History of BBC television idents
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Since the early 1950s, idents have been used by the BBC across all its channels to define them and create separate identities for each. Through the years, the technology to develop these idents has evolved with the corporation, moving from simple still black and white images to sophisticated full colour images as seen today. In the United Kingdom, branding has become much more important with the arrival of digital services and many more new channels, meaning each need to have identities that stand out from the competition.
BBC One
The original BBC Television Service launched in November 1936, was taken off the air on the outbreak of war in September 1939, and relaunched in June 1946. As the only public television service in Britain, and initially in the world, there was no need for a station ident in the early days. However, with the imminent arrival of commercial television in Britain, 2 December 1953 saw the arrival of the first ident, nicknamed the "Bat's Wings". This was an elaborate mechanical contraption constructed by Abram Games, which featured a tiny spinning globe in the centre, surrounded by two spinning "eyes", with lightning flashes to either side. Unlike later idents, this was filmed, rather than live. The model was temperamental, and broke down shortly after it was filmed. [1]
By the early 1960s the Bat's Wings had been superseded by the "BBC tv" logo within a circle, beneath which would appear a map of Britain showing the BBC's broadcast regions.
From 30 September 1963 a globe became the channel's main identification - an emblem which would remain until 2002. In the 1963 incarnation, a continuity announcer would speak over the spinning globe, then the BBC tv caption would appear while the announcement "This is BBC Television" was made. On 20 April 1964 the channel was renamed "BBC1" on the launch of BBC2 although the name didn't change on-screen until the introduction of the "watch-strap" globe in 1966 as BBC2's coverage was extremely limited so to many people, BBC1 was still known as BBCtv.
On 15 November 1969 BBC1 started transmitting in colour, and introduced the first version of the "mirror globe" ident (this style was often used within Monty Python's Flying Circus). The inclusion of the word "colour" in the station ident could be viewed as a subtle reminder to the vast majority of viewers, still watching in black and white, to buy a colour tv set and the much more expensive colour television licence which financed the BBC. The "mirror globe" ident was revised in 1972 to use a more ornate font. From the mid-1970s to mid-1980s the BBC1 ident comprised various fonts reading "BBC1" below variations on the mirror globe, with a deep blue background as is illustrated by the clock below.
By 1985, computer graphics technology had progressed sufficiently that on 18 February the mechanical mirror globe was retired in favour of the "Computer Originated World" or COW which showed a semi-transparent blue globe with golden continents and gold "BBC1". Between 16 February 1991 and 3 October 1997 an ident nicknamed the "Smoky Globe" developed by the Lambie-Nairn design agency who had first made an impact with Channel 4's original 1982 ident. The "Smoky Globe" prominently incorporated the number "1" within the globe for the first time, above the BBC's corporate logo – the bold italic letters B B C within three rhomboids, above blue red and green flashes.
On 4 October 1997 the globe was dramatically updated when it left the computer to take the form of a hot-air balloon filmed over various landmarks throughout the UK (and occasionally in other countries e.g. over Sydney Harbour during the 2000 Summer Olympics). Over the next two and a half years, no fewer than 59 different variations of the BBC One balloon ident were produced. From June 2000, BBC Online's URL was included in all BBC One and BBC Two idents. A change in controller at BBC One however resulted in the "balloon" idents being the shortest-lived of the colour TV era. On 29 March 2002 the BBC One globe was ditched after 39 years. Within the same year, BBC Three and BBC Four launched as successors of BBC Choice and BBC Knowledge respectively and all four channels, One, Two, Three and Four adopted a common style of channel logo, a individually coloured box with the BBC logo stacked above the channel's name in words. This presentation later began to spread across other BBC channels including BBC News 24 and BBC World. All BBC TV channels adopted a common style of ident logo - the channel's name in words, i.e. ONE, beneath the BBC corporate logo, in a coloured box individual to each channel– red in the case of "BBC One".
The new BBC One idents introduced were collaberatively called the 'Rhythm and Movement' idents and featured dancers at various locations dancing to different musical styles. Critics accused the BBC of being politically correct regarding some of the dancers involved: disabled dancers in wheelchairs on a basketball court, while fans of the globe were dismayed that the motif had left the BBC after 39 years.
On 26 September 2006 it was announced that the idents for BBC One would be changed once more, launching on October 7. The new set, abandoned the overtly red colour scheme yet kept the colour as a more subtle main colour. A larger change was the BBC One logo itself, with the red box replaced by a new lower case for the channel number making it effectively "BBC one". The circle motif now features as the main theme of the idents, while the content is much more diverse than previous: swimming hippos, motorcycle stunt riders, children playing "ring a roses", lit windows, surfers, football players, the moon as well as kites [2]. The first of the new idents shown was 'Kites', appearing at 10:00 BST on 7 October. According to channel controller Peter Fincham, the new circle motif is both a 'nod' to the channel's heritage as well as a symbol of people coming together, in the way BBC One brings people together.
BBC Two
BBC2's planned opening on 20 April 1964 was famously disrupted by a massive power failure in west London, which resulted in the opening extravaganza having to be broadcast the next night. The channel's first logo was a static "2" over the BBC corporate logo, but for the introduction of colour broadcasting in 1967 it became a rotating "2" with each face a different colour – blue, red, green, and white. A facelift occurred in time for the channels' tenth anniversary in 1974, with the "2" being formed of blue and white raster lines, the different colours entering from opposite sides of the screen. In 1979, BBC2 adopted the world's first computer-generated ident, with the logo being drawn live every time it was played.
In an effort to make the channel more "high-brow" in 1986, the ident changed to the coloured letters T W O emerging from and disappearing back into the white background, but this was generally perceived as making the channel look dull, and in 1991 this ident was replaced by the start of the highly successful series of idents involving the number "2", some of which were animated, especially for special events such as Christmas. These survived the 1997 rebrand and simply displayed the new logo, while more idents were added to the batch, including many for theme nights, weeks or seasons.
The channel received its most recent new look in 2001 with a set of new figure 2s which have a personality of their own. At the same time, the channel was the first to receive the new style of channel logo, with a puple box displaying the BBC logo stacked above 'TWO'. Rather than a variety of backgrounds seen in the previous presentation package, idents now had a universal yellow background while the figure 2 became white.
In recent times, the general style of white 2 and yellow background has been replaced by previously withdrawn idents or specially produced versions which feature the 2 in a different guise. Examples have included an updated dog 2 to advertise "pedigree comedy" on the channel while previously withdrawn idents have included "Venus fly-trap" and "House".
BBC Three
The young-adult oriented BBC Three was launched on 9 February 2003. From the beginning its logo used a different typeface (a variant of Helvetica compared to the otherwise largely universal BBC use of Gill Sans) from the remainder of the BBC's "adult" channels, using a towering three-dimensional "THREE" populated with animated "blobs" created by Aardman Animations.
BBC Four
The BBC's "cultural" channel BBC Four was launched on 2 March 2002. The initial series of idents were generated "on the fly" reflecting the frequencies of the continuity announcers' voice or of backing music.
In September 2005 a second series of idents was introduced which appear to be one image but eventually break into four quarters.
BBC News 24
The domestic 24-hour news channel, BBC News 24, was launched on 9 November 1997 with a series of idents based on invented flags. In October 1999 the channel was relaunched with a more formal BBC corporate look, while in December 2003 all BBC News programmes – on all channels – were given a common appearance.
BBC Parliament
BBC Parliament took over from the cable-only Parliamentary Channel in September 1998. BBC Parliament transmits sessions of the House of Commons, House of Lords, Scottish Parliament, Welsh National Assembly, and the Northern Ireland Assembly (when not suspended), together with various other programmes of political interest during Parliamentary recesses. BBC Parliament is a somewhat unusual channel in that for several years after it was founded the digital terrestrial television platform had insufficient bandwidth to allow the channel to transmit pictures, and it was restricted to sound-only transmissions with a fixed caption.
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BBC World
BBC World is a 24 hour news channel broadcast to the world outside the UK. Particularly at night in the UK, BBC World and BBC News 24 share their output, and this broadcast commonality is one reason why BBC World, BBC News 24 and BBC One share the same background colour to their channel logo, so that they match the same set of on-screen graphics.
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BBC World in 1995 had a completely different style of presentation to BBC News in the UK. The set design was similar however. -
In 1997, BBC World was given an almost identical look to BBC News 24, with similar set designs and graphics.
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The 1999 relaunch of all television news saw new Lambie-Nairn titles for the channel. At the time, News 24 had moved out of its first set and BBC World moved into that. Both channels have remained in those studios since. -
In 2003, new in-house designed titles were introduced, across BBC World and News 24, and later in 2004, BBC One bulletins.
CBBC
CBBC, originally Children's BBC can trace its roots back to the "Children's Hour" of the original BBC Television Service. As a strand of programming for children aged 6-13 with distinctive programme presentation on BBC1, "Children's BBC" first appeared in September 1985. These idents were generated live on air by a BBC Micro computer.
"Children's BBC" was officially renamed "CBBC" in October 1997, with the production of appropriate idents. The idents all had a yellow backround, with the black outlines of the various cartoons. Many idents were created up to 2002 - 'Snail', 'Cat and Mouse', 'Octopus', 'Dragon', 'Fish' and 'Mouse', to name a few.
When CBBC was given its own channel of the digital terrestrial platform on 11 February 2002 the CBBC "blob" ident was created. These animated 'bugs' were designed by Lambie-Nairn, and were always green in colour. Idents included 'Karate', 'Multiply', 'Dance' and 'Splat'.
CBeebies
CBeebies was launched at the same time as CBBC on 11 February 2002, as the channel for pre-school children, with an appropriate small-child-friendly ident. These 'bugs' were also designed by Lambie-Nairn, and were always yellow in colour.
See also
- BBC One Balloon idents
- BBC 'Rhythm & Movement' idents
- BBC 'Circle' idents
- BBC Two 1991-2001 idents
- ITV Idents and Presentation