Axed BBC3 wastes thousands on logo
THE BBC has spent ‘ hundreds of thousands’ on a bizarre new logo for a channel that is soon to be scrapped.
Even bosses at BBC3, the youth channel being moved online next month to save cash, admitted that their abstract design logo looked like a spoof.
The artwork features the BBC logo above two vertical lines and an exclamation mark, and has done away with the number three as a word or figure.
Yesterday BBC3’s head of marketing Nikki Carr said it is designed to ‘fit the digital world’, rather than being ‘something analogue just shoehorned into it’.
‘What is most striking is ... the fact it doesn’t actually say three,’ she said in a blog post. ‘We wanted to be bold and create something that ... will be around for years to come.’
The change comes as BBC3 is set to move from TV to online only on February 16. The corpo- ration says the move will free around £30million a year to be spent on drama.
Last night the logo was met with derision from licence fee payers and designers.
Many argued it looked too much like BBC2 in Roman numerals. Others pointed out the parallels with the spoof BBC3 l ogo designed in W1A, the BBC’s hit satirical comedy series about life at the corporation.
One W1A episode followed fictional PR firm ‘Perfect Curve’ as it launched a logo composed of three vertical bars. Echoing Miss Carr, the designer explained they wanted to do away with the letters ‘BBC’ in favour of something more suitable for the internet.
Yesterday, Miss Carr acknowledged the parallels – saying that ‘thanks to W1A we’re cursed at the BBC when it comes to marketing’ – but added that the BBC was ‘ not worried’ about the rebranding exercise.
But critics attacked the decision to splash out on a new logo.
Jono Read of the SaveBBC3 campaign said: ‘[It] flies in the face of BBC wanting to make savings by closing BBC3 on TV.’
The BBC would not disclose the exact cost of the rebrand, but experts said it was likely to run to hundreds of thousands of pounds. The project was led by Red Bee Media, whose previous rebrand of the channel in 2008 – which i ncluded a marketing campaign – cost £380,000.