Back in 2000-2001, British 24hr science fiction channel Sci-Fi (now Sky Sci-Fi) had made a strange and surreal “Plug In” campaign.
An old intro of a German morning magazine called Guten Morgen Deutschland in 1994.
Its logo looked like Seven Nightly News, the clock was similar to the BBC’s Breakfast News and the sweet-natured music (composed by Frank Gari) was repurposed by TV One in New Zealand for its Breakfast program in 1997.
1 Like
December 1971. Rede Globo presents its traditional “Retrospectiva” program to review the year’s top stories. The style of this open is very groovy and psychedelic. Lots of pop artworks and music from Emerson, Lake & Palmer that fit properly with those times.
It was 25 years ago this week (3 April 2000) when those graphics and theme hit TV screens for the first time. The energetic sound brand was created by Sergio Vainikoff (again!), which had a “sports” vibe (he composed many themes for Torneos y Competencias for over two decades).
Vainikoff also made Telefe’s sound bumpers for its new idents, launched on that same day. Those were very soft and relaxing, like the announcer’s voice. I still can’t understand why the #1 network in the country chose to slow down for a while after 10 years with a cheerful and glossy appearance. Even the animation was minimal.
1 Like
The idents were created by Guillermo Stein’s practice Steinbranding. And yes, it was a real shock to see Telefe slowing down after 10 years, but worth noting the station and its affiliates had just been taken over by Telefónica, which placed the company under the oversight of its newly-created Telefónica Media division, later Admira Media. However, I don’t think this had to do with the unexpected rebrand.
The idents were tweaked in January 2001, to add the station’s new slogan: “Telefe, un sentimiento”. These tweaked idents, which reused cues composed by Vainikoff for the channel during the late 90s, ran for two months, and by March, these were replaced by new idents by Steinbranding, featuring new cues from Vainikoff himself. This change coincided with Telefe unifying the branding of its O&O stations.
By that spring, however, the idents were changed again: wanting to capitalise on the “Un sentimiento” campaign, the network commissioned singer-songwriter and TV presenter Manuel Wirzt to write, compose and sing a promo image song for the channel.
Despite the network being still number one in the ratings, it was clear these branding changes were a very odd fit for a lively and populist network. By Spring 2002, the “Un sentimiento” brand was dispensed in favour of “Telefe, Siempre”, an in-house job which modernised the network’s brand whilst embracing its cheerful brand equity. Once again, Vainikoff was in charge of the jingle.
Here’s one of Vainikoff’s more recent works: the 2013 theme used by the Fútbol para Todos programme initiative:
Fútbol para Todos was an initiative by the Kirchnerist governments to make Argentinian soccer accessible for free to the entire nation, using the resources of Canal 7/TV Pública to broadcast these matches nationally; some other national stations, including various pro-Kirchner outlets, also broadcast some of the matches. The move was caused by a financial dispute with Torneos y Competencias over paying the rights to the 2009 season earlier, over some financial woes by some squads; TyC rejected to pay early, allowing the Government to take over after paying 600 million Argentine pesos. This led to a lawsuit which has not been so far resolved.
Despite the lawsuit, the Government contracted Torneos to produce the matches; all interested parties were able to sign contracts with the Government free of charge on the condition of broadcasting the signal as provided by Torneos and TV Pública. Though it had exclusive sponsors during its latter years, the broadcasts were mostly commercial-free, with Government propaganda airing during intervals. Most of the commentators were often related with, and/or supported the Kirchner government. Despite its success in both ratings and coverage, opposition politicians strongly singled out and took notice of the political use of the broadcasts.
After a two year transition period, the Macri government decided to nix the initiative in 2017 and allowed the AFA to reinstate the pre-2009 model of premium pay-TV broadcasts, and retender the rights to any interested party; these rights were eventually sold to Fox and Turner, which created two new PPV/premium channels and teamed up to sell them in a single premium pack.
2 Likes
In 1994, Singapore’s Channel 5 underwent a major rebrand as part of a shift to an exclusively Anglophone service, alongside the planned privatization of the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation (now MediaCorp). American graphic design company Novocom was hired to produce the look, and the channel adopted Gari Communications’ “Where It All Happens” music package.
This was particularly evident in their newscasts, which were split into 7pm and 10:30pm bulletins, known as News 5 at Seven (aimed at late workers who might have missed the previous 9pm bulletins) and News 5 Tonight (aimed at late night viewers) (unfortunately, the idea of a News 5 at Five missed them by a mile). They were later joined by what appeared to be a midday bulletin, News 5 Today, around next year (records seem spotty).
The graphics underwent modification that year, and the music was replaced with what seemed to be in-house compositions. “Where It All Happens” seemed to have returned by 1998, and remained in use until 2001. News 5 Today and News 5 at Seven were axed by 1999, and News 5 Tonight was moved to 9:30pm, where it remains to this day.
Recently uploaded to YouTube are two bulletins from October 1994, perhaps the height of this American-styled presentation: the 1 October edition of News 5 Tonight presented by Duncan Watt and Karen Ann Lam with Bertrand Bartlett on sports (top stories peacekeeping problems, an art outreach in Egypt, and an investment education program) and the 10 October edition of News 5 at Seven presented by Nicolette Tjoa and Christine Tan (top stories Singapore’s first gold at the Asian Games in 12 years and a report on strokes), followed by a promo for that day’s News 5 Tonight:
1 Like
A compilation of news opens from the defunct Valencian public TV network Canal Nou, launched on 9 October 1989 and shut down on 29 November 2013 due to financial reasons.
1 Like
In the UK in 2006, Player was a subscription TV channel showing sports and for some reason, action movies, then the same year, it changed its name to Bravo 2, a spin-off to men’s interest channel, Bravo, then it died in 2010.
2 Likes
1985: 40 years ago, the BBC introduced computer-generated graphics for its weather reports. YouTuber Adam Martyn explains one of the biggest changes underwent by the Beeb.
3 Likes
I’m a big fan of Adam’s channel. He produces some very fascinating stuff.
1 Like
Surprisingly, the aggresive format for Telefe’s newscasts returned in 2006, as the channel tried to be more competitive in the evenings by moving the nightly edition to 8pm (the start time of its archrival Telenoche). On Monday 13 November that year, a newsroom-studio was unveiled, along with new graphics. The main edition adopted a bold package with orchestral rock cuts, while the lunchtime and late-night bulletins kept their legendary 2002-03 themes.
The Marmol-Petrozzino duo remained as bosses, injecting a lot of “action” into the news: that meant more crime, sports, topical and gossip stories. Even the editing of some reports was very flashy!
1 Like
They’re ok, but too often they’re just rip and reads from RXTV with little original content.
Recently stumbled on this Spanish Youtuber introducing two old ‘interactive TV’ devices in the early 90s, as in “pressing buttons to something on TV other than change channels”…
This was Tele 5’s Teletrébol from 1993, with short quizzes held in the middle of a show to promote the gadget. Viewers would then press the (not even IR) remote for answer, phone a premium rate line and play the data recorded inside the remote, to determine if you’re the first to buzz in. A lot of room for data collection and fraud, from the premium rate number, ‘activation’ via membership and the resulting ‘winner’ had to go to court to get their prize.
The same gadget was launched in France two years prior, jointly by Antenne 2 and FR3, as Quizako, largely for edutainment shows. Interestingly, a different device, Multipoints, was developed for another Channel 5 in the Berlusconi family - La Cinq - before handing to FTV.
1993 also saw TVE with their Telepick, a device that was more technologically advanced (and more expensive) than Teletrébol. Shaped like a set-top box, it had a modem and a thermal printer built in, for viewers to receive and print information like recipes during a TV show. Like Teletrébol, it could let viewers participate in surveys and prized quizzes too.
It’s a bizarre combination in today’s eyes, a mark of a time when the internet was in its infancy and computer hardware was busy playing catch-up to cash in on the ‘information super highway’. Telepick was obviously one of the losers, with their customer service number now reused in a petrol station.
It’s fun to see how the definition for ‘interactive TV’ changed throughout the decade, since where I live also had a try with it later, as an early attempt to VOD, e-banking and e-commerce - a much broader vision than pressing buttons, but just a few years apart. Would like to write something about it here in the future…
With all of them failed, seems like its actual functionality was much narrower than the marketing and R&D people in telcos and broadcasters could come up…
1 Like
Sounds familiar… 
One singular thing about British television is how they covered sports. For years, the BBC and ITV had specific out-of-vision announcers who just read results of soccer games without commenting about them! Australian-born Len Martin did the honors for the Beeb and Bob Colston read at ITV. Here are examples of both at work:
That style was parodied by a familiar comedian before he switched to the medical profession
2 Likes
Even Mel Smith put his two cents in
YouTube: stuffthefrankie
4 Likes
24 years ago this week: Canal 13 Buenos Aires’ sign-on with soft music (time and temperature displayed on the screen), public information films, appeals and bits of that channel’s gorgeous (and never unmatched) 2001 visual package. One of my personal favourites! 
The odd BBC LDN brand was not the original plan that the BBC had initially designed. The plans dated back to 2000, when the BBC decided to spend lots of money on renaming its local radio station Greater London Radio (or GLR for short) as BBC London Live 94.9. Though initially launched with much fanfare in 1988, becoming an alternative to the increasingly commercially-focused Independent Local Radio station Capital FM (from which initial controller Matthew Bannister came) and a major discovery and rediscovery ground for many radio and TV personalities (e.g. Chris Evans, Danny Baker, Janice Long, Bob Harris…), the local station had become very low rated compared to the commercial networks, with threats of closure despite a loyal listenership.
Additionally, the changes were part of a major BBC reform on local broadcasting for the South East region, which had been designed as part of a consultation in 1999. Historically, the South East region included, alongside Kent, Sussex and Surrey counties, both London and the Home Continues, including Oxford, and, prior to 1993, East Sussex (from that year, the county switched to BBC South content from Southampton); prior to 1989, there was no regional division inside the BBC that would produce regional content, with the few local news bulletins produced as part of the BBC’s Current Affairs division from the Lime Grove studios (integrated within the fold of Nationwide).
However, the lack of local news bulletins started to be addressed from 1982, with the launch of South East at Six, which had a separate branding and content (despite being still tightly connected to Nationwide and its successor Sixty Minutes), then from 1984, a proper news service in London Plus (with short daytime news bulletins also included, not unlike other BBC regions). However, in March 1989, a dedicated operation was launched, under the name Newsroom South East; to avoid perception of London centricity, the operation was deliberately based at the BBC Elstree Centre in Hertfordshire.
However, the operation was still far from ideal, due to the large region, which led to few operative centres and teams in the rest of the region. As such, after the results of the consultation, the region was heavily reduced from 2000: the Oxford county would receive an opt-out from South Today whilst remaining closely connected to the Southampton production, whilst London would have, for the first time, its own separate region, with the South East region limited to Kent, Sussex (including East Sussex, whose transmitter returned to South East oversight) and Surrey, based out of Royal Turnbridge Wells.
The first step was to launch the new BBC London Live 94.9 station, a change which ocurred on March 27, 2000 at 6am. Unlike GLR, which had an adult album alternative style with emphasis on local musicians and even some specialist music (primarily black music), BBC London Live was nearly entirely speech-based, competing with commercial station LBC, though with the difference of dedicating more time to covering specialist and minority-related issues (unlike LBC, which was and still is a chiefly talkback-based station).
New presenters like Vanessa Feltz, Lisa l’Anson, Eddie Nestor and Dotun Adebayo were also hired as part of the change. New jingles produced by Vibe Music and Audio Imaging, which included a distinct four-note sounder, were also introduced. The launch was marked by a high-budget (up to 20 million pounds) campaign which depicted various London landmarks as radio paraphernalia; the high cost of the campaign led to sound compliants from various licence fee critics.
Whilst the radio station remained located at a former Radio Times warehouse at Marylebone High Street at the West End, the TV side was initially planned to remain housed at the Elstree Centre newsroom and studio inherited from Newsroom South East (with all and a cookie-cutter Simon Jago regional studio set); however, the facility was still 4:3 in its production facilities and it was needed to be adapted to widescreen. The TV news bulletin would be initially named “London Live”, though with BBC News corporate branding: in fact, Lambie-Nairn had produced some regional-style openers, but with a very different flair (much lighter), and with the same David Lowe music used for the non-national openers. However, despite these decisions being made, the BBC had already other plans.
By 2001, the BBC had started rebuilding the Marylebone High Street facility to house a new “tri-media” experiment which was hailed as “the future of its newsgathering and output”. As such, the radio station, the TV bulletins and the London website would be unified under a single “BBC LDN” identity. Though the radio stations retained its own format and content, despite continuing to struggle in the ratings, new shows led by Danny Baker, Amy Lamé and Tony Blackburn became part of the radio station’s schedule.
As for the TV show, its style of branding and presentation was to be very distinctive from the other BBC regional newscasts: in fact, unlike the tight newsreader presentation and the cookie-cutter Simon Jago set designs, BBC LDN used the Marylebone High Street newsroom as the centrepiece of its production, down to having the entire building connected in a Citytv-like way, allowing to broadcast from nearly every point in the building; the soft set at the ground floor even had a fishtank. The programme aired in widescreen from the outset, unlike Newsroom South East, which remained in 4:3 until moving out of Elstree in the weeks prior to the launch of the new service. The Elstree newsroom was retained as a bureau, whilst launching new local bureaus in Ealing, Brixton and Thurrock to cover these suburban areas.
Presenters like Emily Maitlis, Gillian Joseph, Nina Hossein, Mike Ramsfield and Jules Botfield presented the bulletins standing up, talking to reporters from various newsroom positions, and making periodic “visits” into the BBC LDN radio studios. Specialist presenters for sport (Mark Bright) and entertainment (Brenda Emmanus) were also brought to present each segment in a casual way.
The opening titles, developed by Charlotte Castle at Lambie-Nairn, were very different from the cookie-cutter regional news branding; in fact, these used lots of black-and-white footage directed by Gideon Southwell, portraying day to day life in the city by placing emphasis on showing locations and people, punctuated with accents from the distinctive BBC News red hue; bespoke music from David Lowe, which included the radio station’s four-note sounder whilst remaining closely connected to the BBC News corporate branding and sound, was also commissioned. Vibe Music and Audio Imaging, later renamed Music 4, also worked very closely with Lowe to create new radio imaging for the renamed station which could be aligned with the overall “tri-media” strategy and the TV news programme.
As previously told, the new BBC South East offering was very distinct from the prior Newsroom South East, with its coverage chiefly oriented to the Home Counties, with news oriented to this region. As such, the BBC invested heavily in building new studios and facilities inside the then-recently refurbished Great Hall in Royal Turnbridge Wells, a major historic building which had been used for various uses until a fire destroyed it in 1980. By then, the building had been converted into a mixed-use development, including offices and shops.
The new South East Today, unlike BBC LDN, was a cookie-cutter BBC News regional operation, with all and graphics and sets aligned with the corporate branding. However, the studio was located inside the newsroom, leading to parts of the programme being presented opposite the studio set, with the newsroom part facing to the studio adapted to fit with the cookie-cutter set design, and the newsroom itself was also a “tri-media” regional operation which brought together the teams from Radio Kent (whose studios were based on the ground floor of the refurbished building) and the TV news operation. The broadcast also aired in widescreen from the start.
To bring familiarity to the new service, the BBC brought back Laurie Mayer as main anchor of the new TV programmes, having already being familiar to viewers of the region as anchor of South East at Six. However, his tenure was cut short after his resignation in 2002, citing a culture of bullying at management level in the department, and triggering a lawsuit which the BBC won, and for which Mayer appealed unsuccesfully.
Eventually, a BBC LDN-style opener sequence was decided for a refresh of the English regions’ news shows in late 2002. Again, Charlotte Castle and Gideon Southwell were in charge of working on these new openers, in an enormous effort which involved filming in over 70 locations and delivering for 21 programmes. David Lowe remixed his English regions theme by making it longer and lighter in style. Most regions debuted the new look openers on September 16 that year.
However, most regions had started within one or two years to alter or change their openers: many regions began using the BBC LDN music, either in the original version, or in a slight altered version with a different sonic signature, whilst continuing to use the 2002 openers. Others changed to BBC LDN-style openers with appropriate imagery and titles, though many of these continued to use the 2002 music, whilst others using BBC LDN music, or even custom cuts (e.g. Points West used a distinct theme which was produced by BBC staff).
This came as BBC regions were investing on “tri-media” facilities to replace aging studios, particularly in public mixed-use areas which could allow for public interaction. Some facilities were also upgraded to film their news and regional content in widescreen despite plans already eye-marked for moving into new spaces later in that same decade.
Even London was set to move away from Marylebone…
1 Like