RTE's branding

I.J. · 07-11-2004 9:54pm #1

Over a year on and I still can not get used to RTE's branding ("bugs", as they call them). Despite a wide range of complaints from Irish TV viewers they still are not doing anything about it. I've had many posts about this already but it has to be brought up every so often again until the job is done. NO general TV channel on the west coast of Europe uses such irritating and annoying branding.

E-mail horand@rte.ie and info@rte.ie The first is the director of programming who looks after these things and the second will send it to all relevant departments in RTE.

radiospan · 07-11-2004 10:02pm

I.J. wrote:

Over a year on

A year! :eek:

Doesn't seem like that long, but maybe you're right.

I agree, these dogs are horrible, I don't mind during the news, or maybe a soccer match but they can really ruin a good film.

Take them down, RTE! That's what the EPG is for!

Crucifix · 08-11-2004 12:08am

Yeah, I don't get why they have them. Is it really that essential?

cashback · 08-11-2004 12:26am

It bothers me too. Most people know what channel they're watching anyway. if they have to be there, couldn't RTE make them more like the one on TG4. That one is more translucent(if that's the right word?) and less intrusive on your viewing.

RuggieBear · 08-11-2004 12:32am

doesn't bother me.....anymore! i dont watch RTE coz i find those bloody bugs so annoying and distracting....just seem to catch my eye....like having some dirt/scratch on your shades!!!

pork99 · 08-11-2004 2:52am

The other day I was watching Marcel Carné's classic 1945 film "Les Enfants du Paradis". However I felt something was lacking in my appreciation of Carné's beautifully framed "mise-en-scenes", something was undermining his masterful evocation in black and white of 1840s Paris.

Then it came to me! What I needed to complete the cinematic experience was a clunky logo, designed by an NCAD design student on work experience who has attempted a cak-handed rip-off of the BBC One and Two logos*, slapped nonchalently on the top left had corner of the screen.

*Remarkably similar - check it out - the ONE and TWO in the BBC and RTE logos are more or less identical

Tennis · 08-11-2004 10:42am

I.J. wrote:

Over a year on and I still can not get used to RTE's branding ("bugs", as they call them). Despite a wide range of complaints from Irish TV viewers they still are not doing anything about it. I've had many posts about this already but it has to be brought up every so often again until the job is done. NO general TV channel on the west coast of Europe uses such irritating and annoying branding.

E-mail horand@rte.ie and info@rte.ie The first is the director of programming who looks after these things and the second will send it to all relevant departments in RTE.

I hate to break it to you, but the basic premise of your argument is complete rubbish, every EU country except Britain have DOGS or BUGS on all of their national TV stations. The United States and Canada have them as well. RTE have simply come in line with everybody else and will not be removing the logos, so get used to them!

flogen · 08-11-2004 9:11pm

The only time they've come in handy is when you're tuning in the station on a new tv or video, which might happen every 5 years or so

but to be fair, it doesnt bother me that much. I hate ones like on MTV that move around... stupid

flogen

doh.ie · 08-11-2004 10:37pm

flogen wrote:

The only time they've come in handy is when you're tuning in the station on a new tv or video, which might happen every 5 years or so

but to be fair, it doesnt bother me that much. I hate ones like on MTV that move around... stupid

flogen

Yep, which is about every other satellite channel these days. If it's not some ridiculous moving graphic, then it's something like:

All New Programme X
Friday at 9pm
All New
New
Did we mention it was new?
New... on Friday

Sci Fi Channel, FX289, Living TV and every now and again Sky Onc are the serial offenders. Worst thing is these telly execs think they're being really clever with a new marketing technique. What they fail to realise is, in my head(and many others, I'm sure), I just end up watching the programme from somewhere else.

byte · 08-11-2004 10:49pm

Yes, moving DOG's are the worst offenders. The RTE ones are annoying too. If they must be there, can they not be shoved a wee bit further into the corner and shrunk a bit? Oh and make it more translucent!

JBoyle4eva · 08-11-2004 11:27pm

I don't notice them that much, but when your watching The den(ONly popped it on during the mid-term, don;t think I'm a fan of it) the Den DOG is really irritating! You should see it.

I think that the EMAP music channels on Sky have fairly overdone it. All corners taking up on most of them, one side with the channel anme and the other with the phoning number!

penguinbloke · 09-11-2004 12:42pm

The most annoying thing about the den dog is that there are two on the screen.

One is big, red, yellow and eye gouging and both are bigger than the one used for sky one.

I.J. · 11-11-2004 10:11pm

Tennis,

Please re-read my post. I said nothing about removing them but making them less annoying. "NO general TV channel on the west coast of Europe uses such irritating and annoying branding". This is my sentence you refer to. I still stand by that comment because I have seen French, German and Spanish TV and still their branding is not as irritating and annoying as RTE!!

In future, read slowly please. RTE could easily make them smaller.

The majority of people responding to this post have agreed with me. Cashback suggested they make them more like TG4. That is exactly right. Even TV3 is not as much a bother. Ruggiebear is spot on with the type of irritation RTE has caused with them. RTE ruins all the movies it shows and destroys the artistic integrity of the programme makers.

If anybody else is annoyed by these simply e-mail and tell RTE: horand@rte.ie (Dermot Horan, head of RTE programming) and info@rte.ie (general information office)

DublinWriter · 13-11-2004 11:29am

Tennis wrote:

I hate to break it to you, but the basic premise of your argument is complete rubbish, every EU country except Britain have DOGS or BUGS on all of their national TV stations. The United States and Canada have them as well. RTE have simply come in line with everybody else and will not be removing the logos, so get used to them!

Ja Wohl! Vee must conform!

Pity RTE doesn't come in line with the rest of Europe in regards to digital broadcasting, but that's another rant.

Firstly, bugs damage plasma screens. There's plenty of posts on Google with people saying the high-contrast SKY bugs have been burnt permanently onto their screens.

...and yes, the most respected broadcaster in the world - the BBC - doesn't use them. We wonder why.

Personally I don't like 'bugs' or 'dogs' or whatever they are called. It's the visual equivalent of having an annoying background noise when you listen to the radio.

Notice how RTE gets rid of them during the ad breaks! Well, they do receive 75% of their revenue from advertisements after all.

Wertz · 13-11-2004 2:50pm

DublinWriter wrote:

Ja Wohl! Vee must conform!

Pity RTE doesn't come in line with the rest of Europe in regards to digital broadcasting, but that's another rant.

Firstly, bugs damage plasma screens. There's plenty of posts on Google with people saying the high-contrast SKY bugs have been burnt permanently onto their screens.

...and yes, the most respected broadcaster in the world - the BBC - doesn't use them. We wonder why.

Personally I don't like 'bugs' or 'dogs' or whatever they are called. It's the visual equivalent of having an annoying background noise when you listen to the radio.

Notice how RTE gets rid of them during the ad breaks! Well, they do receive 75% of their revenue from advertisements after all.

Yeah. Never thought about the damage these logos could be doing to plasma TVs. Often thought that having a huge TV meant that you'd have a huge screen logo. Lets face it, it's bad enough on a 28in.

As so many others have said in this thread, why can't they be shrunk down a bit, made translucent and possibly shift in position one in a while?
I think it's the fact that it's in the upper left corner that annoys about RTE's as much as the size. Ones in the bottom corners don't seem to attract the eye so much.
Anyway, we should go the way of the beeb and just scrap them. Look, we all KNOW we're watching RTE. Since we're paying for the f***ing privilege...

Blisterman · 13-11-2004 3:04pm

The moving ones don't burn into the screen.

aidan_walsh · 14-11-2004 2:11am

Well, in fairness they're not as bad as TV3s one... When the use the big one, there goes half the fusking screen on you!!

plazzTT wrote:

That's what the EPG is for!

Which is a fat lot of good to those of us still on analogue...

sceptre · 14-11-2004 2:22am

doodle_sketch wrote:

Which is a fat lot of good to those of us still on analogue...

Realistically if you're on analogue you're unlikely to be thinking anything along the lines of "what channel am I on... hmmm... this is going to bug me... I must find out... it could be one of those shopping channels or even TV3... might be some movie channel... might be BBC3... Paramount maybe or E4... must think... oh look, there's the DOG, it says 'RTE', my sanity is saved"

aidan_walsh · 14-11-2004 2:26am

Fair enough, but the point was aimed at EPG, not the logo...

I agree, its unnecessary for those of us on analogue, but there are a lot of people who aren't, and I imagine RTE would rather people not have to rely on the EPG to tell them what channel they are on... Save as TV3, Sky, etc do...

sceptre · 14-11-2004 3:53am

doodle_sketch wrote:

Fair enough, but the point was aimed at EPG, not the logo...

Of course it was. However the fact remains that an onscreen channel graphic is unnecessary for those in analogue-land for the reason I mentioned and unnecessary for those in satellite or cable (or terrestrial where available) digital-land as they have an EPG and hence at a glance it doesn't appear to have any useful purpose at all unless one is in RTE's marketing department and hasn't poked one's head outside one's cubicle packed with marketroid branding books in a few years. So broadly speaking (fair I think as most of us are speaking broadly) it offers no advantages to anyone but throws up disadvantages and/or annoyance to some.

Ciaran500 · 14-11-2004 10:55am

Blisterman wrote:

The moving ones don't burn into the screen.

Once the dog is transparent there should be no burn in as the image is changing, and it takes longer than 15 minutes to burn an image onto a screen.

I.J. · 14-11-2004 5:37pm

Well since practically everybody is complaining about these bugs, I hope you are all contacting Dermot Horan (RTEs director of programming) at horand@rte.ie and demanding they do something about this annoyance.

Everybody has a different reason for not wanting them and seeing no reason for them. RTE even give lame excuses that a huge percentage of Ireland has over 200 channels and need bugs. But at the end of the day it can be said with sheer confidence that there is no reason for them to be so impinging on the viewers.

Don't forget horand@rte.ie or info@rte.ie where your complaint will be received by RTE general staff and sent to further RTE authorities. RTE received and acknowledged getting a petition from the Irish people requesting something be done. That was almost 6 months ago and alas nothing has been done!

RTE is patheticly managed and stupidly run.

I.J. · 17-11-2004 7:24pm

After a string of explanations on how useless and irritating RTE's style of branding is all they could say, with a "for your information" opener, was that they made it more translucent earlier in the year. Yeh, thats right and bigger too! How about the whole space above it where it coduld be put, how about it being over sized, how about it being a massive eye soar, how about nobody in the world using such a pathetic looking bug, how about it simply bugging everyone?

get onto Dermot Horan everybody: horand@rte.ie

(The silence of tennis indicates to me that that matter earlier on was cleared up)

superdudeman007 · 23-09-2006 5:10pm

RTE expecting us to forget what channel we're wtching is one thing, but you should check out UK GOLD!

Top Left Hand Corner
UKTV Gold

Top Right Hand Corner
Summer Nights of Comedy

Bottom Left Hand Corner
Now : PORRIDGE

Bottom Right Hand Corner
Next : THE GOOD LIFE

So UKTV think we've forgotten what channel we're watching, what time of day it is, what time of year it is, what show this is and what's on next (as if we cared).

And all you have to do is press the arrow on the digital remote (because just about everyone watching UK Gold is watching on Sky) to get that information anyway.

RTE's branding

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