Metropol

Alexia wrote:The outcry over S4C's latest efforts is hilarious.

It may be, but I'd welcome outcry over presentation than presenters and what knickers they wear on Thursdays.

Alexia wrote:The outcry over S4C's latest efforts is hilarious.

What the actual fuck are you on about? A company with a track record for good presentation comes out with something bland, and a forum dedicated to television presentation is full of comments to that effect. Quelle surprise.

An equally ridiculous comment would be "The outcry over the demolition of Marco Polo House is hilarious."

You're such a fucking moron.

Ladies.

WillPS wrote:You're such a fucking moron.

Coming from you that's actually a compliment, and something you and your ilk can only aspire to.

Customary insults aside, let me try to explain my point. S4C has had its budget cut, drastically, by 25%. The Tory-controlled local-TV obsessed DCMS are no longer fully funding it, dropping their contribution by 94% and the shortfall is being made up by the BBC licence fee, with all the DQF and public value-for-money accountability burdens that come with it. Since digital switchover, when it lost its C4 advertising revenue share, S4C barely has had enough money to survive as a business that commissions programmes which end up getting 0% ratings, let alone do things like run an HD channel or pay over the odds for bespoke distinctive eye-catching branding. But no, this means nothing to the squawking children that like shiny new things on TVF.

No, they'd rather a niche channel under fire from all sides by hostile forces potentially bankrupt itself by shelling out for another set of high-concept idents which will do nothing to attract new viewers nor improve its "brand" in any way. Everyone in Wales with a TV set knows about S4C. Everyone who speaks Welsh and wants Welsh programming knows about S4C. Everyone who watches the rugby / football knows about S4C. Why bother trying to flog a lethargic horse? (No, not Rasus....) These idents are simple, cheap, do the fecking job and 99% of the viewing public won't give a shiny arsed shite about them. So for the TVF massiv to complain because they're not exciting enough to give them a stiffy is, quite frankly, hilarious behaviour.

S4C have other things to worry about right now than their branding - their new HQ in Carmarthen, the possible relaunch of Clirlun -- methinks their previous branding contract / rights ran out and they needed something quick and cheap. What's the bother? Why the outcry? Perhaps next time the good people at S4C trying desperately to keep their little channel afloat will consult the netizens here before going ahead with their rebrands. If it keeps them happy, who cares how much it costs?

That post belongs on TV Forum, Michael, not here - although I will say you are clearly chatting shit if you think they'd need to renew an agreement for the use of their logo!

I'd love to know what you mean by 'my ilk', though - and also why I/we would aspire to become morons?

Alexia wrote:These idents are simple, cheap, do the fecking job and 99% of the viewing public won't give a shiny arsed shite about them.

Yeah, but TV Forum isn't the viewing public majority. It's TV pres enthusaists, you included I would have presumed. So they're obviously going to talk about what a shame it is that great TV pres is being replaced by mediocre pres. I'm certain most people on TVF know the situation S4C has found itself in, but that doesn't stop us from critcising bad branding. In that case we might as well shut down the forums because everything is else is much more important and we can't possible criticise any company in a time of such financial struggle, etc.

WillPS wrote:That post belongs on TV Forum, Michael, not here - although I will say you are clearly chatting shit if you think they'd need to renew an agreement for the use of their logo!

According to Dafydd:
Change of fonts is to reduce licensing costs and work better for digital (the previous web fonts didn't support Welsh accents although their house font does).

Voila. They now have a logo expressed in a font which is cheaper to use than the last one.

My answer was to you and you only. Some of what I was saying was said by some on TVF, but it still didn't resonate with the "oh god it's so boring" crowd.

"I think it's worth saying that since they have no money, the budget for the new brand and presentation was a lot less"

"I could take a guess that the reason for the low key ident launch was because they got a dollop of criticism for how much it cost the last time round, hence avoiding any negative publicity in the Welsh press. "

As such I see no reason to repeat points already made by others.

Oh, you and your ilk? The ones who have set up a barely-used vanity chatroom in which you all post repeated screengrabs of Peter Simon? The ones who think it acceptable to call someone a fucking moron for having an opinon contrary to yours?

Philip wrote:Yeah, but TV Forum isn't the viewing public majority. It's TV pres enthusaists, you included I would have presumed. So they're obviously going to talk about what a shame it is that great TV pres is being replaced by mediocre pres. I'm certain most people on TVF know the situation S4C has found itself in, but that doesn't stop us from critcising bad branding. In that case we might as well shut down the forums because everything is else is much more important and we can't possible criticise any company in a time of such financial struggle, etc.

A good critic (which, at a base level, is what pres enthusiasm is) must realise the full context of the situation when forming an opinion or view on something. Yes, on a base level, these idents are boring. But WHY are they boring? What circumstances have occurred for it become necessary for this to be the public face of Wales' national TV channel? Consideration must be given to these factors before posting reactionary garbage on a forum, else you amuse people like me. The people bemoaning S4C's new cautious, frugal approach remind me of the trainspotters who bemoan the Class 66 becoming ubiquitous - a powerful reliable multi-talented yet bland American locomotive putting the more characterful clapped out British warhorses of the past 50 years out to pasture. Who cares if the freight is delivered on time if the engine noise is wrong, or the paint scheme is uniform? Desire for aesthetics is overruled by monetary consideration.

It's pretty obvious to me they're trying to dilute the brand, and I think by 2020 we will have BBC Cymru instead.

Alexia wrote:

WillPS wrote:That post belongs on TV Forum, Michael, not here - although I will say you are clearly chatting shit if you think they'd need to renew an agreement for the use of their logo!

According to Dafydd:
Change of fonts is to reduce licensing costs and work better for digital (the previous web fonts didn't support Welsh accents although their house font does).

Voila. They now have a logo expressed in a font which is cheaper to use than the last one.

My answer was to you and you only. Some of what I was saying was said by some on TVF, but it still didn't resonate with the "oh god it's so boring" crowd.

"I think it's worth saying that since they have no money, the budget for the new brand and presentation was a lot less"

"I could take a guess that the reason for the low key ident launch was because they got a dollop of criticism for how much it cost the last time round, hence avoiding any negative publicity in the Welsh press. "

As such I see no reason to repeat points already made by others.

You don't need to continually license a font to use the products of it. That'd be mental. The license pertains to the web font for the website.

Alexia wrote:Oh, you and your ilk? The ones who have set up a barely-used vanity chatroom in which you all post repeated screengrabs of Peter Simon? The ones who think it acceptable to call someone a fucking moron for having an opinon contrary to yours?

Right. I presume you're talking about ChatPS.

"barely used" - since 7th November 2012, our members have added 261289 (and counting) messages to the chat room. That's an average of 406 messages per day (which isn't bad seeing as there are plenty of days when no messages at all are sent). Of those, only 53 contain the string 'Simon'.

This doesn't include the messages added by the host robot, nor the messages prior to that date, which brings me to my next point...

"vanity chat room" - the chat room exists because Pete pulled the plug on the Metrovision one. If he hadn't, we'd still be using that one I'm pretty sure. It does not exist to big me up constantly - it'd be a massive failure if that were the case. The name ChatPS was suggested by member and moderator Jon (known here as wells) as a placeholder, and it's stuck.

I have no problem with your opinion regarding the S4C presentation. If you like it, or think it does the trick, that's fine - that's neither here nor there. The reason I think you're a fucking moron (in this particular instance) is because you think it's "hilarious" that the consensus on a pres forum that some bland idents (especially by comparison to what came before) are bland.

tl;dr - You're chatting shit.

Philip wrote: I'm certain most people on TVF know the situation S4C has found itself in,

no i don't think that factors into their thinking at all. If their brains actually were capable of putting two and two together they'd realise that perhaps there is a reason why network BBC2 (which involves outsourcing to RedBee) are much more cautious in terms of retro pres than the in-house nations. I mean I don't know the ins and outs of internal BBC politics but I can hazard a guess.