New look for BBC1

The sting idea I always thought was a much better way of stamping your brand on a channel than any ident anyway.

Talking over an ident with sound takes considerable skill on the part of the TX controller to look just right, and unfortunately the timing element is to a large extent lost when everything is automated as it is now. Therefore a silent (and short) ident without any background music I think works much better than a longer ident with music where the sound is dipped half-way through, usually rather messily.

So the early-90s BBC1 approach I think looks a lot more professional than anything put out since, and the stings provided the character of the station much better than expensive idents which don't work, cost more to implement and aren't seen as often so tend to be lost.

TV channels seem to have lost the art of decent presentation in recent years IMO, despite spending an awful lot more on it. Continuity works much better when the whole thing looks produced, rather than just streaming a few bits of VT off a server.

so... any one know anything about what it will look like then?

No.

Patience is a virtue. All we know is that the Busy Bee has been enlisted to take this on.

Agreed with you completely there. I think this is why ITV1 and BBC ONE's current looks are disappointing. It's just normal shots of people dancing or doing very plain activities, there's nothing there to stand out, no special effects (and in many cases, imagery that isn't exactly breathtaking), and as someone on here said once, ITV1's idents mostly just look like a bunch of stock footage with a logo slapped on top. Where's the quirkyness, the impact; that wow-factor?

Quite ironic really that the Dancers were meant to have a theme of "inclusion" and all that Heggessey b******s, when all the idents filmed in England were from the South. Or maybe it isn't .

Yes, a BBC ONE Controller so out-of-touch with what symbolizes the BBC, that it was both frustrating and saddening to behold.

Had she said: " I hate the balloon, it's personal preference; I'm going to trash it no matter what other people say because I want to leave my mark on the channel with a BBC ONE look that's inclusive, and by that I mean politically correct " I would have at least commended her honesty. But instead we got served comments which were frankly tosh.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand you cannot get much more inclusive than the globe itself. What exactly have a bunch of bobbing Maasai tribesmen (that live nowhere near us) got to do with Britain or the BBC? They only filmed it because they saw an opportunity while filming the Big Cat Diary, and if it was a spur-of-the-moment idea while the crew were there, it shows -it's arguably the worst ident of the lot.

Even before that, the idea was seriously flawed.

The unsubtle attempts to crowbar 'minorities' on screen seems at best over zealous, at worst downright patronising and offensive. It's always felt to me like they've been saying, "Look - some disableds - and they can do funny things in their wheely-chairs! Aren't they clever?"

Rather than seamlessly integrating people from minorities into their idents, they've made special cases of them which only seems to highlight differences between people - something which seems completely at odds with the idea of 'inclusiveness'.

It also doesn't help when black people are represented by bouncing tribespeople, and Asians are represented by Bollywood dancers. Perhaps considering such stereotyping, it's a good thing there weren't any Scottish idents, as they almost certainly would have involved people doing the Highland Fling to a bagpipe rendition of the BBC One jingle.

It also seems that this wa nk-handed attempt at 'inclusiveness' favours certain minorities over others. Why for example should there not be an ident representing gay people? Are they considered less important than other minorities by the BBC? I suppose we should be grateful we've been spared skinny men in tight red t-shirts dancing in a sweaty nightclub and sniffing poppers to the beat of a Hi-NRG soundtrack.

Only a serious cretin would consider the dancer idents to be more 'inclusive' and representative of society than a symbol of planet earth - the one thing we all have in common. For me, the sooner they're off our screens for good, the better.

Totally agree with Spencer for Hire. (I used to enjoy that programme.)

I have no confidence that the new look will be any better, though, because, for a very long time, there's been an abiding problem with the BBC, and television and the media, in general- it has an insular, tight-knit/out of touch with the populous culture, that's based upon trendiness, personal career development and buying and selling for short-term gain, rather than serving the public and making well-judged decisions.

And one which for reasons that elude me appears to be shown with increasing regularity of late.

And there was me thinking it was a card game!

Skateboarders was filmed in Belfast.... note the 'H&W' (Harland and Wolf) labels on the cranes.

Skate, Ballet and Capoeria are the only 3 with definite identifiable landmarks, but even then many people don't recognise the Cornwall and Belfast ones

Brief list of what we do know:

Haka - Gilfach Goch, West Wales.
Festival / TranceDance - Bovingdon Airfield, Hertfordshire
Basketball - Shepperton Studios
Tapdogs - Littlebrook Power Station, Dartford, Kent
Ballet - Minack, Cornwall
Capoeira - London
Salsa - Hertfordshire
Acrobat - Royal Horticultural Halls, Victoria
Tango - Leadenhall Market, London
Skateboard - H&W Shipyards, Belfast
Maasai - Africa
Tumbler - BBC Pebble Mill