30 years ago today: the smokey globe and the 2s

I normally bookmark interesting things like that.. or use the "save" function in YouTube or Facebook. Its not perfect but it at least narrows it down when you're trying to find something

I thought I had done that with this tweet oddly

I can't think why they would have been transmitted overnight, unless it was just to test that when they were broadcast there wasn't something that was a problem with them on the distribution network.
If there was, then it would need to be corrected before they were used repeatedly.
Only a guess.
Or maybe they had a large invited group to watch them, and they had been told to watch out of hours?

I really don't think it would have been to distribute them to the regions, there were better means of doing that.

Or, record using their home VCRs, to watch 'at leisure' ?

I'd assumed it was just a CRV (the laser disc ident player) left routed to line that went into regular play mode after close-down but before syncs are removed from distribution to switch the transmitters off - and thus played out its entire contents to air? (Though you'd have expected it to be interrupted by the reroute to take a valid signal away happening - unless BBC Select or similar was to continue afterwards?)

I too remember seeing it!

I doubt it was used as a way of distributing idents to the nations (they had circuits that would have been better used for this, and were routinely used for distribution of programme material) or the regions (they only had CRV players, not recorders, and had to go to London to burn new content to discs)

I really can't imagine anything being accidentally routed to the Network Distribution in 1991.

Now here's something I've not seen before, the first (official) appearance of the 1991 BBC1 logo.... no, not the start of Going Live but earlier that morning:

#ONTHISDAY in 1991: shortly before 6.40am, the first signs of the new look BBC One were evident on the test card. We also get to see the new BBC One logo on the updated Open University ident. Announcer Mark Develin approves of the new OU ident. pic.twitter.com/LvGJ7nYWBB

— Rewind @ The TV Room (@rewind_ttvr) February 16, 2021

I remember waking up early to see that, after Andi Peters and Edd the Duck popping up in front of the COW the day before to say it was the last time it would be used to introduce Neighbours. So the first sight of the new logos I got was with the test card and then in the first few seconds of that Open University ident I thought BBC 1 was going in a very unusual direction before realising what it was.

I think I liked the new globe straight away but it took a little while to get used to the 2s, just the idea of having lots of different idents (and, for the BBC, them having a soundtrack) was very new. Always liked the design of the programme slides of that era, particularly the menus where the left-hand strip would be clear but elements would continue on to the rest of the background.

Yes, I liked those as well - it's a shame BBC2 switched to plain black on the sidebar after a couple of years, never understood why they did that.

I believe it was because the sidebar imagery had viridian as the dominant colour and in many cases this didn't blend in well with the programme imagery alongside it. They often had to add an effect to programme images, to incorporate a hint of viridian. As well as the time and effort that required, it also often didn't look great. I'm sure they spent a lot of time trying to find images that would work fine without the need for any further tampering.

Off topic but:

#OnThisDay 2007: BBC Two's "yellow" idents began their final full day on air. pic.twitter.com/3gvesaRd1r

— TV Live (@tvlive) February 17, 2021

This was one of the earliest changes in TV presentation I remember. I can just about remember the change of the Nine O'clock News titles in 1988 and the change of the Brookside theme arrangement at the end of 1990, which I hated and never got fully used to.

I remember liking the 2s immediately. In the North West at the time, only Channel 4 had an ident with sound. BBC 1, 2 were silent and somewhat boring to me, whilst Granada had not long introduced its blue stripe ident, which was still pretty formal. I remember doodling the 2s on my exercise book in school.

The 1 had less impact on me. In fact, I'm not sure I even noticed the change. I don't feel the hate for it that some on here have. The BBC were quite conservative, presentation-wise and were not entirely convinced by Lambie-Nairn's ideas for BBC 2. So the compromise was essentially"do what you like, within reason, with 2 but don't change 1 too much". And so, the BBC 1 ident had to remain silent, keep the globe motif and at the same time incorporate the new corporate branding with the 1 numeral complementing its 2 counterpart. I think what we ended up with was as good as you were going to get with that brief.

The background swirls were also a rather nice tribute to the classic mirror globe. Speaking of tribute, here's a homemade mirror globe that a friend of mine built a couple of months back. Have been meaning to share it...

Same here - at the time I found the colours of the 90s globe quite drab and depressing compared to what had gone before. Looking back at it now though, it has a certain abstract beauty in its own way. Though compared to fat men paddling in the Bristol Channel, what hasn’t?