-Global aces the ID challenge

Changing a network's on-air environment is the active process of resisting the temptation to take something simple and make it complicated, says Brian Neal, the 10-year director of creative services for the Global Television Network.

It's a lovely bit of work, this new Global brand which launched the week of Aug. 18. It marks the end of CanWest's affiliate station ids and leaves all henceforth collectively and individually known as Global, pieces of the Global Television Network, a CanWest company.

Gone is the Spirograph red swirl and the '70s-type jingle which have branded Global programming since 1974. In their place, after four months and $500,000, is what is officially called "the crescent," a red quarter moon underscoring the word Global on anything that moves: bugs, bumpers, crawls, trailers, testimonials, and six station ids complete with bouncing fruit, fish, fireworks and flowers.

They sound busy; they're not. British advertising agency Lambie Narin, contracted after Global was seduced by their work for Disney, Channel 2 and the bbc, has created a clean look with a deliberate structuring of space around the logo (Frutiger, sans serif) in textured spots that communicate a single idea at a time a la the Bell Canada commercials.

Blessedly, the new prototype is not about to fill the screen and become a entity unto itself. The idea, says Neal, is to create something visually amusing but keep the focus on the programming.

"We say here's this great program, here's who brought it to you, using an interesting tool which gives pause in a busy retail environment, then move on to the business of television. Sometimes you want to fancy it up. It's better this way."

Not to put too fine a point on it, but there is a Global think behind the look's gestation. "We began to play with what Global is about," says Neal. "It starts with the local stations which make up a greater community. The metaphor ­ the moving from simple to complex back to simple ­ is inaccessible on the screen but it became part of the way we talked about everything."

Each promo starts, for example, with a single image (fish), takes on additional elements (more fish), then fades back to the single image which morphs into the logo.

All of the above means zero to the viewer. All of the above is generating quips about Global's half-million-dollar banana. But it pulls the CanWest environment into the '90s and is no small success given how easy it seems to complicate the process (see ontv, bbs, etc.). wic is reportedly working on a similar process after harmonizing its sales operations last year.

Global will allocate $1.5 to $2 million worth of airtime and media support to launching the new brand.

-A little left of The Bridal Path

A half-dozen characters, sexual tension, unwanted pregnancy, drugs (okay, marijuana ­ it's Canada, after all), all before 4:30 on the tape. Gun shots at 6:04. Racism, the Ivory Tower, an interracial marriage, adultery, and stepparent angst by 15:16. Whatever reviews follow the release of Riverdale Sept. 22, it can't be labeled lazy or unambitious.