This article's lead sectionmay be too short to adequately summarize the key points. Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of all important aspects of the article.(December 2021)
BBC Prime officially started at 7:00pm GMT on Thursday, 26 January 1995 when the former BBC World Service Television was officially opening to split into two separate television stations:
BBC World (since renamed BBC News): 24-hour English free-to-air terrestrial international news channel: news bulletins, information, business and financial news magazines and current affairs programmes on 26 January 1995.
BBC Prime (since replaced by BBC Entertainment): 24-hour English cable lifestyle, variety and entertainment channel: variety, culture, leisure, lifestyle, art and light entertainment programmes on 30 January 1995.[1]
The goal was part of a new BBC strategy for Europe, in which the former service was to be split and given over to European Channel Management, the joint-venture created with Pearson. The goal was to reach 10 million households in Europe by year-end 1995; the existing service reached 2.3 million households.[2] 75% of the output was drawn in from the BBC, while the remaining 25% came from Thames.[3][4]
On 4 March 1999, BBC Prime launched in sub-Saharan Africa, on the DStv platform.[5]
Programming
The channel broadcast drama, comedy and lifestyle programmes which it repeated on a monthly basis. Every day since the channel's 2000 rebrand, it allocated six hours per day to educational programmes from BBC Learning (shown in the European small hours, between 01:00 and 07:00 CET); this practice was abandoned on 23 July 2006 "with the intention of improving the relevance and appeal of the channel to the widest audience".[6] It also included a special children's strand, using the CBBC brand and idents, by the name of CBBC on BBC Prime, or CBBC Prime.
When it first launched, BBC Prime also carried programming from the former ITV company Thames Television, since BBC Worldwide had a joint venture with Thames's parent company, Pearson and Cox Communications, known as European Channel Management.[7] This was dissolved in 1998, when the BBC became the sole owner of the channel, as its sister service BBC World was struggling financially. Pearson and Cox, on their behalf, were heavily dissatisfied with the BBC's management ethos.[8]
BBC Prime explained their decision to schedule older programmes in addition to newer ones: "For the majority of our viewers, who are European and African nationals, this is the first chance to see these programmes, and often the only way to view them."[9]
Funding
Unlike the BBC's domestic channels, and some of their foreign channels paid for by the UK Foreign Office, BBC Prime was funded by subscription available either as part of a satellite package or as a stand-alone channel. It was also funded by adverts placed on the channel in breaks, and because of this, it was not available in the UK. Much of BBC Prime's programming was available to watch through BBC One, Two or the UKTV network, part owned by the BBC and showing archive programming.
Presentation
BBC Prime's first ident consisted of five different diamonds shining, at first by each other, and then all of them, in a black background, with the BBC Prime logo placed in the bottom right corner. The logo at the time had the BBC logo, with "Prime" written in all capitals below in the Trajan Bold font. The ident had another version which had a jazz-styled music.
After the BBC went on its major rebrand, on 4 October 1997, BBC Prime rebranded for the first time. The logo now had the BBC blocks, with "Prime" in all capitals in the Gill Sans font next to it. The idents were designed by Martin Lambie-Nairn (along with the whole 1997 BBC branding) and start with epileptic water scenes with full of colours, before settling on the main part of the ident, which features the water in a blue to orange gradient with ripples and two marbles, reflected and inverted by each other. The logo is placed at the bottom.
On 4 December 2000, BBC Prime rebranded for the second time, also created by Lambie-Nairn. The idents were known as "Festival" and featured cartoon draws of famous UK sights, like the Big Ben, the Tower Bridge or the Stonehenge, shooting fireworks, followed by the looped, 15-second long sequence with exploding firework animations. The idents had a xylophone-and-trumpet music, with firework sounds playing in the background. Like the 1997 idents, the logo is placed at the bottom.[10]
BBC Prime's final rebrand took place on 23 July 2006 with BBC Learning's discontinuation. The logo featured the 1997 logo being placed inside a turquoise circle (although the 1997 logo remained in use as the DOG). The idents consisted of differently coloured circles as people who do different situations, like going on a rollercoaster, jumping and swimming in the pool, or the grass being clipped with a lawnmower. These idents were used until BBC Prime was completely replaced by BBC Entertainment on 11 November 2009.
In Gibraltar, GBC relayed BBC Prime on its VHF and UHF channels with opt-outs.[11] The terrestrial simulcast was cut in 1999 due to scheduling problems at GBC.[12]
The South Africa service was launched in 1999 and contained some different programmes to that broadcast in Europe, due to some programmes already being licensed to other channels.
The Asia service was launched on 1 December 2004 and had a different schedule to that of the Europe service to reflect the different time zones, and cultural practices. It was available in Hong Kong (on Now TV's Channel 529), Thailand (on TrueVisions' (Channel 35), Singapore (on StarHub TV's Channel 76) and South Korea (on Skylife's Channel 334).
In order to cater to a wider audience, who do not have English as their first language, BBC Prime carried subtitles in Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Czech, Polish, Romanian, Hungarian, Italian, Hebrew and Serbian. The Asian service also had subtitles in Chinese, Thai, and Korean.
A similar channel, called BBC Japan, launched in Japan on 1 December 2004, but ceased broadcasting on 30 April 2006 owing to problems with its local distributor.
In September 2006 it was announced that the BBC Prime brand was to be phased out and replaced by BBC Entertainment, one of a number of new international channels planned by BBC Worldwide.[13]
The process began with the Asian services, which switched on 6 October 2006, followed by the South African service on 1 September 2008.[14] BBC Prime was completely replaced by BBC Entertainment on 11 November 2009.[15]
Notes
↑ "BBC World 1995". TVARK. Archived from the original on 18 March 2012. Retrieved 18 September 2011. Contains video of pre-launch caption, and of the simultaneous launch of BBC World and BBC Prime.
U&Gold is a British premium television channel from the UKTV network that was launched in late 1992 as UK Gold before it was rebranded UKTV Gold in 2004. In 2008, it was split into current flagship channel Gold and miscellaneous channel, W, with classic comedy based programming now airing on Gold, non-crime drama and entertainment programming airing on W, and quiz shows and more high-brow comedy airing on Dave. It shows repeats of classic programming from the BBC, ITV and other broadcasters. Every December, from 2015 until 2018, the channel was temporarily renamed Christmas Gold. This has since been discontinued, although the channel still continues to broadcast Christmas comedy.
CBeebies is a British free-to-air public broadcast children's television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is also the brand used for all BBC content targeted for children aged six years and under. Its sister channel, CBBC, is intended for older children aged six to twelve. It broadcasts every day from 6:00 am to 7:00 pm, timesharing with BBC Four.
Good Food is a retired subscription cookery channel broadcasting in the United Kingdom and Ireland, latterly as part of the Discovery, Inc. network of channels. The channel originally launched on 5 November 2001 and relaunched in its final format on 22 June 2009. Good Food was available on satellite through Sky, on cable through Virgin Media, and through IPTV with TalkTalk TV, BT TV. From 2015 to 2018, Good Food was temporarily rebranded as Christmas Food.
Blighty was a British pay television channel broadcasting as part of the UKTV network of channels. The channel was originally launched on 8 March 2004.
BBC World Service Television, often abbreviated to WSTV, was the name of two BBC international satellite television channels between 1991 and 1995. It was the BBC's first foray into worldwide television broadcasting. In Europe, it was the successor to BBC TV Europe, which it replaced on 11 March 1991. The service was also launched in Asia as a 24-hour news and information service with minor differences, a precursor to BBC World News, launched on 14 October 1991.
The BBC One Balloon idents were a series of idents used on the British TV channel BBC One from 4 October 1997 to 28 March 2002. The balloon theme replaced the computer-generated spinning globe that had been used as the main ident on the channel since 1991, and marked a radical departure from the traditional spinning globe which had been the channel's primary identity since 1963. It launched on the same day as a BBC-wide rebrand, and thus the new idents also carried the new BBC logo. The channel's name also changed from BBC1 to BBC One. This was the last ident set used by the channel when it fully closed down; the last proper closedown took place in the evening hours of 8 November 1997. Starting the following evening, BBC News 24 would broadcast on BBC One during closedown, which continues today.
Discovery Real Time was a British television channel owned by Discovery Networks UK focused on educational and learning content.
The BBC Learning Zone was an educational strand run by the BBC as an overnight service on BBC Two. It broadcast programming aimed at students in Primary, Secondary and Higher Education as well as to adult learners. Viewers are encouraged to watch programmes after the original broadcast via the use of, originally VHS, then later DVD. In 2015, the BBC confirmed that due to budget cuts, the service would no longer be running.
More4 is a British free-to-air television channel, owned by Channel Four Television Corporation. The channel launched on 10 October 2005. Its programming mainly focuses on lifestyle and documentaries, as well as foreign dramas.
The history of BBC television idents begins in the early 1950s when the BBC first displayed a logo between programmes to identify its service. As new technology has become available, these devices have evolved from simple still black and white images to the sophisticated full colour short films seen today. With the arrival of digital services in the United Kingdom, and with them many more new channels, branding is perceived by broadcasters to be much more important, meaning that idents need to stand out from the competition.
Nick Jr. is a British/Irish pay television channel owned and operated by Paramount Networks UK & Australia. The channel is aimed at preschool children. It is the first ever full-day preschool-oriented TV channel in the United Kingdom and all of Europe, having launched on 1 September 1999.
The BBC Two 1991–2001 idents were broadcast from 16 February 1991 until 19 November 2001, and again from 9 July 2014 until 26 September 2018, on BBC Two in the United Kingdom. The idents, which consisted of a sans-serif '2' in Gill Sans, accompanied by the colour viridian, were created by branding agency Lambie-Nairn, who also created the Channel 4 logo.
U&W is a British free-to-air television channel owned by UKTV, a subsidiary of BBC Studios. It originally launched on 7 October 2008 as Watch and until 2022 was a pay television channel. From 15 February 2016 to 16 July 2024, the channel was known as W.
Martin John Lambie-Nairn was an English designer. He was the founder of his branding agency Lambie-Nairn and was the creative director of branding agency ML-N. He is recognised for having redefined television brand identity design, being the first to embrace computer technologies to apply branding to screen-based media.
The logo of the BBC has been a brand identity for the corporation and its work since the 1950s in a variety of designs. Until the introduction of a logo in 1958, the corporation had relied on its coat of arms for official documentation and correspondence, although it rarely appeared onscreen. With the increased role of television for the BBC in the 1960s, particularly after the foundation of the ITV network, the corporation used its logo to increase viewer familiarity and to standardise its image and content. The logo has since been redesigned a number of times, most recently in 2021 with the BBC blocks, a logo designed to work across media. From 1958, there have been six different BBC logos. The first logo of the network was used from 1958 to 1963, the second from 1963 to 1971, the third from 1971 to 1992, the fourth from 1988 to 1997, the fifth from 1997 to 2021, while the sixth and current logo was adopted in October 2021.
BBC Schools, also known as BBC for Schools and Colleges or BBC Education, is the educational programming strand set up by the BBC in 1957, broadcasting a range of educational programmes for children aged 5–16. From launch until June 1983, programming was based on BBC1 during the daytime, apart from coverage of major news events which saw the programmes shifted to BBC2. In September 1983, programming was transferred permanently to BBC2 freeing BBC1 to develop its own daytime schedule. The strand, named Daytime on Two, remained on BBC Two until March 2010, later supplemented by the 'Class TV' strand on CBBC.
Throughout the years, Children's BBC, and later CBBC and CBeebies, have used a number of different identities. The branding of the stranded service is distinctive both in the past and at present.
The presentation and the identities of the BBC News channel in the UK alongside its international counterpart and the BBC Parliament coverage channel use specific identities that demonstrate their remit and purpose.
HGTV is a British free-to-air interior home and garden-orientated lifestyle television channel broadcasting in the United Kingdom and Ireland, currently owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The channel originally launched on 1 November 1997 as UK Style and then was rebranded to Home on 30 April 2009 and was rebranded to its current form on 21 January 2020. HGTV is broadcast 24 hours a day on Sky. UK Style was transmitted by terrestrial provider ITV Digital 24 hours a day until the company's collapse in 2002. After a slight rebrand to UKTV Style, the channel made a return to terrestrial screens for a time in the mid-2000s as part of the now-defunct Top Up TV system. Before 2016, HGTV was a pay channel. Home became available as a free-to-air linear service on Freeview from 1 March 2016.
This is a timeline of the broadcasting of schools programmes on television in the UK.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
