UKTV Rebrand and new channel

That is their single exception. But the channel logo is clearly Discovery-esque:



Not quite true, as some of their channels never existed in the 'UK' era (Docs, People). I would argue that they have developed a strong brand both with the names and on-screen identities in 'UKTV'.

Why do they need to know that they're all from the same stable? All the need to know is what the channel shows, who it's for and where to find it. With chanels so diverse there's no real need to know which others they're connected to



They did a very good job of promoting and making the brand of Dave visable but then some of the UKTV channels are really obscure and unknown - UKTV Style Gardens for example. That might well benefit from a name like (off the top of my head 'Green Fingers'



That's slightly diffrent, apart from Sky they've all started off as a single well known brand and then spun off from there. UKTV hasn't really done that as much - they ditched the well known UK prefix years ago

The BBC have, through a few different methods, firmly ingrained their brand in all their channels. Before the multichannel environment it was uttely common for the announcers simply to refer to the channels as 'One' and 'Two' (Now on One, Midlands Today... Over on Two now, Horizon... etc). The BBC recognised wauy back in 1996/7 or so that the BBC brand had to be reinforced not only in the way channels were prsented to the viewer but also in the titles of programmes made by the BBC. They very cleverly insisted that programmes display the BBC logo in their titles sequences - something that still happens to this day and is very effective in my opinion and getting across to the viewer (no matter whether they are watching Dave or BBC 1 or S4C) that the programme they're watching was made by the BBC. I don't think any other major UK broadcaster does that. It's as clever a marketing tool as Channel Five's rainbow flash in the half-second between each ad. They were the first terrestrial channel to brand their channel (very cleverly IMO) during an ad break, other channels merely inserted black between ads, or simply cut from one ad to the next.

"UK Gold" is still referred to as such by, I would guess, most of the public. The UKTV brand has never stuck IMO. However, the other channels in the UKTV family are far less well known in the first place. Dave is a triumph of channel branding, though I didn't get it at all at first. It'd certainly be interesting to see what names they choose and how it goes down with the rest of the family.

I'd say the advantage of the UKTV branding, is that it helps identify the channels on the EPG, and makes them stand out from some of the awful dross available. At least if it's branded 'UKTV', you know the quality is going to be reasonable, and the content will probably consist of repeats of old BBC shows.

Dave works because it's a one-off, different, and has a prominent EPG position. But when flicking through the lower reaches of the EPG, I doubt people will stop at a channel called Alibi any more than they will for crud like Ape TV or Red. They'll probably just assume it's some new fly-by-night amateur affair.



It's actually just been called UKTV Gardens for a while now.

It's all very well promoting one new channel with a wacky name when it's unusual and different. But when you try to make half a dozen channels unusual and different, the likelihood is the message will get mixed and lost.

For my personal taste, I think it was a mistake to brand them all 'UKTV', when the simpler 'UK' prefix worked well, and I think the best outcome would be a return to this.

Incidentally, a friend who was working with the UKTV channels at the time said that there were also discussions over whether to bring the then Flextech channels under the UKTV brand. If you thought UKTV G2 was bad, we could almost apparently have had UKTV FTN.

UKTV Press Statement
http://uktv.co.uk/uktv/item/aid/602772

I notice they've already removed the "UKTV" from the logos of all of the channels on the tabs on their website.

Actually I don't think they particularly need to think of new names - they all seem to work pretty well as they are - Gold, Dave, Drama, History, People, Documentary, Style, Homes, Gardens and Food. At least then they maintain their link with UKTV in peoples' minds rather than being drastically changed. As others have said, there is no way they can think of clever enough names that actually work for all of them, whilst also explaining what their content is.

Another thing is that if they get the branding right, and market all of the channels together, I think they can maintain the integrity of their portfolio. The branding will need to maintain some common elements across all of the channels to link them. The same typeface across all logos would be the most efficient way of doing this, or perhaps a common symbol used in the logo of each - akin to Discovery's globe.

Well they can't just drop the UKTV from History as there is another successful channel of that name. I've never heard of UKTV Homes!

I agree with the poster who said it is likely these channels will simply get lost within the EPG without the UKTV tag to identify them. Many don't have prominent positions anyway.


Their portfolio begain with just UK Gold and UK Living, although the 'UK' was dropped from Living before the expansion into other channels started. I would say that their situation is exactly the same as Sky, BBC etc.

They didn't 'ditch' the UK prefix they simply added to it as they wanted to market the portfolio as a whole and just referring to them as 'The UK TV Channels' is far more cumbersome than simply changing the prefix to UKTV for each channel.

i think part of the reason they adopted the 'uktv' prefix was because when they split uk living and uk gold (uk gold remaining part bbc part flextech venture...and uk living becoming a sole flextech channel) they were obliged to make a difference between them.

hence living dropping the uk and i guess the other channels taking up the uk...

Not quite right. UK Living was only branded as such until 1997, when UK Horizons and Arena started. The UKTV tag wasn't added to the entire portfolio until seven years later in March 2004.

When Style, Horizons, Arena and Gold started being played out from Television Centre (back in 97), the chaps in pres used to refer to it as Directing the **** channels!!

s hag is offensive is it? Bloody censorship nanny state!