Presentation that was killed off way too soon

I always felt the 1993 Sky look, which only lasted two years, had way more mileage in them than they got, getting replaced in 1995, and to be honest, they looked great then, and still look good now,

I can imagine that if the tombstones and eggs never existed, some of the 1998 idents would've been different. Especially Sky Sports, whose 1993 logo, unlike the others, was a direct evolution of it's original one. I can imagine the S|P|O|R|T|S format would have carried on longer. The problem with the tombstones was that they stripped out all individual personality by all having the same animation and typeface.

Ugh, Sky One was a mess that year (1995-6). Purple idents, BLUE trailer endboards! They did fix that for the second tombstone package though.

BBC One Balloons could've lasted a bit longer, in my opinion. Carlton star idents also. A shame most of the country didn't get to see them really (setting aside any anti-Carlton sentiment one may have).

The BBC Two idents introduced in 2000 were quite decent and deserved more than shy of two years service.

The original Channel 5 idents. I liked them (and the original logo which they should've stuck with) and remember thinking their withdrawal was premature. Didn't like the ones that replaced them nearly as much. That said, looking back, the ones with people in them do scream 1990s.

Agree with Sky 1/2/3 2008. Very clever the way they used the same material with only the respective logos being different. The solid/liquid/gas(fireworks) thing was quite original. It's probably the only non-terrestrial set of idents from the last decade that's made much of an impression on me. The Christmas tree ident had really creepy music which is in my head as I type this.

Also loved the UK Gold fireworks. Good stuff.

The Balloons definitely had a bit more life in them. When they ended the PC era began. PC isn't a bad thing sometimes but I disagree the balloons were not diverse or reflective of the times which was the reason for them being scrapped. It's just a balloon flying around the UK minding its own business....

Think we've had that discussion ^ about 50 times lately.

Since it's repeats season, I'm gonna nominate "Hey you!".
(Did Channel 4 once have a concept similar to this?)

Ch4 had the knocking on the TV screen

I don't know for certain but my money is on some technical reason and possibly due to cost or levels of staffing. Prior to March 1999, the morning, lunchtime, early evening and weekend bulletins all came from Studio 3 and PCR2, while News at Ten came from Studio 1 and PCR1. In March 1999, Studio 1 was refitted with the new set and all of the programmes except Morning News/overnight summaries came from there and PCR1. My theory is that they kept Studio 3 and PCR2 going a bit longer either because it was cheaper to run for overnights or because it was easier to staff. I can't say for certain, but there must have been a good reason - and not just that they "forgot to rebrand". By the early summer of 2000 all of the overnight bulletins had moved to Studio 1 but did not use PCR1 like the daytime bulletins. Instead, the overnight bulletins used the newly created PCR4 (News Channel control room). My guess is that they knew Studio 3 would need a redesign in 2000 for the News Channel and decided to limp along with the old branding overnight when not many people would see it.

I always thought that the Overnight news contract was a separate contract to the regular News contract. It might not have been up for renewal, and ITN didn’t want to invest in a new look for that until the contract was renewed.

But the Anglia Televsion one didn’t work due to it having a multicoloured logo which didn’t work in white only.

Agree - the balloons easily could have survived the next cycle of BBC1 idents with just the red box in the corner replacing the centered logo. That said amazing to think how hated the rhythm and movement idents were at the time and how now we look back on them quite fondly.


My contributions - C4's new look from 1998 was killed off way too soon - after a week in fact:





I also think C4 abandoned the 2001 look of the relaunched Big Breakfast far too soon - it wasn't without it's problems but I think the look wasn't one of them, though I wasn't a fan of the logo:




And finally the BBC bailed far too quickly to criticism of this 1999 revamp of the Grandstand theme:

I'd never seen those Channel Four 1998 idents before. They're actually not too bad but perhaps a little too bland which might account for their very short lifespan.