The presentation and the identities of the BBC News channel in the UK alongside its international counterpart (formerly BBC World News) and the BBC Parliament coverage channel use specific identities that demonstrate their remit and purpose.
BBC News (UK channel)
1997 "Flags and Drums"
BBC News 24 was launched at 5.30pm on 9 November 1997 as a 24-hour domestic news channel. It acted as a sister channel to BBC World which had launched two years earlier. As a result of this partnership between the two channels, they shared some overnight programming and the same identity consisting of flags designed by Lambie-Nairn. The rippling flags including the Flag of St. George, the Flag of St. Andrew and the Catalan flag, accompanied by an orchestral soundtrack comprised most noticeably of percussion instruments. Contains video evidence of channel presentation. Contains pictorial evidence of channel presentation. Contains pictorial evidence of channel presentation.
The channel logo consisted of the BBC logo followed by uppercase 'News 24' text to the right. The white logo was located at the bottom of the screen and as a Digital on-screen graphic (DOG) in the top left of the screen. A digital clock was also used with the look and was located in a translucent grey stripe to the bottom left of the screen. Contains pictorial evidence of channel presentation. Other graphics including Astons, information graphics located at the bottom of the screen, were written on a two toned translucent purple and yellow background that merged into the picture. If a broadcast was live, an additional orange stripe with 'LIVE' inside was added on top of the clock to denote this fact.
Promotions for the channel followed the style used by the rest of the BBC Television network, consisting of the channel logo located at the bottom of the screen throughout the promotion, with information being added on top of the logo at the end. Contains video evidence of channel promotions. The channel font was Gill Sans, also used by the BBC as a whole.
Due to the rolling news nature of the channel, in the final few minutes to the top of the hour, a filler sequence was used which featured one of the flags waving while the music built up, with flag and music linking seamlessly into the ident at the top of the hour. This filler would often be overlaid with a programme schedule for upcoming programmes or promoting the BBC News Website.
The new look BBC News 24 was deliberately meant to look more open and friendly to new audiences and to look less authoritative. As a result, the newsreaders didn't wear jackets and were filmed in the BBC Newsroom at the time, which was the studio for BBC News 24. The walls of this newsroom were decorated with panels featuring the bold colours and shapes such as stars, semicircles and numerous lines seen in the idents. Contains pictorial evidence of channels studio. Separating the newsroom from the desk was a simple metal barrier. Behind and left of the desk was a special weather station featuring a computer and weather graphic monitor.
Following the move to the new BBC News Centre, located in BBC Television Centre, of all television and radio bulletins, the backdrop to BBC News 24 was changed to include a camera view of the new newsroom with a coloured panel featuring the BBC News logo over a flag.
On the channel some overnight bulletins were simulcast on BBC World, and as a result the logo on the ident was changed to the generic BBC News logo, increased in size and placed in the centre of the screen. Another logo variation also existed which became prominent on bulletins around 1998, featuring a two-line logo where the 'News 24' appeared below and of equal length to the BBC logo itself.
1999 Cream and Red look
By 1999, a problem had become apparent with BBC News, something noticed by Lambie-Nairn. Despite an attempt in 1993 to unite all the news bulletins under a single brand, the news brand overall had fragmented with different looks for BBC News bulletins, Breakfast News, regional news, BBC News 24 and BBC World. As a result, Lambie-Nairn introduced a new brand that would encompass all of the BBC News output, with the exception of Breakfast News which would relaunch in 2000 as BBC Breakfast with the new style. Regional news would get a large variation of the look but with several elements retained.
This style involved a new cream and red colour scheme and a numeral to represent the time of day of the bulletin. In the case of News 24, a large '24' was used instead. Contains pictorial evidence of channel presentation. The ident designed featured a cream background with red pulsating rings and scenes; throughout the idents, place names would appear as anagrams and systematically flick through letters to form the place name, while a map of the UK could be seen at the beginning of the sequence and various styles of clock faces could be seen in the red ellipse with the hands passing a '24' mark on the clock face. The sequence ended with a large white '24' seen from the front left against a red ellipse on a cream background with the one-line BBC News logo overlaid the numeral in the centre of the screen. The music for the ident and for the whole of BBC News was composed by David Lowe and incorporated elements such as the BBC Pips, used on BBC Radio to mark the hour.
The graphics used by the channel were changed; the DOG remained the same, the background colour of the clock was changed to purple, and the box no longer extended off to the left of the screen. Contains pictorial evidence of channel presentation. When a live broadcast occurred, a graphic was added on top of the clock, however the colour was changed to red. Equally, the channel astons were changed so the main body text, stating details about the story, shared the same translucent purple colour as the clock while the headline strip was a solid cream colour with bold red text. This strip changed colour in the event of a breaking news story, when it became red with white text, or when the channel reported the death of a notable public figure, such as Princess Margaret, when the heading became black with white text.
Promotional style remained the same as from launch with the BBC News 24 logo being used and the generic BBC style used. However, more adventurous styles were being tested with the one-line logo often being dropped in favour of the large 24 numeral. Gill Sans was retained as the font on the channel.
For the relaunch, the idea of a filler was extended further to a full countdown. This consisted of world continents rotating on the left hand side of the screen which overlapped two large numerals filling the right side of the screen counting down until the top of the hour. The soundtrack used an extended version of David Lowe's soundtrack for the main titles. The beeps in the soundtrack, similar to the BBC Pips, corresponded to the seconds changing and became louder and more noticeable from 10 seconds. This countdown came with and without the BBC News 24 one-line logo at the bottom and also had programming details overlaid on some junctions.
On the occasions that BBC News 24 simulcast with BBC World, a generic BBC News graphic featuring a world at the centre was used - this graphic was also used for the generic bulletins on BBC Television.
There was also a change in the BBC News 24 set. Upon relaunch in 1999, the newsroom feel was retained but smartened up with beige and red walls. Contains pictorial evidence of channels studio set. To either side of the long desk were two flat screen televisions for linking into sport, weather and to partake in interviews; a large curved half wall went around the rear of the desk separating it from the newsroom. The newsroom featured numerous televisions embedded into the far back wall and attached to a circular display behind the desk suspended from the ceiling. Weather was now presented from the main weather studio used by the terrestrial bulletins and Sport was now presented from its own studio featuring a small desk against a background of ten small televisions embedded into the wall.
In April 2002 some major changes were made to the studio and graphics. The astons were changed to a shaded area beneath a red line containing all the information; for breaking news this remained on screen throughout. Contains pictorial evidence of channel presentation. The studio was also changed: the suspended circular television display was removed in favour of a bank of televisions at the very back of the studio, and television screens were arranged around the two pillars behind the desk. Contains pictorial evidence of channel studio design.
One final change of the look occurred in January 2003 when the countdown sequence was replaced by four sequences showing the busy lives of people, combining a mix of ordinary footage and time-lapse photography. These scenes were counted down by the David Lowe theme and an italicised second counter in the bottom right corner.
2003 Clamshell
In 2003, BBC News 24 dropped the cream look from 1999 and adopted a new look, designed in house, and featuring a black and red globe. Contains video evidence of channel presentation. The look had been a result of a government report carried out by Richard Lambert which had investigated whether BBC News 24 had been fulfilling its remit. Contains pictorial evidence of channel news presentation. It praised the improvements made by the channel in April 2002 but stated the BBC needed to become more "distinct" and needed a "clearer sense of direction". This new presentation package aimed to respond to these suggestions.
Nicknamed the 'clamshell' in reference to the finishing position of the red segments, the ident began with the rapid expansion of a red sphere with a disc intersecting it to reveal a globe before the disc segments reform together as the background to the globe in the familiar clamshell design. Overlaid the globe, and formed at the conclusion by the formation of five lines, is a large numeral '24'. Below the ident at the bottom of the screen is a white BBC News logo. The composed by David Lowe was altered by him for the new look. A key part of the look was the inclusion of the top headline into a ribbon which orbited the globe for a time before retracting back; other ribbons of this nature were present in the background, but featured the BBC News logo. The 24 numeral was originally a creamy yellow in colour before becoming silver in colour in 2004 when the identity was subsequently adopted across the television news output. The '24' numeral was dropped when the titles are used in BBC News bulletins on BBC One. Contains pictorial evidence of channel graphics and astons. Contains pictorial evidence of channel presentation.
The graphics of the re-launch were different from those of the last look in many ways. The BBC News 24 channel identification was moved from the upper left corner of the screen to become part of the Aston; the News 24 has been brought down below the BBC logo and is contained along with the clock in a red box with the red and black globe visible in the background. Contains pictorial evidence of channel presentation. The remainder of the aston featured a red heading with black information box with white text with no specific colour used for breaking news. For live broadcasts, a red box containing 'LIVE' was added to the top left corner of the screen, usually with the location written to the right in a black box. Originally no ticker, a device used to scroll news and information across the bottom of the screen, was used consistently on the channel, however one was adopted c. 2004. This ticker ran from below the clock across to the right of the screen; the topic of the ticker was shown in a black box below the clock with the news rolling by in black on a white background separated by the BBC logo.