old BBC Choice heart idents

Sorry if this has been brought up before, but I've just seen the old BBC choice heart idents in tv home (I've never seen them before) and I find it very strange that itv went for the same 'hearts' theme as BBC choice, surely they must have known? Wouldn't BBC have been able to take legal action about it and if so why didnt they?

When BBC Choice Launched they had 4-5 idents based on the theme of 3 choices

the 3 hearts were one of those idents which means it wasnt the theme of the channel.

then in 2000 they scrapped their original 5 idents, and stuck with their heart one but changed it to use shocking bright colours.

It was just a progression.

The ITV hearts theme first appeared a matter of weeks after that BBC Choice hearts ident was launched, so it was too late do anything about them, and anyway, how can you copyright the idea of using hearts in an ident? It's a universal symbol!

ITV Hearts launched 5th October 2001 'TV from the heart'
BBC Choice launched 23rd October 2001 with the three .... mice, trumpets, and of course 'hearts' which they fell to until their demise in mid 2001.

BBC Choice launched on 23rd September 1998, not October. (I assume you meant 1998, not 2001!)

This of course, was more than a week before Sky Digital launched and it became available to the viewing public - but it was still before the ITV hearts started.

(Edited by RW at 3:15 pm on Dec. 20, 2001)

September..... 1998, your right, sorry v. long day!!

Actually, I think you'll find the original 3 Choice idents were Heart, Mice and Fan. was there another one too??

Trumpet didn't launch for quite some time afterwards. I've seen some shots of a BBC Choice Scotland ident involving a bath-tap, but I don't know how that worked.

The other one was Punch, which was definitely in use at the beginning as it was used on a Six O'Clock News inset/sidebar on its launch day. I don't know when Trumpet was introduced as all five were in use when I got digital in mid 1999.