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Digital on-screen graphic
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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.
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Encyclopedia
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. Usually in United States sportscasts (such as on CBS and NBC), the "bug" is moved to the top-right corner of the screen.
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. 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.
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 BBCs One and Two but following a large number of complaints they were removed two months later. 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 the BBC Three, CBBC Channel and CBeebies feature moving elements. ITV uses DOGs on all its channels besides ITV1.
Digital viewing equipment includes a channel identifier that immediately displays on-screen when a station is selected. 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." It reinforced this position in 2008 following many complaints to its Points of View program, citing channel identification as the sole reason for the policy. 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." 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".
On British digital systems such as Sky Digital and Freeview, where channels have a set EPG number and a name displayed across the bottom of the screen when changing channel, large or intrusive DOGs have been deemed unnecessary by some users. More recent additions are graphics which appear at 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 find this practice annoying, distracting and unnecessary. Moving animated DOGs are already used by some channels such as the MTV channels. More4 is the only British network that has an almost transparent logo in the US style and, along with its sister channel E4, the DOG stays in the far corner of the screen during widescreen programmes, with most other channels keeping theirs within the 4:3 "safe area".
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
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. In 2006, CBS began using a bottom-of-the-screen banner for NCAA Basketball telecasts but retains the traditional box for all NFL broadcasts, but uses a banner for college football 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 the banner for these races. In 2007, TBS began using a top-screen banner for postseason baseball broadcasts, and continued into the 2008 season.
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 VH-1 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
In Canada, networks and channels display logo bugs the same way as the UK and the US, with only minor differences.
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.
In cases of the latter, the Canadian broadcaster will either cover up the logo with their own (opaque) logo, or will "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 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).
Adverse effects
There have been reports of TV screens being damaged by phosphor burn-in, when a channel displaying a non-transparent logo has been left on for a prolonged period of time. Plasma display manufacturers warn that burn-in time can be as low as 10 hours for a high contrast static image. The problem is less common on channels that do not show DOGs during advertisements.
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
External links
- - Website documenting and questioning the use of DOGs on British television
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