BBC News; not 24
Monday, 21 April 2008
BBC News 24 is dead. It’s a shocking thing but they’ve got rid of the 24 part, so now it’s just “BBC News”.
I’m going to stick my neck out with a controversial statement here: News 24 was actually quite a good name. “BBC News” is just confusing because if you mention it, it isn’t clear whether you’re referring to the channel or to the wider concept of news across the BBC schedules. But branding consultants are duty bound to fix things that aren’t broke, so there you have it.
Perhaps inevitably, one of the befuddled presenters this morning used the phrase “BBC News Channel” to describe his place of work. This has unfortunate echoes of ITV News Channel and ITV Sport Channel, both of which failed, the latter with extreme collateral damage. One can only assume he had his knuckles rapped for that particular betrayal of brand coherence.
The One O’ Clock bulletin was also introduced as the “BBC News at One” this lunchtime, while the same structure will apply to the 6pm and 10pm bulletins - meaning both ITV and BBC will have a News at Ten. Again, confusion will surely reign, so a pat on the back for all concerned.
No. 1 — April 23rd, 2008 at 8:21 am
If they were proper branding consultants, they would have created a name that meant nothing (or at least nothing that might hint at the identity or content of the product): see Consignia, Accenture, Dave (a TV station, m’lud). They should have called it Flunt, or Plish-Norg or Bababababababababashwooo.
No. 2 — April 23rd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Or Sky.
No. 3 — April 25th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
As a regular viewer of BBC News 24, as was, I hadn’t even noticed it had been rebranded. So licence-payers money well spent I reckon.