BBC 1 Turns one

If you watch the BBC at all you’ll have noticed the new between programme clips and the revised lower-case ‘one’ logo.

The new film clips, or idents as they are so-called, went on-air on October 7th and will be aired about 14,000 times in their lifetime. So out go the tango dancers, street hip-hoppers and wheelchair bound basketball players and in come swimming hippos, stunt kites and Mexican surfers (a dude called Carlos ‘Coco’ Nogales).

The branding gurus who devised the new idents suggest that they all feature a circle within the imagery. Circles apparently have resonance…we come together in circles to watch things so the circle imagery feels like a symbol of togetherness.

The cost to us TV licence payers for this rebranding exercise? Only £1.2 m.

Branding BBC Circles