Inconsistencies with re-branding?

Actually, for a while, BBC North covered the North east and Cumbria, North west, and the Yorkshire and Lincolnshire areas, with separate regions still in existence. The idea for creating BBC North at the time, in 1991, was to save on management and administration. In effect, it was one region, with three sub regions.

And before Manchester joined the party Leeds and Newcastle both used North East branding for a while.

Then you get the current mess whereby Yorkshire and Lincolnshire could mean either the Belmont transmitter patch (for Look North from Hull) or Belmont and Emley Moor together (for Inside Out, Sunday Politics etc)

I was referring to before Look North Hull launched. They used to use the BBC North on-screen identifier. Then it became the current ones. North East and North West were both always specifically identified on the idents.

Yet they still couldn't be bothered two update the logo on the new look trailer!

Just had to do a google. I prefer the old ones!

I actually quite like the new ones (or at least the TOTH bed)! There's some interesting variation across the stations that have adopted it so far - before the main part of the TOTH there's a different sounding ramp which you only hear on some stations as they fade the bed up earlier, and the approach to the use of the 6 note logo at XX:00 varies - some play it all as one bit, some put a slight hold in for a 'BBC Radio Such-and-such', and at least one station (I think BBC Berkshire) puts the pips there, leaving a pretty big gap between the two halves of the logo.

What is quite jarring is that the networked evening shows use the new logo, and that gaps are left for local imaging (or at least used to be), which can make a bit of a mish-mash. Here in the East, the very early breakfast show is aired across 6 or so BBC LR stations, making use of the new imaging (as does the station it originates from, BBC Radio Norfolk), but some of the stations don't!

I would hardly say it's fair to say "couldn't be bothered", why would they have done as its showed the transition from old to new.

Who is the nearest to the north to still use the old radio imaging, I haven't heard the older version for ages?

There was a brief period between late 1996 and early 1997 when some of the last episodes of Playdays and a New Year's special called Jools's Hootenanny, which had a copyright date of 1997, reverted back to the 1989-1992 design of just the tiny BBC logo and corporate font, without the bigger logo, which the Playdays example can be seen with this early promo for Teletubbies when it was just a few days old!




Speaking of Teletubbies, when the series first aired in March '97. The copyright information used the same 92-97 design with the bigger logo and copyright text;

http://image.wikifoundry.com/image/3/714f463582f479ecbf48cbbf122e285a/GW234H175

But shortly after the BBC corporate overhaul in October, the late 97 and early 98 episodes used this mishmash of the new BBC logo, in the older corporate font, which obviously shows that Ragdoll Productions was informed about the logo change at the last minute;

http://image.wikifoundry.com/image/3/711440eba4e96cdf4a67b8ecd193e048/GW236H178

Radio Merseyside is the only station in the north still using the old jingles (and they've had them since late 2009!)


From my last listen round on iPlayer, the other stations yet to update are: Cambridgeshire, Cornwall, Guernsey, Hereford & Worcester, Jersey, Kent, Nottingham, Shropshire, Stoke, Surrey, Sussex.

Surrey and Sussex even had a mini-refresh based around the old imaging earlier this year, but I think the old three note jingle has really been done to death now, the change to the new jingles can't come a moment too soon.

The Big Breakfast had a period of inconsistencies with their branding in 2001. Shortly after they undid the 2001 re-launch, they introduced new titles & break stings yet they had a short period of using the re-launch menu, graphics, cue cards and the news still used the re-launch background.

Another thing is how plenty of shows made in the 70s and 80s using electronically generation credits often had the copyright date and BBC text in just the same font as the rest of the credits, presumably because the caption generators couldnt generate the BBC logo or corporate font. An example you can see now is if you're watching the Top Of The Pops re-runs on BBC4- we've recently reached the point where they started using electronically generated end credits, and that's the case there. They did get the actual BBC logo to appear in the credits by the end of 1984, but they didn't restore the corporate font to the copyright date until the summer of 1987.

I wonder if this was as a result of orders from on high, rather than BBC Leeds being particularly conscientious about their branding.

IIRC, Look North NE&C also launched new titles on the Monday after the BBC logo change. I'd be interested to know if they did the same.