charlotte Benstead) described it as an ident, so, surely it would have been better to use the term ident from the outset, and, if they felt it was really necessary, briefly explain to viewers what they mean by an ident (this would only take a few seconds). I don't know why broadcasters are, for the most part, very reluctant to use the term at all, they obviously consider it too technical a word for the general public to understand , in the same way I seem to remember the broadcasters being very reluctant to use the term "video", before the widespread advent of home video.