Meaning they can do it on a whim?
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Hong Kong’s oldest pay-TV service Cable TV announced this afternoon that it would cease broadcasting on May 31 this year. However, the Cable News brand would be retained, while its parent company would concentrate all its resources on its three existing FTA channels including two under the HOY TV brand.
Cable TV was incorporated on June 30, 1993 and officially began transmission on October 31 same year, offering a package of over 100 channels, 54 of which are directly operated by the company. Its current pay TV licence was supposed to expire on May 31, 2029.
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Interesting to note that Cable TV had been bleeding for over a decade - and sports rights not being exclusive with them didn’t help (the 2014 World Cup was snatched by TVB, 2018 originally to LeSports then ViuTV/NowTV combo, and the latter pair again in 2022; the Premier League is on the duo as well).
Ironically TVB, now commonly known to be more stuffy and outdated station in the city, was actually the first to dip out of the pay TV game back in 2017.
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That’s right, Cable TV had not posted a profit since 2008.
It was initially called exTV, then SuperSun then TVB Pay Vision. The company which ran the pay TV service now operates Big Big Channel, offering fans direct interaction with TVB artists and giving more exposure to actors not well known to viewers.
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To add to this, this is the second relaunch from the station: The previous brand, HK Open TV, came from relaunching Fantastic TV back in 2018.
The station ident:
Programme junction and programme change slides. Towards the end of the break there’re stings featuring celebrities from their fledging talent show, introducing various programme genres:
Promo endboard for outsourced programming:
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Mediacorp in Singapore underwent a corporate rebrand on its TV and radio stations last month. Bar their news channels CNA and CNA 938, all other stations adopted flat colours, plus the Mediacorp M symbol in a circle.
English-speaking Channel 5 retained the 5 numeral, in use since 1994, but without the textures. The countdown clock to the news was also changed in all channels:
Similarly, Mandarin-speaking Channel 8 also received a flat version of their 2001 symbol:
Suria and Vasatham, the channels catering for Malay and Indian communities, had new wordmarks:
More notable was Mandarin-speaking Channel U, who had their first rebrand since being part of SPH Mediaworks in 2001. It was unchanged with Mediacorp’s acquisition of SPH in 2005 (while its sister, Channel i, ended broadcasting), but now it was taken out of the circle and flattened:
The upwards arrows here are an important part of the new identity - it was called Mplifier, and was used as a unifying visual cue to all the channels.
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Paramount seems to be offloading quite some assets recently. After selling their station in Mar del Plata, Argentina last year, their Telefe O&Os in Tucumán and Neuquén are sold to Grupo Televisión Litoral and Alpha Media respectively last month.
The former, already holding 2 other stations, rebranded Canal 8 with their triangular symbol and a new name, elochoTV:
The latter, a newcomer to television, reverted the station back to Canal 7:
This has more details on the sale.
Meanwhile, BET (including VH1) is also to be offloaded, with Tyler Perry and Byron Allen being potential suitors:
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I got the impression that Channel 5’s news was just coming straight from CNA inclusive of the latter’s brand, so the fact that News Tonight is branded in, at least, a neutral way (I’m sure it’d still be simulcast on CNA, or at least the CNA domestic feed) caught me a little off guard.
The whole branding idea’s certainly not a horrible look (though not exactly “wow” either), and I guess it was only a matter of time that the various domestic brands got interlinked with the Mediacorp logo. Almost a surprise they hadn’t done that earlier, although the 60th anniversary of Singapore TV is certainly a good time to do it.
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Disney’s trend of removing the Fox branding globally continues. This time, it is happening in the Fox Greek channels (Fox and Fox Life, broadcasting to Greece, Cyprus and Malta); however, these channels are rebranding as FX and FX Life, respectively. The reason for such move is the inability to use the Star Channel brand in Greece, as one of the national commercial channels already brands as such; however, the graphics are well in line with the branding already used in Latin America and Finland. The rebrand happened on March 15.
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Around Europe, Denmark commercial-state broadcaster TV 2 is to adopt a new brand identity at the end of March, replacing their long-used symbol, simplified over the years, since their launch:
![[Image: 77b5b300-08c4-41a5-8580-43137332a988-w_960.jpg]](https://via.ritzau.dk/data/images/00843/77b5b300-08c4-41a5-8580-43137332a988-w_960.jpg)
In their own words:
Our new appearance must make it clearer to users that they are in contact with TV 2’s content, regardless of where they meet us. Today, Danes meet TV 2 across our streaming service, channels, apps, news site and podcasts. Therefore, we need a strong and unifying identity, which is created for both current and future generations of digital media users, says managing director at TV 2 Anne Engdal Stig Christensen.
TV 2 delivers credible news journalism and quality Danish content, and we are here to inform and engage the Danes in the community. It remains our most important task, even when we are moving from traditional TV to streaming in these years. Therefore, it is also visually important to emphasize that you can expect the same from TV 2, regardless of where you meet us. The red color has followed us for several years, and with it we carry on our history and DNA, says Anne Engdal Stig Christensen.
Alongside this new rollout is a new youth-oriented channel Echo, merging the original Echo and Zulu into a single service:
[Update] The resulting package:
Identity done by local agency Kontrapunt.
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RTL in Belgium rebranded their television, radio and streaming brands a few days ago, adopting the same corporate style used in RTL info:
https://soirmag.lesoir.be/sites/default/files/dpistyles_v2/ls_16_9_864w/2023/03/27/node_503655/29991421/public/2023/03/27/B9733857099Z.1_20230327164348_000+GTLMFVRUC.1-0.jpg
This occured after RTL-TVI was bought out by Rossel and DPG Media (who also owned VTM), though they reached a deal with RTL Group in using the name for 10 years. The signature balloon is hence kept, though much modified, as a unifying element to all TV channels:
If the red hot air balloon in the logo of RTL TVi and bel RTL ensures a certain continuity with the past logos, the new visual, which will be applied from Tuesday morning, will be more surprising for RTL club and RTL plug which are respectively adorned with yellow and green, testifying to the dynamism of these channels. As for the RTL brand, it will continue to appear in capital letters, whereas tvi, club, plug and bel will now appear only in lowercase.
“Graphically, our brands are aligned to reinforce the striking force of the three golden letters of the RTL acronym”, explains Laurent Montastruc, creative director at RTL Belgium. "Each medium uses lowercase letters to mark its differentiation. It’s as if they were the first names of members of a family, whose name would be RTL. Each has its own personality, but they are all connected to each other to others and share the same DNA.”
(Here)
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A big 72 hours in American broadcasting, alongside the high-profile sackings of Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon… first, NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell has been sacked. He has been ousted on allegations of “inappropriate relationship” and sexual harassment against CNBC presenter and Senior International Correspondent (based in Abu Dhabi) Hadley Gamble. Comcast senior management (led by Mike Cavanagh) is temporarily helming the company as a successor is being selected. Shell, who replaced Steve Burke before the pandemic, was the mastermind behind Peacock.
And now, the second wave of culling of Disney executives has started, and a big pretty number of executives have been let go, specifically in the ranks of programming, marketing and music.
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Think the Oneness 2.0 idents in BBC Chameleon was a baby step in a station’s identity? Well, wait until you see the new RTE One idents in Ireland this morning!
The O animation is still the same, and at least two of them are still using similar live action footages since 2014, which itself was an evolution of an ident package back in 2006!
2006:
2014:
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RTL continues to expand its new “RTL United”. With virtually no warning, RTL Télé Letzebuërg launched the new look Tuesday night, even adopting it immediately into its news programming, unlike Germany (where the new look appeared over a year later) and Hungary (where news programming won’t rebrand until they make the move to new facilities in Budapest next year). Magazine shows also got the block treatment. The big difference is that their logo uses red tones and don’t embrace as much the color-picking treatment. The radio station (airing in Luxembourgian and French) have also adopted the new logo, as well as streamer RTL Play (no RTL+ there given they focus on unscripted fare and local news).
The final countries left are the Netherlands and France; the Dutch RTL will drop their existing brand (designed by Mark Porter and Dylan Griffith through Smörgåsbord Studio, based on their look for RTL Nieuws) and adopt the more understated branding with a more flow-based experience. Although they adopted the corporate brand, they are improving their station logos and retaining their very nice graphics (although they are now going for the brand multiverse strategy). The new look might debut by May 1, but there’s still no confirmation. Additionally, no word if the RTL+ streamer might come to the country (RTL has two VOD offerings, ad-supported RTL XL and subscription-based Videoland, if the brand appears, they might be forced to merge). No word too if RTL Nieuws will be rebranded or just get some updates (their current graphics and EDM music by Martijn Schimmer are still really good and haven’t aged still).
In the case of France, RTL does own a radio station (generally the most-listened to in France, but now competing and frequently beaten by PSB France Inter), but it is now operated by M6; they could easily get the new brand, but RTL listeners are mostly aged and very picky to change. Other RTL-branded services are no longer owned by RTL (e.g. cable channel RTL9 is now owned by Mediawan).
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The rebrand debuted today across all channels, including their digital channels Crime, Lounge and Telekids:
RTL5:
RTL7: A different promo endboard and menu styles.
RTL8:
RTLZ: Interesting frame animation! Wonder if similar things can be used on their news.
RTL Crime: The strip animation reminds me of the BBC’s…
RTL Lounge:
RTL Telekids: Not sure if the reduction of the colours in their symbol is a good thing.
Some more changes coming on the Benelux borders today, as VRT Eén in Belgium is to be identified as VRT 1 again, 18 years after their change to the spelt-out name:
Judging from their Instagram promo (that weirdly isn’t on other social platforms), looks like the idents would be toying with various materials on the 1 numeral, a drizzle of celebrity faces, and a giant VRT symbol front and centre:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CrsKTv3M0ki/
[Update] Here they are, in glorious 16:9:
Looks a bit more fun than their predecessor, but announced on an awkward place as their Instagram and Facebook handles are still Eén, versus the rebranded one on Youtube.
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And here’s the final moments on the i-Cable TV channels (not exactly ending at the same moment).
Several things to note here:
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Top left: Cable News Channel, simulcasting the first few minutes of rolling news with Hoy Infotainment (Ch.78) and Cable Finance & Information Channel. Put the wrong breakoff card for a few seconds (intended for blocking footages usually related to sports rights), before showing the goodbye card and fading out the ticker.
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Top right: Cable Sports Channel, one of the crown jewels in the i-Cable package since the group’s genesis. In decline since mid-2000s, they still aired a final tribute to their legacy, the Hong Kong athletes, before bowing out with a tearful goodbye.
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Bottom left: Cable Family Entertainment Channel, one of the few i-Cable channels available FTA, pre-HoyTV, in selected areas. A repeat of old filler content, before showing their ident one final time.
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Bottom right: Cable HD Ch.603, more commonly known as Cable Channel 18, focused on racing content. Launched a bespoke box set and app streaming package after the closure announcement.
and the Finance channel simulcast:
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