[nwtv2003]

Does anyone else think they are testing the water before they actually go through with it? Normally these type of rebrands are usually announced a couple of weeks before, but there’s still some time to go yet, and they’re only rebranding the FTA channels in the first phase. Something doesn’t sit right with me. (Or I’m being cynical)

They had a perfectly good UKTV brand between 1997 and 2004, the UK prefixes were simple and effective, and you knew exactly what the brands stood for. UKTV branding afterwards was just a mouthful. The rebrand of G2 to Dave was genius and it worked very well for them, but I just think they got a bit cocky thinking the same concept would work for all channels, and it didn’t. (See G.O.L.D for best example of this.) I get why they did it, but it really diluted the UKTV brand. From the time they started putting UKTV on the DOGs at the start of a programme or part, this I think was when they really started to introduce the UKTV brand properly.

U, just doesn’t seem to work. You can have a broadcaster with a set of channels that don’t share a brand and still be successful. Paramount and Discovery are the best examples of this.

It might look good on screen, but it just seems such a mouthful and all a tad pointless.