The short videos displaying the BBC One logo – known as idents – have received a long-awaited refresh, ending more than five years of ‘oneness’.
The idents were due to be refreshed at the same time as a wider change to BBC One, BBC Two and BBC Four last autumn, but were delayed at the last minute to allow for further tweaks.
At 7pm, ahead of Friday night’s edition of The One Show, the first of the new idents, featuring skateboarders made its debut.
The new idents emphasise the circle shape that’s been synonymous with BBC One over the years – from the round shape of the globe, the 1997-2001 balloon and the 2006-2016 set of idents that included hippos and cyclists in a circle.
What do the new idents show?
Each of the new idents takes an initial activity, taking place in one place in one moment of time. As each ident progresses, examples of other activities taking place in the same location, but at a different time can be seen within the circle. Effectively, the circle acts as a lens through which viewers can see different events occurring in that space.
For instance, the Park Bench ident shows different groups of people occupying the bench and surrounding park land at different times. Other ident locations include a field (tents/festival/farm animals), a community hall (trampolines/community group/disco), railway arches / warehouse (skateboarders/rave/exhibition) and urban street scene (street cafe/cleaners/market).
Each location acts as a metaphor for BBC One: One place where different groups of people come together.
The BBC has posted the first set of what will be a wider series of idents to appear on the channel:
End of ‘oneness’
Since 2017, BBC One programmes have been introduced with idents on the topic of Oneness. The idents featured characters including sea swimmers in Clevedon, Sausage Dog Walkers in Newcastle and Fell Runners in the Mourne Mountains. Presentation fans widely derided the look, filmed by photographer Martin Parr, for their perceived poor appearance and a feeling that the BBC’s main channel deserved something with more impact to introduce programmes. That was especially the case after the introduction of style new idents for BBC Two in September 2018, based on the curve of the number two.
As a result of the delay in introducing the new idents, a small number of oneness idents were retained through the winter months. These were edited to include the new BBC logo.
The BBC is in the process of updating most of its services. Most notably to include the revised version of its three blocks logo. The work is phased over a longer period of time in order to save costs. Some elements of BBC branding won’t be replaced until they are due for a refresh anyway, to maximise the use of items already paid for. This means services that have been revamped in the last few years won’t see any major changes yet. BBC News will see minor tweaks to its appearance, before wider changes during 2022/23.
Compared to twenty years ago, there are now longer gaps between major channel refreshes.
By Aidan Smith, RXTV