19.10.07
Matt
You’ve got a friend in Dave
Everybody likes Dave. He’s a bit of laugh and he’s intelligent. He likes Top Gear and The Apprentice.
But wait, I’m not talking about our Dave even though you would be forgiven for thinking so. Dave is the new name for UKTV G2. As far as I know, this is the first TV channel to have a man’s name. Correct me if I’m wrong though. In addition to Clarkson and Sugar you can also catch QI, Red Dwarf, Little Britain and Ray Mears. Dave is available on Sky (chnl 111), Freeview (chnl 19) and Virgin (NTL 125 / TW 126).
05.11.07
David
Isn’t there an ad agency called Dave…? I found a radio station in the States called Dave and Ikea make a table called Dave, but this certainly looks like the first TV channel called Dave. A recent article in Design Week (18.10.07) by David Benady (another Dave) looks at how Dave (the channel) fairs against the likes of Channel 4 and the new Virgin 1 in terms of branding, and in particular, their on-air idents. A precedent has clearly been set by C4 and it seems Dave, Virgin and even the Beeb are all trying to match it. Interestingly, the same issue of Design Week contains an article by Jim Davies on naming. He talks about ‘process’ and how name-generation comes down to little more than long lists on a pad, but with words like apple, orange and virgin now easily recognised as ‘top-brands’ it makes you wonder whether Dave is such a odd choice after all.