1997-99 1999-2003 2003-08 2008-date

BBC News 24 relaunched on 21st April 2008, the most controversial change being the ditching of the brand built up over the past decade with the renaming of the channel to simply 'BBC News'. In practice this means it is now referred to as the 'BBC News channel'. Hmmm...

The new title sequence is identical to that seen on BBC1 - and if it appears reminiscent of the 1999 relaunch of BBC News, this is no coincidence - the relaunch has been overseen by Lambie-Nairn, who designed the 1999 look.

Further blurring the lines between the 24 hour rolling news channel and news bulletins on BBC1, BBC News 24...sorry, BBC News, has moved into the same studio as BBC News. (See how confusing it's going to get?) As part of a round of cost cuts, the news channel has moved from its home of nearly ten years, N8, into N6 which it now shares with the One and Ten O'Clock News and weekend bulletins. This is in order that BBC World News (formerly BBC World) can move into N8; their old home of N9 will then be mothballed.

Since the BBC News channel is no longer able to have a real newsroom in the background, it now has to make do with a fake one. Note that the globe-and-rings logo is 'etched' into the backdrop.

Left: handing over to the sports news. Right: another throwback to 1999 is the use of the Gill Sans font rather than Swiss - both that and the blocks of solid colour unfortunately have the effect of making the graphics appear clunky and dated.

The countdown, meanwhile, is largely unchanged - until it gets to the end...

Accompanying it is the umpteenth remix of the music. Watch 51 seconds of the countdown

As with the final BBC News 24 titles, the bottom of the hour sting (above) reminds us that BBC News is Britain's most watched news channel.

1997-99 1999-2003 2003-08 2008-date