ABC logo change sparks national fear!

Well haven’t things got into a spin for our national broadcaster Aunty ABC?

There has been speculation for some time that ABC was planning a visual revamp of its two television channels – the traditional channel known to many simply as ‘Channel 2’ but branded as ABC, and the relatively new digital-only channel ABC2. With analogue transmissions to be phased out over the coming years, it was evident that a more streamlined approach was needed in marketing ABC’s two channels and also any new ones that might be around the corner (such as the oft-talked about children’s channel ABC3).

Then last weekend some snapshots of the new name and logo for the main channel were leaked to some websites (for example TV Tonight, The (Unofficial) ABC Blog, Wikipedia) which showed that the traditional ABC channel was to be re-badged ABC1 but more significantly was to give a reduced (if not non-existent) profile of the iconic ABC corporate logo.

Then the newspaper The Australian ran a story its front page today about the change, and in doing so sparked a national outcry of fear that the iconic ABC logo of more than forty years was going to be discarded in favour of the new ABC1 (and ABC2) identities.

ABC’s TV chief Kim Dalton was quick to respond, saying that the ABC logo is here to stay and will complement the new ABC channels’ identity.