BBC1 Christmas 2017 Idents

Rather nice endboard with the BBC1 Scotland Hogmanay Trail (shown 28-12-2017, 12.31am):



Full trail here:

Even a few years ago we would have special created Hogmanay Trail, now that seems to have gone the same way. ( we remember the bells from 2013) The programmes are just dire as well, at least you could start at 10pm or even back in the 9pm in the 90s. At least STV put up its hands and went with Thingummyjig. In 1988 STV moved everything around to allow people watch the The Steamie on Ch4 at 9pm...

Another font change to an endboard:

Seems a bit ugly compared to the font they normally use, doesn't fit with the logo or background.

It's a real shame that they are continuing with the same old oneness idents.

So Post Christmas - I can't help but wonder how much they had to pay in royalties to Clean Bandit?

Have they blown the presentation budget on Christmas do you reckon?

Wouldn't it fall under the BBC's blanket agreement with the industry that permits them to play any song for free?

Didn't they have a specific agreement/licence to use Bob Dorough's Three Is A Magic Number on the original BBC Three 'blobs' idents which ended after a couple of years, hence the change of music? Perhaps something similar was in place for Symphony.

Music (and all commercial recordings) still have to be reported and fully logged for each use, so it’s not quite free as the agreement has a cost associated with it I believe. There are exceptions which need clearing separately and a few quite complex rules about what pictures can accompany some music. It can be very expensive to use a bit of restricted music without clearing it first.

Just been doing some reading on the blanket agreement and it appears to be the case that if the BBC has funded more than 10% of the production budget, the production can make use of the BBC’s PRS. So, they can play songs that are on the PRS database. The PRS then pays the royalties to that artist.

It's not free in this case I guess.

So I suppose in a way it's similar to subscribing to Spotify. Paying a fee to a company to get access to a number of songs.

No. In relation to BBC marketing activities... the blanket agreement only applies if you are using music in a promo that specifically mentions BBC programme content. If the promo is exclusively for a BBC brand (like a Christmas brand film and/or ident), the blanket agreement does not apply... and the music needs to be cleared individually... and of course clearance may not actually be given. Also, if you want to extensively edit a piece of music... as Symphony was... you need to clear that individually too.