BBC One Balloon Idents

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BBC One balloon ident over the Snowdonia national park.

The BBC Balloon launched at 7.05 am on Saturday, October 4 1997. It replaced the computer generated spinning globe which had been used as the main ident on BBC One since 1991. It launched the same day as the BBC rebranded, and thus the new idents also carried the new BBC logo, changing its name from BBC1 to BBC One.

The balloon idea was designed by the Lambie-Nairn design agency based in London. The balloon itself is predominantly red, with the map of the world picked out in orange. The clouds are overlaid on the globe in white. The original idents were filmed over six weeks in the summer of 1997 at various United Kingdom locations such as Eilean Donan Castle in Scotland, Swinside Stone Circle in Cumbria, the rooftops of Cardiff and Snowdonia in Wales.

To begin with, there were an unprecedented 47 ident sequences featuring the balloon floating serenely over British landscapes.

A year after it launched in 1998, a few more idents were added to the collection, this time featuring the balloon floating over The Needles on the Isle of Wight, the second Severn Bridge and St Michael's Mount in Cornwall. (The balloon was added digitally by computer and did not actually fly over those locations). With the launch of Sky Digital all idents were now transmitted in widescreen, and the number 888 for subtitles was changed to simply "Subtitles", as this covered both analogue and digital access to them. This was also added to other BBC channel idents.

In the same year, comedian Ben Elton spoofed the idents for the introduction of The Ben Elton Show, with the spoof idents often replacing the normal ones leading into the programme. The idents were also spoofed in the 1999 Hogmanay edition of the Scottish football comedy show Only An Excuse, which ended with a manipulated image of the balloon in which the top half was the head of commentator Chick Young.

In 2000, the BBC wanted the balloon idents to become more inclusive, so they introduced the 'lifestyle' idents. These featured skateboarders, a busy market scene, a bungee jumper and a carnival, all of which featured the balloon flying past in the background. The BBC's website was also added above the BBC One logo to all idents for the channel, as with the subtitles, and was also added to other BBC channels.

There were also many special idents made for new programmes, sporting events or, most notably, the Christmas holiday (however, the balloon was replaced by symbols in connection with the 12 Days of Christmas in 1997, and a giant red bauble in 1998). These included:

The 1999 eclipse of the sun (the balloon eclipsed it instead).
The 1999 BBC series Walking with Dinosaurs (the balloon flew over a desert wasteland as an Ankylosaurus walked into view).
The Euro 2000 football tournament (the balloon flew over a full stadium, where a goalkeeper lets a goal pass his net).
The 2000 Olympics in Sydney (the balloon was seen flying above the Sydney Opera House, while an athlete shone a flaming torch in its direction).
The 2001 BBC series The Blue Planet (the balloon was seen from underwater from a shark-infested sea).
The 2001 BBC series Walking with Beasts (similar to Walking with Dinosaurs, except the balloon flew over a land of ice and prehistoric woolly mammoths).
Christmas 1999 (the balloon flying alongside a holographic Santa Claus).
Christmas 2000 (the real Santa flies the balloon and delivers presents).
Christmas 2001 (three toys play around in a cosy room while the balloon floats by outside).

The three toys used in 2001 (produced by Aardman Animations) were all connected to BBC One's Christmas Day schedule that year, so there was a dog (the terrestrial premiere of Toy Story), a dinosaur (the dramatic epic The Lost World) and a Reliant Robin van (the comeback of Only Fools and Horses after it had last aired in 1996).

In 2002, and after much speculation, the BBC One balloon was replaced as the icon of the BBC's main television channel with a set of idents with the theme of 'Rhythm & Movement'. More controversially, the globe motif was dropped from the channel after 39 years. These new idents, featuring dancers dressed in red and white, were much disliked by critics of the BBC, many of whom accused the corporation of 'dumbing down' and becoming 'overly politically correct' for featuring idents with wheelchair users and ethnic minorities, as well as pointing out that the new idents had no uniting focal point other than the channel name displayed in a corner of the screen.

The BBC balloon last took to the skies in the summer of 2003 when it took part in the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta. It is now wrapped up and held in a museum by a preservation society.

A selection of all the BBC One Balloon idents

External links

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