TG4 - On-air Identity and Marketing

On-air Identity and Marketing

TG4's on screen identity is very different from its counterparts drawing upon the stations original slogan Súil Eile (meaning another view).

Its first idents were under their former name of TnaG. The music on TnaG's early ident sequences was produced by Irish composer Oisin Lunny. The opening sequence featured a number of Irish scenes from across the Island of Ireland, including Belfast and Dublin, it finished with a light house, the light of which beamed the logo on to the screen. While the longer seqence went out at the beginning of each day and the end of the night, a shorter version went out before each programme. TnaG ran numerous marketing campaigns with this logo, their main features were the difference of the Irish, one ad featured Red Lemonade, the slogan used in English was "Because we're Different" followed by the well known Irish slogan "Súil Eile". Another marketing campaign featured the stars of the channel asking the question "What more do you look for from a station?", they would be based a various stations such as Train stations and Space stations.

In 1999 with the onset of digital television, TnaG was rebranded as TG4 to strengthen the perception of the brand, from being niche Irish-language-only channel to mainstream channel with Irish-language programmes. The TG4 ident continued with the difference aspect of the channel, that provides an alternative view, the slogan 'Suil Eile' translates literally as 'other eyes' but is also a pun in Irish meaning 'a different view'. The logo takes the G from the orgninal logo, separtates it from the T and the T loses its Celtic script look. The promotion of the channel from TnaG to TG4 was done with the use of a caterpillar growing into a butterfly. During its 1999 rebrand TG4 would now feature a DOG in the top right hand corner on all of TG4's programming, previously a TnaG DOG featured only on Oireachtas and QVC broadcasts.

The idents from 1999 to 2004 featured various people playing or messing in the background of the screen before the logo appear with the words Súil Eile below the logo.

In 2004, numerous new Idents were developed for the station: Fairies, Bridge, Launderette, Cars, Wrestlers etc. all feature on the new idents. TG4 promotions now feature the seasons Geimhreadh (Winter), Earrach (Spring), Samhair (Summer) and Fómhar (Autumn). The opening ad break ident states "Fan Linn" (stay with us) and the ad break ends with "Seo Linn" (here we are). In Autumn 2010 the season theme was dropped and replaced by a blue cube logo, the idents were updated with the TG4 logo animating up in a different way.

On Saturday 1 September 2012, TG4 launched its autumn scheduled. At this time a new look was introduced, a new ident was introduced and all the miscellaneous presentation was revamped. An updated logo was launched which is now colored a dark grey. The identity focuses on the theme of Irish foklore including the Children of Lir. For the first time since the channels launch the on-screen logo is found on the top left hand corner. All the new graphics are created for HD ahead of TG4 HD's launch on UPC on 2 October 2012. In-vision continuity followed by TG4's new generic ident. The generic ident is also used after weather updates when a long ident is not required as the weather presenter acts as a continuity announcer at the end of the forecast announcing the next show.