ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

History of ITV television idents

Okay, kiddo, have you ever watched TV and noticed that sometimes there is a little video at the beginning that tells you what channel you're watching? That's called an ident! ITV has had lots of different idents over the years, and they tell us a lot about how ITV has changed and grown.

Way back in the 1950s and 60s, there weren't really any idents at all. Instead, a man would come on before each show and say "This is ITV," just to make sure everyone knew what channel they were watching. But in the 1970s, ITV started making idents that were a little bit more interesting. One of the very first ones was a little animation of a cat being chased by a mouse, which was a bit like the Warner Bros. cartoons you might know.

Over the years, there have been lots of different ITV idents, each with their own style and message. In the 1980s, for example, there was one that showed a hot air balloon with the ITV logo on it, floating over different parts of the UK. This was to show that ITV was a channel for everyone, not just people in big cities. In the 1990s, there was an ident that featured lots of different faces, to show that ITV was a channel that welcomed all kinds of people.

In more recent years, ITV has started to make idents that are a bit more fancy and high-tech. There was one that had lots of little robots marching across the screen, and another that showed different versions of the ITV logo being created in a kind of science lab. These idents are meant to show that ITV is a modern and exciting channel that is always changing and growing.

So, in summary, kiddo, an ITV ident is something that comes on at the beginning of a TV show to tell you what channel you're watching. Over the years, there have been lots of different ones that have shown how ITV has changed and grown as a channel. Cool, right?