UK Gold was a good brand that had quite a high profile for a non-terrestrial station. UKTV Gold didn't sound nearly as good. G.O.L.D. was just stupid and whilst GOLD is not as bad, UK Gold is still better.
We all saw this coming the minute Dave was announced. Not sure on the new logo though - if it's going to be used in conjunction with current logos a linear logo would be best.
The article mentions that they aren't going completely back to how it used to be which suggests a prefix of UKTV is unlikely but no doubt they'll frequently mention the UKTV network and the logo will be prominent on the idents from now on.
The UKTV brand will appear on air in cross promotion menus, programme opening and closing credits, co-branded consumer advertising and throughout all B2B communications.
That reminds me of the old UK Play titles from the 90s!
Haha, appears I wasn't the only one to think that!
I think the problem with the mid-2000's branding was that 'UKTV + Channel name' was just too wordy and I wouldn't want to see that return, but I think debranding completely like they have done was an odd move in an era when broadcasters need to have large co-branded channel portfolios to be credible as a big fish. They'd be better off going back to simply 'UK' + channel name, that worked well. As others have said, Dave has become quite a strong brand, but none of the other rebrands have ever really stuck and there is little to tie them all together any more.
Wouldn't surprise me in the least if 'UK Gold' makes a comeback as a channel name either.
I said at the time of the rebrand that I though they would regret their decision to remove the network identity altogether.
Many of the minor channels (Alibi, Good Food, Eden etc) simply get lost in the EPG.
Whilst it's not necessary to return to the 'UKTV + channel name' days, it should be easy enough to add the logo to their individual idents. However, I didn prefer the former UKTV logo, rather than the new one.
It doesn't help to that some channels have lost their focus over the last few years too - UKTV History has become a bit of a mess in it's transfer to Yesterday with drama (usually historical) and random comedy thrown in too.
It does help to that some channels have lost their focus over the last few years too - UKTV History has become a bit of a mess in it's transfer to Yesterday with drama (usually historical) and random comedy thrown in too.
I do wonder if that was part of the plan with the rebranding - to make some of the channels have a demographic rather than genre focus. I can't honestly remember what some of the channels were before the rebrand and maybe that was entirely intentional - that the rebranding in the late 2000's wasn't about simply renaming the channels for them to carry the same content as before, but for them to be distinctly different from what they used to be in the 'UKTV' days with different programming spanning multiple genres.
Regardless of what they were trying to do, it's all become a badly executed mess.
The UKTV brand will appear on air in cross promotion menus, programme opening and closing credits, co-branded consumer advertising and throughout all B2B communications.
That's a point, none of the channels do cross promotional menus now. They were quite common at various times in the past. There's not reason why they couldn't do that and not mention UKTV at all though.
I've never been convinced they needed 'UKTV' plastered over everything. Having separate brands is far more flexible and marketable... although some have worked better than others. I was surprised how much they got rid of the UKTV name though. Hopefully they'll not overdo it though
