BBC One re-brand

Well, yeah, since 1997 anyway. The logo then was the BBC TWO, BBC CHOICE etc. at the bottom of the screen, with the ident focus being less important. On BBC TWO it was the big '2', on ONE it was the balloons. You can see that the '2' and the balloon are not the logo if you look at the idents for other channels, in which they played around with the idea a bit more. On NEWS 24 it was the flags, a number of different flags, so none of them could be the logo. On BBC CHOICE the ident focus was a choice of three things, with the same name or theme (Punch, Fan, Lighthearted/Heart of Fire/Heart of Stone), none of whidh were the logo, the logo being the BBC CHOICE at the bottom of the screen.

But , in the 1991-1997, the big '2' was the channel logo. The familiar 2 with the BBC logo underneath (or in some cases to the left) was the logo itself.

Actually I was wondering why they didn't go back to using numerals now that there'd be no BBC KNOWLEDGE or CHOICE (eventually!) and BBC NEWS 24 is no longer in the same family of presentation. After all, those channels are the main reason for BBC ONE being spelled out instead of BBC 1 as it used to be. And now they'd only need BBC 1, 2, 3 & 4 anyway. I don't mean all having idents with numerals like BBC TWO has now, just the logos. Maybe they could have the number in a fourth box, a bit like BBCi but maybe just an outlined box. Still, whatever, they decided to keep the names spelled out..

Anyway, I do really hope they could come up with a way to incorporate the globe after all these years, as they did with the balloons. If not, it'd almost (but not quite) like CBS scrapping it's eye logo, or NBC ditching the peacock.

I don't mind the balloons going too much (though they did cost an awful lot of money) but getting rid of the globe motif is a terrible idea.
I hope we're not going to see lots of 'people' idents - they're always rubbish - the 'lifestyle' balloons were dreadful, and rather spoilt the whole concept. I liked the balloons that just hung around in a sinister manner - remined me of Rover in 'The Prisoner'!

The current BBC One clock is live on BBC One England on satellite, and I believe that the BBC Nations also have live clocks, on analogue and digital. BBC One presentation currently work incredibly hard to hit the One, Six and Ten O'Clock news bang on the top of the hour...

It is only the BBC English regions on analogue and digital terrestrial/cable that play a recorded clock - albeit these are probably seen by the majority of viewers!

It's also shown to BBC staff, either in TV Centre or on the TV ring mains in the other buildings.

I believe the clock is being phased out due to satellite delay.

The BBC have a number of options.

1)  Run the clock at the correct time, meaning that it's a few seconds slow when received on satellite.

2)  Run the clock a few seconds fast, so it's correct after satellite delay, but fast when watched on terrestrial.

3)  Run two seperate clocks, a few seconds apart, so both terrestrial and satellite show the correct time; but then, which does the newsreader use to know when to start?

4)  Run the whole network a few seconds fast and digitally delay the terrestrial feeds to bring them in line with the satellite delay.

5)  Not worry about any of the costs and/or complications in options 1) to 4) and get rid of the clock.

The answer appears to be obvious!

(Edited by Nick Harvey at 12:44 am on Mar. 16, 2002)

Not a good enough reason to dump the clock IMO. I read the Broadcast article, with the red box, today and although the idea of getting rid of the balloons is the wrong one, I've succumbed to the fact it will happen. What I can't accept is the lack of clock - these are flagship BBC One bulletins. Pres have worked very, very hard for decades to get those going out on time. Digital delay just seems like a poor excuse to oust the clock. It's the signifier that BBC One can just calm down for a few seconds into the news.

May as well just bring on the rotating DOG now...

Cheers, Asa

[quote] cwathen on 6:42 pm on Mar. 15, 2002


Dont diss the best clock ever to grace TV<next to the original TVS clock>, I even have a replica of it on my wall!

Stu

Exactly, the clock is symbollic. The fact that it is a second delayed won't really matter to anyone. infact BBC South West have a few times opted into the 6 at 17:59:59 by accident coz they've gotten their timing on their clock recording screwed up. Just coz it might be a second out thats no reason to be scrapping it.

Well i don't think that they should get rid of the clock. The clock is a symbol of going into a new bulitin on BBC One and just because people on Satillite are about 5 seconds behind it shoul;dn't be a reason to scrap it.

I still thinhk that the BBC Should run news bullitins a few seconds fast then send them out to the digital services at different times.

Anyways. BBC Scotland is a second behind real time as i have discovered when talking to people in England and hearing the TV Sound before i hear it on the TV next to me. Why should a few seconds matter?

Mosdt wacthes and clocks are wrong by about a minute so 5 seconds shouldn't matter at all.

Getting rid of the clock is a bad idea, one reason is that the balloon ident music usually crashes into the headlines sequence, this would probably occur with the new idents, especially if the regions are having to play their own idents before the news

Am I right in thinking that the BBC ONE clock is the last one left on terrestrial TV, except for the one on Channel ITV, which is really a part of the Channel Report opening title sequence

S4C happily play theirs out still - regardless of whether it hits the hour/minute or not!

Cheers, Asa

It's not just satellite delay, it's digital delay in general. DTT can be a couple of seconds slow, amazing more behind than satellite. BBC 1 Scotland on Satellite for example will be even further behind as a programme played from London goes from London to Glasgow, is decoded, put into 'BBC1 Scotland, encoded, then sent back to London where it is multiplexed with all the other channels and then sent to the satellite*.

The idea has been mooted to run the whole of BBC transmission in a time 'bubble' so that everything happens 5 or so seconds slow and the outputs are delayed by various amounts.

Apart from being a logisical nightmare the main problem is that the delay caused by digital encoding varies.

* This is the reason why cue dots were dropped - anyone taking an off-air cue from a satellite or digital source won't start on time.