BBC presentation in the 90s

VM

VMPhil 17 February 2019 3:36pm

Controversial opinion time (and one I doubt Mumoss will like either), but I always thought the 1991 BBC1 globe seemed dated even at the time it was introduced, and certainly was well past it by 1997, with them having to rely entirely on trailers (and sometimes stings) to bring much to the brand for most of the 90s. Even by the early 90s when it launched, their contemporaries elsewhere were being much more experimental, with many smaller companies introducing multiple ident variants, recognisable jingles etc. Whilst the 1991 effort from the BBC just seemed to be 'more of the same thing' that they'd been doing since the 70s just done on a newer computer. BBC2 was the complete opposite, with a fresh brand and a strong set of idents in 1991 that they kept expanding. But it felt like in the process BBC1 had been forgotten about and had to wait another 6 years for them to give it the attention it actually deserved as the flagship.

I can see where you are coming from, but for me the silent globe is just a really flexible device and it was such a classy design (even if it is a design that should stay in 1991, not something I would advocate to bring back or anything). I personally can't imagine that any BBC attempt to compete with what the ITV regions were doing presentation wise would have come out as well, and would probably have aged even worse if kept till '97.

The surrounding presentation unified BBC1 and BBC2 cross promotion and still looks great to me. They kind of ruined it later on by giving BBC2 a plain black border on all of the holding slides, but it was still a good system.

I love the 1997 system because of the ethos behind it but it had necessary aesthetic compromises so it could work with any BBC brand. The 1991 look for 1 & 2 was more aesthetically pleasing in comparison.

JA

JAS84 17 February 2019 4:03pm

Brekkie posted:

AidanLunn posted:

tesandco posted:

Controversial opinion time (and one I doubt Mumoss will like either), but I always thought the 1991 BBC1 globe seemed dated even at the time it was introduced, and certainly was well past it by 1997, with them having to rely entirely on trailers (and sometimes stings) to bring much to the brand for most of the 90s.

I think it's the font of the number "1" that does it. If they'd changed the font to the same as that of BBC2's "2", then it might have looked considerably more modern but still maintaining a tradition.

They tried it with a modern 1 to begin with and it looked awful. I think the trouble is a 1 isn't that interesting a shape so it needed to be as stylised as it was, and it worked well in most guises at the time.

Did the surrounding presentation based around the 1 appear from launch or was that introduced a couple of years down the line.

I do think BBC2 shows that if done well there is still a place for classic style idents and as someone said on Twitter "Oneness" is actually essentially a return to quiet idents.

Not sure if they're still up in the gallery but always felt the globe idents by pip2 were the best idents BBC1 never had.

You mean this?
https://tvforum.uk/thegallery/bbc-one-glowb-41296/

SP

Spencer 17 February 2019 4:20pm

Alex Plain-Later posted:

One gets the impression that the original pitch might've been for the "1" to be the wholesale new channel ID (i.e. totally binning the globe), but they got cold feet and so retained some semblance of a globe as a background after all (simultaneously making it dark/obscure enough to perhaps be barely recognisable as a "globe" to many average viewers).

From what’s said in Martin Lambie-Nairn’s book, it seems there was no question of the globe being binned. They found viewers strongly identified it positively with the channel. In fact he says, that at one point, they even toyed with the idea of incorporating the globe into BBC2’s idents.

The first prototype they produced incorporated the globe within the ‘O’ of ‘ONE’...

Thankfully that version was, of course, rejected.

:-(

A former member 17 February 2019 4:21pm

Just a shame the company has junked alot of stuff..

TM

ToasterMan 17 February 2019 6:20pm

On a side note, the Radio Times issue for the week the corporate branding launched was the first tease at the new look, (in a pre-Internet reliant world), as shown here, (also, note this was two weeks before ITV and C4 listings were added to the Radio Times);

When the following Saturday came, and the new channel symbols appeared on screen for the very first time, they were dominated by the new look Open University graphics, helps that both BBC channels ran Open University programming at the time, before the OU moved entirely to BBC Two in 1993;

h

While we got the virtual globe introduced before Going Life on BBC One, we had to wait until the end of The Open University programming on BBC Two at 2.45 in the afternoon, where Paint kicked off the bladed 2 set of idents, (without the corporate BBC logo), but, the saying goes, it was worth the wait.

VMPhil posted:

The surrounding presentation unified BBC1 and BBC2 cross promotion and still looks great to me. They kind of ruined it later on by giving BBC2 a plain black border on all of the holding slides, but it was still a good system.

Apparently, the reason for that was because the viridian colour scheme of the launch set of idents wasn't muted enough like the varied palette of the virtual globe, as it sometimes clashed with the image of the programme/film slide, (especially the Water ident).

Last edited by ToasterMan on 17 February 2019 6:39pm - 7 times in total

JA

james-2001 17 February 2019 6:32pm

Wasn't there a video somewhere of a trial of experimental BBC1 & 2 idents from before the 1991 revamp going round a couple of years ago?

WO

Woodpecker 17 February 2019 6:37pm

james-2001 posted:

Wasn't there a video somewhere of a trial of experimental BBC1 & 2 idents from before the 1991 revamp going round a couple of years ago?

Indeed there was, and this is it:

And here's the thread discussing said idents. I have to say, I'm very glad these were never used - to me, they look dated even for 1990/1991.

SP

Spencer 17 February 2019 7:08pm

I always thought it was interesting that BBC World Service Television, in its early days, didn’t use the swirly globe, and instead revived the COW as its ident after it had been ditched by BBC1.

I wonder if they thought the virtual globe was too abstract a symbol for its international channel at the time.

MA

Markymark 17 February 2019 7:13pm

Spencer For Hire posted:

I always thought it was interesting that BBC World Service Television, in its early days, didn’t use the swirly globe, and instead revived the COW as its ident after it had been ditched by BBC1.

I wonder if they thought the virtual globe was too abstract a symbol for its international channel at the time.

Perhaps, or perhaps (as back then BBC WST was a very budget concious operation) they simply dusted off the COW crate, saved it from the skip, and used it ?

GE

thegeek Founding member 17 February 2019 7:19pm

Markymark posted:

Spencer For Hire posted:

I always thought it was interesting that BBC World Service Television, in its early days, didn’t use the swirly globe, and instead revived the COW as its ident after it had been ditched by BBC1.

I wonder if they thought the virtual globe was too abstract a symbol for its international channel at the time.

Perhaps, or perhaps (as back then BBC WST was a very budget concious operation) they simply dusted off the COW crate, saved it from the skip, and used it ?

It would have required some hardware modifications to get the BBC World Service logo in there - though perhaps this wasn't beyond the skills of the engineers in Pres.

MA

Markymark 17 February 2019 7:28pm

thegeek posted:

Markymark posted:

Spencer For Hire posted:

I always thought it was interesting that BBC World Service Television, in its early days, didn’t use the swirly globe, and instead revived the COW as its ident after it had been ditched by BBC1.

I wonder if they thought the virtual globe was too abstract a symbol for its international channel at the time.

Perhaps, or perhaps (as back then BBC WST was a very budget concious operation) they simply dusted off the COW crate, saved it from the skip, and used it ?

It would have required some hardware modifications to get the BBC World Service logo in there - though perhaps this wasn't beyond the skills of the engineers in Pres.

I think the ident field was defined by an EPROM ? So that it could be customised for the regions/nations ?

Edit: Each crate had quite a few EPROMs in it !
https://www.bbceng.info/Eng_Inf/eng-inf-files/EngInf20.pdf

Last edited by Markymark on 17 February 2019 7:33pm

AS

Asa Admin 17 February 2019 7:33pm

tesandco posted:

Controversial opinion time (and one I doubt Mumoss will like either), but I always thought the 1991 BBC1 globe seemed dated even at the time it was introduced, and certainly was well past it by 1997

Agreed. Although I do have a certain appreciation for it these days, my main view at the time was that it was just boring and too abstract. I couldn't wait for Christmas just to get something more exciting. It probably helped to make the impact of the balloon in '97 that much greater. Colour! Music! Variations! The variety of the stings was really nice though.

As I said the other week though, to have the flexibility to dive in and out of an ident within a few seconds was definitely a bonus that doesn't exist anymore.

I wonder whether it was someone at the Radio Times who decided on the purple colour logo? I don't remember it ever being used as an 'official' BBC One colour on-screen.

(February 2019)