Digital viewers and viewers living in the US are already familiar with bugs or "DOGs" - permanent logos that tell you which channel you are watching. These DOGs are now invading more channels - Channel 4's T4 strand and the BBC's digital services were the latest to fall victim back in 1998. In November that year I filmed an item for Right to Reply on behalf of all of us viewers who are fed up with this electronic pollution. Shortly after this film was aired, the BBC removed the DOGs from its digital channels BBC One, BBC Two and BBC Choice. A victory for viewer power!

Thanks to Rob Sedgebeer for the images and the RealVideo.

From Right to Reply shown on C4 on Sa 21-Nov-98 at 18:30, repeated Fr 27-Nov-98 at 05:25
and shown on S4C on Mo 23-Nov-98 at 12:00
Copyright © 1998 Channel 4 Television Corporation.

Last Sunday, the latest digital broadcaster, ONdigital, launched a new service of 30 channels. Television viewers entering the digital age will discover a whole new world of Electronic Programme Guides or on-screen menus to help them navigate the multitude of channels.

But broadcasters are worried that we won't know which channel we're watching when there are hundreds to choose from. In an attempt to make sure we remember, some are permanently displaying their logos on screen.

These logos are called DOGs, digitally originated graphics. Andrew Wiseman is just one viewer who wants their mess cleaned up.

Many viewers are animal lovers, but like me just can't stand DOGs. Not our four-legged friends you understand, but those permanent, annoying on-screen logos that are popping up all over the place.

Broadcasters say we have to have them so we know which channel we're watching. Very useful when you're channel surfing, they say. DOGs, they say, are particularly useful for digital TV, when potentially hundreds of channels will be available.

Rubbish! When you change channel on a digital television, an on-screen display tells you exactly which channel you're watching. This information can be brought back on screen at any time at the touch of a button. So we don't need a constant reminder as though we have the memory of a goldfish. Do broadcasters think we're too stupid to use this information?

I'm not the only one who finds DOGs* intrusive. Channel 5, the first terrestrial channel to have a permanent on-screen logo, toned down the intensity of its DOG in the wake of a wave of viewers' complaints.

We tweaked it - we reduced the intensity of it within probably two weeks of being on air and more or less left it at that. And just gauging, quite honestly, on viewer complaints, they've just ceased now; they were very few. I think I can honestly say that. And I think it's accepted as part of the landscape.

We love our DOG and take great care of it. And we wouldn't like to see it put down.

It was viewer power that forced Sky to completely remove DOGs from its movie channels.

Similarly, the reason that Channel 4 is relatively bug-free is that viewers forced it to rethink its branding plans when a logo was run overnight, much to viewers' disgust. That's why its new digital channel, FilmFour, was launched without a DOG at all.

People that have subscribed to FilmFour who particularly want to see a two-hour film uncut as if they were in the cinema certainly think it's reasonable not to include a DOG on the film. It's fair that they see the film as it was meant to be.

In an ideal world we wouldn't have had any DOGs at all. I don't like them personally, and I don't think that viewers do.

However, as a way of identifying channels, certainly with the introduction of satellite, it was seen to be the way that new channels could establish that they were there and that you didn't have to wait half an hour or an hour for the next programme to find out what channel you were on.

T4 has a DOG because I felt it was necessary that the whole output of T4 programmes be branded.

In this day and age it's possible to see a programme, for instance like Sister, Sister five times in one day on three different channels.

Therefore it's essential that when people watch Sister Sister on Channel 4, T4, they know it's Channel 4 that they're watching. And that might make them stay and think "I'll keep watching because of what will come next".

Approximately one hundred people have complained. On average the shows are getting... a lot more than that! I knew people would complain, especially Waltons viewers and as a special thing for Waltons viewers, I am in the process... I have commissioned the DOG to change to a sepia-coloured DOG.

I don't have a problem with DOGs.

If broadcasters are going to insist on using DOGs, then at least let them be subtle and unintrusive as possible not like the BBC's digital TV DOGs. For the Beeb, widescreen doesn't mean bigger picture, it means longer DOGs.

These DOGs are leaving longer and longer trails of excrement across our TV screens. I think it's time for a clean-up campaign. Technology can already tell us what we're watching. It's up to the broadcasters to make their channels distinctive with quality programmes, not designer labels.

The BBC confirmed that it has had a large number of complaints about the logo on its digital channels and is having a rethink.