Inconsistencies with re-branding?

Total guesswork, but wonder if TCF was seen as technically dated by this point? The IBA had adopted the (frankly hideous) ETP1 in about 1980, so it's possible the Beeb considered a switch to something else.

Slightly more on topic, BBC1 menus using the /B/B/C/1/ logo at the foot continued to be used well into the eighties - often around startup at the weekend. An example here from 4/4/82 - third down on the left.

http://tv50.org.uk/continuity/menus/bbc1/index.htm

Well, also don't forget the stripy BBC1 logo had been appearing on various pieces of presentation (and Christmas idents) dating back to around 1974- but didn't appear on the idents until 1981.

Noticed that Saturday Kitchen / Best Bites never have a BBC logo above the ( non Gill Sans ) copyright date.

I pulled together a bit of background on all things testcard and teletext a number of years ago:

http://thetvroom.com/features/spotlight-bbc-testcards-part-1.html
http://thetvroom.com/features/spotlight-bbc-testcards-part-2.html

A few updates need to be applied - but it provides some decent general background.

If you are interested I have some pulse and bar photos I can pass on to you!
(Used internally in the BBC, with idents you haven't got.)
My photo collection is not one that many enjoy......

This one was available in CAR right up until the building closed in 2013, and was still occasionally useful for lining up analogue circuits - like tielines around the building:

Test cards perform a technical function, that's all, they are not supposed to look nice, bad, artistic, or anything else ! Both TCF and ETP-1 performed the functions they were designed to do. TCF did everything ETP-1 did, and more, notably because it had a circle, and a 'real' picture with flesh tones. It came from a highly maintained slide scanner at TVC. The IBA's TCF (and it's predecessors) originated from slide scanners at the main transmitter sites, that was fine, but it became expensive and impractical, as the stations became un manned. Late 70s, to electronically create TCF was very difficult, and would have required a racks work of RAM. So the IBA produced a cheap to generate test card, ETP-1. I think the Beeb's first electronically generated TCF was 1984 ?

On 1 January 1996, at the start of its 31st series, Countdown introduced new titles, the blue-and-yellow triangular logo, and the current version of the theme tune (as well as the short-lived "extra intensity" clock music), and also changed the colour of its "wings" set and the fonts for the end credits (to Times New Roman Extra Bold for the names and Futura Condensed for the roles).

However, the old "Pacman" logo was still present above the clock, in the audience area and on the conundrum board. Plus, the captions introducing Richard, Carol, the lexicographer and the special guest, as well as the "End of Part One" and "Part Two" captions, continued to use the old italic serifed font similar to Clarendon Italic.

It remained like this for at least the first two weeks of the series. By the start of the seventh week, on 12 February, the captions had been changed to Times New Roman Extra Bold, and upside-down versions of the triangular logo (Downcount?) had appeared above the clock and in the audience area - but the conundrum board still featured the "Pacman" logo:




This logo had finally been consigned to history by the time of the series finals in late March:



If it seems odd that Richard and Carol were still being introduced by captions at this stage, in fact it continued for almost another two years, until the end of 1997.

Countdown still give away a teapot designed to look like a version of their set from about 10 years ago though!

The set in question was changed at the end of 2002.

I swear there was a programme that was still using the 1988 BBC logo in 1998/1999. What was it?

Grampian TV adopted the 1989 ITV generic look in, um, 1989 and were still using it in 1998. That what you were thinking of?