[DTV]

Branding wise, what more is there to say? The animations are alright, but the underlying designs are just so basic and seem a bit ‘concept sketch to be finessed upon’. I like flat design, but this is the kind of bare depth-lacking stuff that can give it a bad name.

But ultimately, as others have touched on, it is just clearly a case of branding for the sake of it – Newsroom Live all over again. These programmes aren’t really any different to as they were last week when they used the stronger, core brand. Giving them weaker identities, with limited individual purpose, just makes the channel’s output more diffuse for no gain. I’m by no means opposed to branded programming, but there has to be a justification and I just don’t see it here. 

It really doesn’t help that a lot of the ‘selling points’ of the programmes just aren’t that true. News Now might be faster paced than some of the others, but a) the slot already was and b) it's not a particularly fast-paced news programme. Stressing that just seems to be an attempt to allay criticism of the slowed pace in recent years. Similarly, Verified Live doesn’t really spend much more time ‘verifying’ than the other slots. As I said previously, such a focus would work as a regular, branded segment or even a shorter programme, but naming a whole three-hour block after such a small part of it means you are a) mistargeting those interested in news verification and b) potentially putting off those who just want the news.

As a last minor point, I think the continued references to ‘three hours of’ are also misplaced. Very few people are actually going to sit down and watch a whole three-hour block of news channel – it seems very odd to highlight that, it just sounds alienatingly long.