[bilky asko]

U&W should just be called Treble-U

[VMPhil]

U&W should just be called Treble-U

This is one is by far the most ridiculous- I can’t believe this made it through to approval.

[aaron_scotland]

Did they get the branding team from W1A in to do this? This is easily the worst rebrand I've ever heard.

[Kunst]

OK, I'm out (or oUt).

What are they thinking?

[Kunst]

Not great, is it? I certainly can't imagine anyone using the names like "U&Yesterday".

I can see why they're trying to do something. The UKTV brand was pretty well known originally in the days of UK Gold, UK Style and so on. But then when they moved on to individual channel brands it meant that some like Dave became incredibly successful while others like W were less so, but the UKTV branding itself fell into the background. In this age when broadcasters are trying to push their streaming services I can understand the attempt to make that overarching brand more prominent.

But I'm not so sure "U" is a good idea. I like the channels so good luck to them, I hope it does well, but I feel it somehow manages to both be quite bizzare and at the same time quite forgettable.

Why are many UK channels so obsessed about having the corporate name in the channel name? In the case of Sky and a few others, I'm OK with that, but not everything has to become standardized!

Many American channels (for instance) live easily without that and have an established identity while retaining corporate and cross promotions when needed; I think UKTV channels already pushes UKTV quite a bit.
Think of Syfy, MTV, Comedy Central, Cartoon Network and a few others
There's no need to rebrand everything to "UKTV"; certainly not worth it losing the individual identity of each channel, at least for me

And certainly not for U& (?)

[Brekkie]

Didn't realise they were rebranding the channels too - just assumed U&Dave etc. would be how they're referred to in the streaming app, not on the channel too.

Presumably the pay TV operation will remain classed as UKTV then with no name changes. I get they might want more distinction between the two sides of the business but this is the messiest way to do it.

[VMPhil]

How we mocked though when they announced Dave, but that was replacing a clumsy channel name (UKTV G2) and needing to get noticed on Freeview.  Feels like UKTV is a recognisable enough brand for people to connect to their content - and it feels like it's got a bit of heritage behind it too.  I get what they're trying to do with U&Drama etc - but that ideas works just as well, if not better, as UKTV&Drama.

I mean - that was the point of the Dave launch wasn't it, to get everyone's attention with a quirky name, but luckily they built a successful channel and brand around it. They then applied that strategy to all their other channels, with mixed results.

The UK/UKTV prefixes were okay because the channel names then were broadly just descriptors of the type of programming on each channel (excluding Arena/Horizons, leftover names from when they were originally going to be BBC branded) - Style, Gardens, Drama, Documentaries, People, Food. They just weren't memorable and didn't really need to be under a unified brand because the audience for each channel was different.

This is just a really messy attempt to have the quirky individual channel brands AND attach the corporate identity to them as well - like trying to have their cake and eat it too.

[Roger Darthwell]

This rebrand is quite frankly one of the daftest things I have ever heard........

[mixchris]

I can understand the necessary realisation of uniting their portfolio under one "brand" akin to ITV, BBC, Channel 4 however I don't think this is the best way to go.

U&Yesterday? U&W? they sound dire, and just weakens the brand(s) they've built successfully for years after dropping their old channel names UKTV History etc. U&Dave just weakens the ever successful "home of Witty Banter" Dave brand too. Of course they won't do a UTurn on this but as if someone thought this was a great idea.

The "U" even looks like the UTV logo.

[James2001]

One other question, will they finally fix the de-interlacing and zooming problem that's been affecting newly acquired SD programmes for the last year?