Digital On-screen Graphic Information
A digital on-screen graphic (known in the UK and New Zealand by the acronym DOG; in the US and Canada as a bug; and in Australia as a watermark) is a watermark-like station logo that many television broadcasters overlay over a portion of the screen-area of their programs to identify the channel. They are thus a form of permanent visual station identification, increasing brand recognition and asserting ownership of the video signal. In some cases, the graphic also shows the name of the current program. Some networks use an on-screen graphic to advertise later programs in the day's television schedule—this is generally displayed after the opening, during in-program credits, and when returning from a commercial break.
The graphic identifies the source of programming even if it is time-shifted—that is, recorded to videotape, DVD, or via a digital personal video recorder such as TiVo by possibly station identification. Many of these technologies allow viewers to skip or omit traditional between-programming station identification; thus the use of a DOG enables the station or network to enforce brand-identification even when standard commercials are skipped. DOG watermarking also helps minimize off-the-air copyright infringement (for example the distribution of a current series' episodes on DVD): the watermarked content is easily differentiated from "official" DVD releases, and can help law-enforcement efforts by identifying not only the station an illegally copied broadcast was captured from, but usually the actual date of the broadcast as well.[clarification needed][citation needed]
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Usage
Many news broadcasters place a clock alongside their DOG, giving it legitimacy if it is moved into an unorthodox position, such as the bottom left. In the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, DOGs may also include the show's parental guideline rating. In Australia, this is known as a Program Return Graphic (PRG). It has also become custom to place text advertising other programs on the network above the station's logo.
During televised sports events, a DOG may also display a few game-related statistics such as the current score. This has led many people in Canada and the United States to refer to it as a score bug.
United Kingdom
In the UK, DOGs most commonly appear in the top-left hand corner on British channels. DOGs were first used on satellite and cable television systems in their early days, when broadcasts were unmarked. Channel 5 was the first to use DOGs on an analogue terrestrial channel in 1997. The DOG was originally very bright and noticeable, and was soon toned down. Channel 5 said that the DOG was used to assist viewers in tuning to the new channel once its test transmissions had ceased. Following the rebrand to "five" in 2002 the DOG disappeared until October 2007.
The BBC has a DOG on each of its digital-only channels. In October 1998, it added DOGs to BBC One and Two but following a large number of complaints they were removed just two months later.[1] The DOGs appear in the top left-hand corner on other channels except BBC News (which is bottom left and forms part of integrated information graphics) and its international counterpart, BBC World News. Whilst BBC Four, BBC HD and BBC Parliament have static DOGs, the ones on BBC Three, CBBC and CBeebies alongside other channels such as Five and Nick Jr. feature moving elements. ITV uses DOGs on all its channels besides ITV1.
The logos on channels such as Sky Sports, Five, E4, E!, Disney XD, Sky Arts 1 and 2, Sky1, 2 and 3, The History Channel and More4 are almost transparent, whereas others like those on Comedy Central, ITV2, 3 and 4, Eurosport, Playhouse Disney, the UKTV channels, CITV, Virgin1, CBBC, CBeebies, BBC Three, the Discovery channels, Nick Jr., Nicktoons, Boomerang and Nickelodeon are bright and noticeable. Sky Movies, Film4 and Channel 4 do not use DOGs. Some stations, such as Bravo and Living, display their on-screen graphics permanently. Sky1 and Dave are examples that remove them during commercials and trailers. In addition to a fixed (sometimes animated) motif, MTV includes the program title in the top-right hand corner. During widescreen programs, the DOGs on E4, 4Music and More4 stay in the far corner of the screen while most other channels keep theirs within the 4:3 "safe area".
On British digital systems such as Sky Digital and Freeview, where stations have a set EPG number and a name displayed across the bottom of the screen when changing channel, DOGs have been deemed unnecessary by some users. Despite this, broadcasters persist with the practice. In response to negative feedback, the BBC has responded, "We believe it is important to ensure that viewers can quickly identify when they are watching a BBC service."[2] It reinforced this position in both 2008 and 2009 following continual complaints to its Points of View program, citing channel identification as the sole reason for the policy.[3][4] In its website FAQs, Five's stated reason for its use of a DOG is that "the vast majority of channels carry them, most permanently and virtually every channel at some point has one during the day."[5] However, on 21 October 2008, the BBC announced that it was removing the DOG from BBC HD for all films and most dramas, acknowledging that there was an "irritation factor".[6] More recent additions are graphics which appear near the end of a program to tell the viewer what's up next, despite this information being available at a touch of a button on digital TV. Many viewers also find this practice annoying, distracting and unnecessary.[7][8]
In the United Kingdom, score bugs are commonly known as scorebars. The first major British network to carry scorebars in their televised sports games was Sky. Other terrestrial networks followed suit, and all football games on the BBC, ITV and Five now use them. As in the United States, the scorebar is traditionally placed in the top left-hand corner of the screen. An exception occurred at the beginning of the 2007–08 football season, when Sky Sports experimented with a bar positioned bottom-left. However, this was not popular and by September it had been returned to the top-left of the screen.
North America
United States
A typical score bug on a televised sporting event will consist of the station logo alongside the current score of game, and other information, such as time elapsed.The first network in the United States to produce a score bug was ABC, which used one on the telecast of the 1994 Purolator 500 NASCAR event. A transparent digit counted down the number of laps remaining in the race. A similar bug was used during ABC's telecast of the 1994 Indianapolis 500 and 1994 Brickyard 400. ABC also incorporated the Sports Bug for their 1994 World Cup coverage, providing the time and score on the game as well as enabling advertiser sponsorship to broadcast games without interruptions. Later that fall, Fox introduced a full-score bug for its NFL coverage, known as the "FoxBox", as did cable network ESPN. ABC expanded theirs to Monday Night Football in 1996. CBS introduced theirs upon returning to the NFL in the fall of 1998, and NBC in 2001 during its coverage of the XFL.
The first score banner, which takes up the top of the screen, was used for minor league hockey broadcasts by SportsChannel New York in their coverage of the Albany River Rats of the American Hockey League during the National Hockey League lockout of 1994-95. It was the brainchild of director Joe O'Rourke, and was implemented by producer Roland Dratch and font coordinator Dave Katz. Fox then used the score banner for its NASCAR coverage in 2001. Fox then expanded the scoring banner to all sports. Fox Sports Net also uses a scoring banner for basketball, hockey, baseball and soccer coverage, as do many other local broadcasters of sporting events.
ABC introduced a Fox-like banner, but along the bottom of the screen, for Monday Night Football in 2005, its last year of the franchise. The network introduced a revised version February 5, 2006, during an NBA game, as well as during that day's presentation of Super Bowl XL, which quickly became used for all sports on the network. ABC returned to a bug in September when the sports division became ESPN on ABC. NBC also began using a scoring banner, along the bottom like ABC's, in 2005 for its coverage of Notre Dame football home game telecasts, which also quickly became used for all sports on the network except for hockey, where the banner runs atop the screen, which have been adapted by Canadian broadcasters, CBC, Rogers Sportsnet and TSN. The networks of Turner Broadcasting System used the traditional score bugs until they began broadcasting the 2007 Major League Baseball Division Series, in which they converted to a top screen banner. ESPN began using a banner starting with the 2006 FIFA World Cup and MLB Home Run Derby, a bottom-screen banner for NBA and AFL telecasts and in 2007, a top-screen banner for NASCAR and baseball telecasts, plus a center-screen bug for their Monday Night Football telecasts in 2006 and 2007 before switching to a bottom-screen banner in 2008. Starting in 2007, they added banners for college football and in college basketball telecasts. In addition, ESPN's college sports telecasts added two (lacrosse), three (college football) or five (college basketball) yellow stripes, representing the timeouts the team has left to the banner. Timeout indicators were also added for ESPN's Monday Night Football telecasts, beginning with Week 4 of the 2009 NFL season. In 2006, CBS began using a bottom-of-the-screen banner for NCAA Basketball telecasts but retained the traditional box for all NFL broadcasts, but as of 2009[update] uses a banner for college football and NFL games at the top of the screen. Sibling network CBS College Sports however, began using a top-screen banner for baseball in 2008, and since expanded to other sports, duplicating bottom screen banners for basketball. The one exception among all the networks is motor racing, as all of them will use scrolling banners for these races. In 2007, TBS began using a top-screen banner for postseason baseball broadcasts, and continued into the 2008 season, returning to a longer bug in 2009.
For the 2008 college football season, FSN adopted a new graphics package and reverted to the scoring bug on the top left-hand corner of the screen for football, hockey, and baseball, while on the bottom right-hand corner for basketball. Fox then adopted these graphics for its 2009 Major League Baseball telecasts.
Some type of continuous graphic indicating time, score or standings are now used in every major sport televised in the U.S., except golf. In that sport, leaderboards are still flashed on and off screen at regular intervals, with a full rundown every half hour or so. However, starting in 2008, the ESPN networks' golf coverage has included consistent use of scoring banners, often alternating between alphabetical scoring, leaderboard-style scoring, and single group scoring (which is often used when multiple notable players are in the same two or threesome).
From its inception, cable network VH1 commonly used a bug in the corner of the screen while broadcasting music videos for copyright purposes. MTV also did the same, beginning in 1993. MTV first began using a bug while videos were shown on the program Beavis and Butt-head, displaying the show's logo during the videos (but not Beavis and Butt-head's commentary of them).
Canada
CTV places their opaque logo over Fox's on-screen graphic during American Idol.In Canada, networks and channels display logo bugs the same way as the UK and the US, with only minor differences.
A simulation of how a Canadian TV network could place their logo if a US network's logo is already present.Canadian networks often request the simultaneous substitution of programs on US networks. The imported feed is either a clean feed without a bug from the US broadcaster, or a direct US feed with the US network's bug present.
When the US network's bug is present, the Canadian broadcaster will either:
- cover up the logo with their own (opaque) logo - this strategy is used by CTVglobemedia's TV stations (the logo is normally grey), and NTV in Newfoundland), or
- "co-brand" the show by placing their logo in a different corner of the screen.
Germany
In the 1980s, public broadcasters started to randomly show logos during programs to prevent video piracy, following the lead of Italian broadcasters RAI and Canale 5. After the first private stations emerged in 1984, permanently showing their logo most times, the public broadcasters soon followed. Today practically all TV stations show their logo during the programs and often these are an integral part of their design using fluent animations to make the transition between programs, previews and advertising, as well as displaying additional information such as teletext numbers or the name of the following program. Most logos are transparent during programming though some channels don't. (i.e. kabel eins uses a bright orange coloured logo.) Also the majority of the channels show their logo in either the top-left or top-right corner of the picture though there are exceptions (i.e. RTL II in the bottom-right or N24 logo in the bottom-left and date and time in the top-right).
Asia
Most Asian stations do not make the logo transparent on screen, and doesn't remove the logo during commercials (except in the Philippines, Thailand, Laos, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan), and usually show the logo during test card transmission.
Connections with sponsor tags
Another graphic on television usually connected with sports (particularly in North America, though not in Europe) is the sponsor tag. It shows the logos of certain sponsors, accompanied by some background relevant to the game, the network logo, announcement and music of some kind.
See also
| Wikimedia Commons has media related to category: Digital on-screen graphics |
References
- ^ DOG Watch!: Hello BBC Three (Goodbye Choice)
- ^ BBC Complaints: Digital on-screen graphics
- ^ BBC Points of View, 11 May 2008
- ^ BBC Points of View, 22 November 2009
- ^ five.tv: About Five
- ^ Digital Spy: BBC tones down HD channel logo
- ^ The Guardian: Charlie Brooker's screen burn
- ^ Telegraph.co.uk: How low will TV companies stoop to stop us reaching for the remote?
External links
- DOG Watch! - 625.uk.com - Website documenting and questioning the use of DOGs on British television
Categories: Television terminology | Sports technology | Computer graphics | Film and video technology
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