Channel 4 marked its 40th birthday with an announcement that its channel sub-brands and streaming service All4 are to be rebranded.
Starting spring 2023, all of Channel 4’s services will be realigned under a single brand.
Streaming service All 4 will become known as Channel 4, with the linear channel and streaming service sharing the same name. The broadcaster justified the move saying “audiences increasingly no longer distinguish between digital and linear content”.
Meanwhile, Channel 4’s family of channels, will also be aligned under the Channel 4 brand. The broadcaster hasn’t provided further details at this stage, but it has since told RXTV that the E4 sub-brand will continue.
The Channel 4 family has already moved closer together in terms of on-screen identity. In 2018, Channel 4 replaced the different versions of the number ‘4’ in E4, More 4 and Film4’s logos with the main Channel 4 blocks. But some of its services, including The Box currently don’t carry Channel 4 branding, so all eyes will be on how these services change in the coming year.
We asked Channel 4 for further comment.
Zaid Al-Qassab, Chief Marketing Officer at Channel 4, said:
“As Channel 4 turns 40, we’re responding to the challenge of an increasingly crowded content market by using our most powerful asset, the Channel 4 brand. The creation of a singular brand vision will better serve our viewers and help futureproof the channel to make sure we’re able to continue to take creative risks for the next 40 years.
“We want to become the viewers’ North Star in the digital world. A valued curator to help them navigate to a destination full of entertaining and thoughtful content they know they can trust.”
New idents
And Channel 4 also confirmed new idents have been commissioned as part of the brand transformation. Working in collaboration with a number of British artists and filmmakers, Channel 4’s award-winning 4creative will seek to represent the UK, its culture and mentality to present an unexpected and daring portrait of Britain retold.
Channel 4 currently uses a giant blocks character as part of its current set of idents, introduced in 2017. The character is seen pictured in locations including New Brighton (Wirral) and above the Hope Valley (Derbyshire).
Iain Hatton
updated 18:14