For those who have never heard of BBC Select, let me briefly introduce you to the service, as it was.
BBC Select was a service that broadcast on the downtime of BBC1 and BBC2, usually between about 2am and 6am. Programmes were very specialist and usually only available by subscribing to them. An occasional free to air programme did occur, mainly towards the end of the service.
BBC Select began in January 1992. The programmes may have been scrambled but the bits between them certainly were not. You’d have this rolling identity with the station theme that carried on for about 6 minutes a time, then just before the programme began, you’d go to the ident, which faded out, and then the scrambling began, and the programme started.
The service ended in 1994 through lack of use. This all happened prior to the launch of BBC News 24, which didn’t happen until 1997. After BBC Select finished, BBC came up with the BBC Learning Zone for overnights on BBC2.
It has to be said that the logo is very simple, just a gold ring. It actually comes from the gold ring of communication that circles the globe on the BBC’s crest of arms.
Here’s the video of the signature theme to BBC Select, the one that aired repeatedly in a 6 minute loop.
I used to love that music. Sounded almost like a very extended fanfare. Reminiscent as well of the startups of old that used to occur on both BBC1 and ITV.
BBC Parliament, the BBC’s channel for continuing coverage of parliament and the various assemblies across the country, got a new look at 2.30pm on Monday 20th April 2009. Two videos to bring you, one showing the end of the old look and the first highlights of the new look, and the second shows the first five minutes or so of the new look unedited.
There’s more to come here on Ident City, so stay tuned.
This happened live on air, on the BBC News Channel, leading up to the simulcast BBC News at Ten. Because Children In Need on BBC1 was overrunning, the whole countdown was played, even the whole 30 seconds of hold at the end of the countdown, which is not usually seen at all.
A little journey through the day on TVNZ’s TV One. First off, Breakfast.
Breakfast runs from 6.30am to 9am. Next, One News at Midday, and from here on in, all the opens will look very similar.
Next, One News First at 4:30. 4:30pm seems to be quite a popular time for a bulletin in Australia and New Zealand, but less so in the US, Canada and Europe.
Just an hour after that bulletin finishes, the main evening news programme airs. One News at 6.
At about 8.30pm there is a quick One News Update, and this is what it looks like.
Finally, at some time around 11pm, though this varies, here’s One News Tonight.
The One News bulletins at 12pm, 4.30pm and 6pm, plus the TVNZ 7 News at 8pm are streamed live online at www.onenews.co.nz.
TVNZ 7 has a special hour long 8pm news programme. It’s bascially an updated version of TVNZ’s One News at 6pm. I’ll dig out the current One News open, for my next post so you can see how similar they are. But here’s TVNZ News at 8pm.
TVNZ has it’s own news channel of sorts. It’s called TVNZ 7, and it’s commercial free.
Here’s how the channel works. From 6am to 9am, 3 hours of rolling news. The rest of the day’s schedule is made up of 10 minute news bulletins, called TVNZ News Now, and documentaries and information programming for the rest of the hour. The exception is at 8pm when you have an hour long “TVNZ News at 8″. From midnight to 6am, TVNZ runs an “overnight information service”, which I must assume to be text based information.
Anyway, here’s a little sample of how the channel looks.
I notice they’ve borrowed the BBC News idea of a countdown to the top of the hour. Looks quite good. Shame there’s no facility to watch the channel or at least the bulletins online.
TNVZ is perhaps one of the most recent state-owned broadcasters in the world. Although it originally launched in 1980 after the merger of Television One and TV2 and being paired alongside Radio New Zealand as part of the BCNZ, TVNZ wouldn’t appear on it’s own until 1988, after it had been separated from RNZ.
As such TVNZ doesn’t have the depth of history that some other broadcasters have. But from 2005, here’s an ident for TVNZ One, and the opener to One News Tonight.
Looking for more TVNZ out there, as I go, and hopefully, I’ll have some more for you shortly. Stay tuned!
It can be amazing what you find on the internet sometimes. I was looking for some more Headline News material, and discovered this. It’s about 7.5 minutes long and might seem a bit boring at first as the disembodied voice explains how you create multilayered graphics, but stick with it. At about 4 minutes 30 seconds in he starts showing you some real world work he’d done, and not long after that, you realise that this guy designed the segment opens for CNN Headline News. The opens date from 1989 so it’s fascinating to see these without any anchors interrupting them.
I promise you, I’ll keep looking for some more great stuff like this.
BBC News 24, or the BBC News Channel as it is now known, launched on Sunday 9th November 1997 at 5.30pm in the afternoon. There was a half hour ‘preface’ before the first bulletin, and before the preface, the very first BBC News 24 countdown…
Stay tuned for more from BBC News 24/BBC News Channel shortly here on Ident City.
Few idents make an impact on me such that I can perfectly recall them years later without the aid of any video, but this extended ident for the original UK incarnation of Bravo, is one of those. Very regal, visually stunning and reminiscent of several classic idents from the past.
A little extra information for you. This ident aired twice a day on Bravo. It was the first thing seen at startup at midday, and the last thing seen at closedown at midnight.
One of my all time favourites and I’m pleased to be able to present it here.
