Presentation changes during Easter Weekend

Easter Weekend might revive memories of a couple of mysteries from long ago.

The first is the mysterious revamp of the weekend BBC News bulletins in 1985. On Easter Saturday, the bulletins received what would now be called a “brand refresh”.

The background colour on the titles changed from burgundy to blue and a new set was introduced. The astons were also modified to include the BBC News logo.

It wasn’t a radical change but it was no bad thing to freshen up the look of the bulletins after three-and-a-half years.

RELATED ARTICLE: BBC One continuity followed by BBC News opening titles (25th December 1986).

The timing seemed strange though. The burgundy look was still in use on Good Friday.

Come Tuesday, you might have expected News After Noon and the Nine o’Clock News to have had similar revamps but it was very much business as usual. The Six had, of course, started the previous autumn and had its own visual style.

So what was going on?

At a guess, the decision to refresh the look of the bulletins might have been taken before the decision to give the Nine an overhaul later in the year. There would have been no point playing around with the set and titles five months before a radical change.

Following on from this, the decision was taken to temporarily keep News After Noon as it was.

In September the Nine received a radical makeover with two presenters, computer graphics and its own music and titles. News After Noon then adopted the same blue generic look as the weekends.

RELATED ARTICLE: BBC One continuity followed by BBC Nine o’Clock News opening titles (20th January 1987).

The other little mystery concerns Easter 1986. The new BBC Two “TWO” ident was introduced that day. But clips have recently appeared which show the previous ident in use that afternoon.

It seems the new ident was introduced at some point during the day – maybe in the 7.15pm junction?

It was not unusual for the BBC to change idents like this – it happened on BBC One in 1981, 1985 and – er – earlier this month.

But can anyone solve the mystery from 1986?

Acknowledgements