BBC One Christmas Idents - news variants thread

There is continuity somewhere on YouTube showing the Christmas idents for 1999 and 2000 introducing the news, but it was clock again in 2001 (might have been with it being a more jolly ident tbf). Seems to be rather inconsistent, but there were occasions towards the end of the balloon era with the idents (albeit the more sedate ones) introducing weekend news.

And rather oddly. Christmas Day 1993 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lgxNyeix3Y&t=113s

I may be wrong on this but generally in the 90s wasn't the clock just used for the flagship bulletins and a regular ident, certainly in the balloon era, used for news summaries?

For many years/decades, clock idents were always used to introduce Queenypoo at 3pm on Christmas Day and also for the Eurovision Song Contest. The latter always seemed an odd decision, to me.

I've no idea when and why each of those uses for the clock were ditched. I'm sure that both uses were ditched whilst BBC One at least still had a clock ident (i.e. balloon era or earlier), which would've continued being used thereafter for news at least.

Wasn't there supposedly originally meant to be a clock with the "Rhythm & Movement" (a.k.a. dancers) idents package, or is that just a myth? If true, why the change of mind?

Can't remember where I read this, possibly TV Ark but: I believe they kept changing their minds about using it before launch but ultimately it wasn't used. However it was waiting in the background, ticking away and ready to be used at any moment from day one. I assume if it had been a planned decision from the start to scrap the clock, it wouldn't have gotten that far.

I think the slight delay on digital TV was the excuse for ditching it, though to be fair it also did look absolutely crap.

A clock was created for the 2002 - 2006 era. The decision to ditch it was very last minute, IIRC. There was of course the whole digital delay thing. It was also increasingly viewed as an old-fashioned continuity device. Visually - the background imagery wasn't the best: the hands looking like they're fixed to someone's backside - not great. I believe the BBC One logo box was incorrectly positioned too, which would've caused issues cutting from trails (I seem to recall this issue wasn't spotted until the package was close to transmission).

Agree it was old fashioned but I do think retaining it as a continuity element for when an ident wasn't appropriate would have been wise.

2001 also used the ident: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4ZwXkIi8NE