TV Live Forum

Kind of carrying on from where the other place left off. This time including the Nations & Regions and BBC Two, BBC Three and BBC Four into the all conquering discussion bowl.

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Anyway after that brief introduction, where was I. Oh yes.

Looking back then at the BBC English Regions period of 2002-2007. Is anyone else kind of disappointed or still shocked at the "weakness" of the many regions trying to emulate BBC London from 2001.

Good idea to start this thread up, Aaron.

I hated that era of English Regions branding. The 1999 branding was fantastic and I could live with the 2002 refresh, but once they started to go all LDN it was just wrong on so many levels. The worst of it for me was some regions using that botched version of the theme music with the strange motif at the end. Living in the north west, I was delighted when NWT relaunched and went its own way in 2007 but was gutted when everything was homogenised again in 2008 as the 2007 branding was superb.

itsrobert post_id=414 time=1617023764 user_id=913 Wrote:Good idea to start this thread up, Aaron.

I hated that era of English Regions branding. The 1999 branding was fantastic and I could live with the 2002 refresh, but once they started to go all LDN it was just wrong on so many levels. The worst of it for me was some regions using that botched version of the theme music with the strange motif at the end. Living in the north west, I was delighted when NWT relaunched and went its own way in 2007 but was gutted when everything was homogenised again in 2008 as the 2007 branding was superb.

First, good to see you on here.

Second, the 2007-08 BBC NWT era was of a "Network News" level of standard. Also the studio punched way above its weight. And then.. Hmmm.

and

Third, in 2008, they (NWT) could have at least rotated the frosted glass screens 180 degrees to match the new "Corporate look" that was brought in at least.

EDIT:

Just searched up TV Live and found this images to show what I mean.

Couldn't agree more.

My general rule of thumb was that the more regions started to move away from desks, the more sloppy some of the interpretations became.

NWT is a good example of having a bit of creative license but quickly being shoe-horned back into a framework that just clearly wasn't going to work. It was a relief to see the return of a harmonised set of titles during the most recent rejig.

Matrix post_id=535 time=1617034422 user_id=797 Wrote:NWT is a good example of having a bit of creative license but quickly being shoe-horned back into a framework that just clearly wasn't going to work. It was a relief to see the return of a harmonised set of titles during the most recent rejig.

A lot of effort went into creating the 2007 NWT look which strikes me as odd as they must have known April 08 was coming round and it would encompass them, perhaps they thought they could avoid the corporate overlords and keep their branding as it was?

Obviously the breakfast branding of orange and white was a taste of how it would look if it had been adapted for the corporate style.

I remember how disappointing the Midlands Today 'refresh' was - which consisted of new lighting white lighting on the desk and new perspex panels replacing red ones with white - they were out of their usual home for 2 weeks for not a lot of change. In hindsight I put that down to knowing the 2008 corporate look was coming and knowing it would involve lots of white.

Mike post_id=557 time=1617036685 user_id=850 Wrote:

Matrix post_id=535 time=1617034422 user_id=797 Wrote:NWT is a good example of having a bit of creative license but quickly being shoe-horned back into a framework that just clearly wasn't going to work. It was a relief to see the return of a harmonised set of titles during the most recent rejig.

A lot of effort went into creating the 2007 NWT look which strikes me as odd as they must have known April 08 was coming round and it would encompass them, perhaps they thought they could avoid the corporate overlords and keep their branding as it was?

Obviously the breakfast branding of orange and white was a taste of how it would look if it had been adapted for the corporate style.

I remember how disappointing the Midlands Today 'refresh' was - which consisted of new lighting white lighting on the desk and new perspex panels replacing red ones with white - they were out of their usual home for 2 weeks for not a lot of change. In hindsight I put that down to knowing the 2008 corporate look was coming and knowing it would involve lots of white.

I always think, particularly with the regions, the idea of cockup rather than conspiracy is a good way forward. I think the issue with NWT was trying to guess what was coming down the line. The issue with Midlands Today was also to do with upgrading some of the tech used which proved to be a lot more problematic than was first anticipated but again, the final look was also a dog's breakfast.

Matrix post_id=561 time=1617037356 user_id=797 Wrote:The issue with Midlands Today was also to do with upgrading some of the tech used which proved to be a lot more problematic than was first anticipated but again, the final look was also a dog's breakfast.

Reddish-brown background and a radio wave centre of the screen at an angle, hardly worth changing it to be honest, it wasn't an improvement on the Yellow-Red gradient with the place names decoding on it. It makes you wonder who designed it and why, and also who could have looked at it and said 'yes, this will work on screen'.

The technology upgrades I'd be interested to know what they did change around the time.

Mike post_id=557 time=1617036685 user_id=850 Wrote:

Matrix post_id=535 time=1617034422 user_id=797 Wrote:NWT is a good example of having a bit of creative license but quickly being shoe-horned back into a framework that just clearly wasn't going to work. It was a relief to see the return of a harmonised set of titles during the most recent rejig.

A lot of effort went into creating the 2007 NWT look which strikes me as odd as they must have known April 08 was coming round and it would encompass them, perhaps they thought they could avoid the corporate overlords and keep their branding as it was?

I'm in two minds now as to whether they did know that the 2008 changes were coming. According to this web page, the scenes for the 2007 titles were filmed in May 2007, so the decision to rebrand must have come even before then. Maybe the January 2007 refresh of BBC News prompted them? The new titles launched in September 2007 so it must have come as something of a major bummer that they had to drop them after a mere 7 months. I've always said that the best branding is on air for the shortest period of time. Amazing really that we're still talking about it 14 years later. It just goes to show how good it was.

I was similarly disappointed that the January 2007 branding introduced on National, News 24 and World was dropped after just over a year as well. Whilst I was never really a huge lover of the branding used from 2004 onwards, I thought they had finally finessed it by 2007, especially the music which had much more oomph. But, they dropped it in April 2008 for a much inferior product. Whilst the Lambie-Nairn 2008 titles were technically better, the music was a backwards step. I remember at the time they were going for a "back to basics" approach. Maybe the powers that be thought the 2007 music was just a bit too over-the-top?

I remember the comments about back to basics, pruning everything back to what they had set out in 1999 to an extent, albeit in white.

The astons used on the national and regional news from 2008 are a fine example of how less doesn't mean more - they looked stark, and not very good. The animation so subtle you couldn't tell what it was trying to do and effectively looked like a big white rectangle on screen.

The insistence on using Gill Sans for everything was also tired by then.

Mike post_id=655 time=1617044620 user_id=850 Wrote:I remember the comments about back to basics, pruning everything back to what they had set out in 1999 to an extent, albeit in white.

The astons used on the national and regional news from 2008 are a fine example of how less doesn't mean more - they looked stark, and not very good. The animation so subtle you couldn't tell what it was trying to do and effectively looked like a big white rectangle on screen.

The insistence on using Gill Sans for everything was also tired by then.

I completely agree. I didn't really like any part of the 2008 rebrand and it's a shame that it has effectively lasted for 13 years now in one form or another. The music sounded as bland as the graphics looked. I can definitely see that they were trying to rekindle the success of the 1999 branding (and probably as a result of realising they had made a bit of a bodge of it between 2003 and then) but the 2008 branding lacks the warmth and detail of 1999. Not only the colour scheme but also the 1999 music was a lot richer. I guess the only saving grace is that the red and white colour scheme hasn't really aged as such. It's just become a bit dull through repetitive use. But, I do admit that the initial 1999 designs are probably starting to look of their time now. Maybe they did the right thing in 2008 in terms of longevity but it certainly wasn't the most creative look they could have come up with.

itsrobert post_id=686 time=1617046133 user_id=913 Wrote:

Mike post_id=655 time=1617044620 user_id=850 Wrote:I remember the comments about back to basics, pruning everything back to what they had set out in 1999 to an extent, albeit in white.

The astons used on the national and regional news from 2008 are a fine example of how less doesn't mean more - they looked stark, and not very good. The animation so subtle you couldn't tell what it was trying to do and effectively looked like a big white rectangle on screen.

The insistence on using Gill Sans for everything was also tired by then.

I completely agree. I didn't really like any part of the 2008 rebrand and it's a shame that it has effectively lasted for 13 years now in one form or another. The music sounded as bland as the graphics looked. I can definitely see that they were trying to rekindle the success of the 1999 branding (and probably as a result of realising they had made a bit of a bodge of it between 2003 and then) but the 2008 branding lacks the warmth and detail of 1999. Not only the colour scheme but also the 1999 music was a lot richer. I guess the only saving grace is that the red and white colour scheme hasn't really aged as such. It's just become a bit dull through repetitive use. But, I do admit that the initial 1999 designs are probably starting to look of their time now. Maybe they did the right thing in 2008 in terms of longevity but it certainly wasn't the most creative look they could have come up with.

I think that's exactly it. I certainly remember a feeling that red and cream had not aged well (very British Rail) whereas the red and white is a little easier to maintain. Personally, I think I will always look at the '08 branding as a bit of a backwards step (even if I did find the hair quiff look slightly bizarre). There has been some interesting evolutions in the overall design but it is, still, essentially quite repetitive.

I think the red and cream aged quite quickly on air actually and although they didn't look quite right at the time the regional blue versions have probably aged better over the last two decades. Personally I think the 2004-2008 look is the best the BBC has had over the last 20 years and it's a shame they didn't evolve on that in 2008 rather than going back to the 1999 idea.

As mentioned the NWT titles were great and could easily have been rolled out across the regions and Wales Today and Newsline both had variations, though I don't think Scotland ever did. Wales Today used red and white which looked pretty good and indeed I think towards the end when variations were created for use by BBC News they tended to lean towards using white rather than black, which on the whole looks fresher.

itsrobert post_id=414 time=1617023764 user_id=913 Wrote:The 1999 branding was fantastic and I could live with the 2002 refresh, but once they started to go all LDN it was just wrong on so many levels.

Really not so sure about the 1999 English regions branding. I think the nations worked quite well, but the English regions fall down, for me, for two reasons. The colour palette wasn't great - three non-neutral colours is almost always too many, particularly in those shades. And the decision to make the map the centrepoint of the titles never made sense to me. Most people can recognise the shape of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, and maybe some counties or regions have fairly recognisable shapes. But the BBC TV regions are so arbitrary that they aren't particularly recognisable from an isolated shape. Sure, regions with coastlines would be more identifiable, but for those without, it must have just looked like the amorphous blob of regional news!

The good thing about the 1999 branding was that it was the only time, really, that all core BBC News brands had the same style of titles, graphics, music and set. Although the first three came back in line after 2008, no other set style has ever been successfully imposed on all regions. They got most of the way there with the TC7-style sets, but gave up around 2011. And the roll out of NBH-style sets hasn't even reached half-way after 8 years. But even if we are talking brand uniformity, the time between the final English region going corporate (June? 2000) and the launch BBC LDN (October 2001) is just 16 months - and that's only 2 1/2 years since the cream and red era was introduced on the nationals. The corporate look unravelled quickly, and that's before you even get to the clamshell era which was very much a low-point in brand discipline for BBC News.

I feel like the BBC is scared to radically update the main title graphics.
After being used for more than 10 years, the red and white globe has very much become the definitive symbol of BBC News.
I personally think they still look and sound rather nice - although the fact I largely consume radio news may influence my feelings slightly!

I'm going to be honest but I really miss 60 Seconds on BBC Three.