Radios 1-3 Radios 4-7
BBC RADIO 1 |
 | Late 1960s The 'swinging new radio service' launched on 247 metres on 30th September 1967 with this psychedelic-style logo. A similar version was used widely in Radio Times of the period. |
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Early 1970s In contrast to the first logo, this very plain, corporate-style logo was used in the early 1970s. Strangely, it uses the early 60s upright version of the BBC logo, some ten years after it changed to slanted boxes. |
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Mid 1970s 'The Happy Sound of Radio 1' formed a relatively short-lived logo in the mid 1970s. |
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Mid/late 1970s-88 The longest-lived and probably most familiar Radio 1 logo, which instantly conjures up images of DLT, Steve Wright, Simon Bates, Peter Powell etc etc. Not sure exactly when introduced, but was certainly in use by 1977, with '247', the then wavelength, written above it. The frequency changes in November 1978 meant a change to '275/285', this time written below the logo. In the early 80s, when wavelengths gave way to frequencies, this changed to '1053/1089'. But the logo itself just ran and ran... |
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1988-90 A new slant on an old logo when Radio 1 finally began to gain its own stereo FM network in 1988. |
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1990-94 Part of the new family of BBC radio logos introduced in 1990. The graffiti-style lettering seemed to indicate a movement towards a younger audience, but the station itself remained listened to mostly by the over-30s. |
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1994-97 Another new family of logos were introduced during 1994. This accompanied the changing of Radio 1's image as it actually began to aim for a younger audience. |
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1997-98 The new BBC corporate image was unveiled in October 1997, and with it, radical new logos. Gone were the stylised numerals, and in came the standard BBC lettering - Gill Sans - with a patterned background. However this particular logo lasted just a few months, because it was felt the design was too busy and would not fit into the newly launched website design. |
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1998-2001 So early in 1998 this very versatile logo was introduced, featuring fast forward, rewind, play and pause symbols. Despite the prominence of the corporate logo, the phrase 'BBC' is rarely heard on the network. |
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2001-07 The next logo was first seen in February 2001, coinciding with Radio 1's schedule revamp. The very simple '1 in a circle', which sometimes appeared as white on black, has been likened to a slot machine... |
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2007-date From July 2007, new, simplified logos were introduced across all of the BBC's national radio networks, produced by design company Fallon. But as far as Radio 1's update is concerned, why change a logo if you're only going to change it a bit? |
BBC RADIO 2 |
 | Late 1960s Radio 2 succeeded the Light Programme in 1967. Jester-style lettering was used in Radio Times for the first R2 logo; it didn't survive into the 1970s, however. |
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1970s An early, and incredibly bland, attempt at corporate branding. This image is a re-creation based on the Radio 1 logo shown above. |
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1970s Another logo from the 1970s, which probably succeeded the one above. Quite what happened to the word 'Radio' in this one is unclear... |
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1980s This cosy-style '2' perfectly typified the cosy nature of Radio 2 around this time. At one point you could even order a '2' shaped radio! |
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1990-94 Radio 2's version of the 1990 logo relaunch. This was the only R2 logo to feature the word 'TWO' in addition to the numeral - just as well in this case as it may not be immediately obvious the wiggly line and circle is supposed to represent a figure 2! |
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1994-97 All five networks received new logos in 1994; Radio 2's was more of an update of the previous one, dropping the word 'TWO' and making the numeral more obvious. Still a rather cosy style, rather reminisicent of the 1980s logo. |
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1997-2000 Radio 2 was modernising its image by the time the new corporate style launched in 1997. Radio 2's rather uninspired effort involved coloured boxes. In early BBC television trailers these were to be seen flashing. |
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2000-07 Radio 2's website was revamped in September 2000, and this was the first opportunity to see the network's excellent new logo, featuring four neon '2's overlaid on one another, which wouldn't have seem out of place as a television ident. |
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2007-date The neon '2's were sadly ditched in 2007's overall revamp of BBC Radio's image. Worse, this new logo, which is designed to 'catch up to where Radio 2 is now', is the most disappointingly perfunctory of the lot. |
BBC RADIO 3 |
 | 1970s Radio 3 was born in 1967, even though the Third Programme retained its own identity until 1970. Although I have not seen a Radio 3 logo from earlier than the 1980s, the 1970s corporate style of the other networks' logos indicates that Radio 3's version would have appeared like this, with the figure using the Futura Bold typeface. |
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Early 1980s This Radio 3 logo was current in 1982. The image is a re-creation. |
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Mid 1980s A slightly later Radio 3 logo, current in 1984. |
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Late 1980s Another 1980s logo, this was in use around the end of the decade. |
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1990-94 As with all the networks, Radio 3 received a new logo in 1990. |
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1994-97 1994 meant another new look along with the other networks. As with Radio 2, though, Radio 3 merely altered the previous logo by removing the lettering and making the figure 3 clearer. The blue is also noticeably lighter. |
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1997-2001 The new BBC logo in 1997 meant an all-new Radio 3 logo. It followed the very successful corporate style used not just for radio, but for all logos and idents across the corporation's output, on television, radio and online. |
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2001-07 After three-and-a-half years, Radio 3 joined the other networks by moving away from the corporate look and a return to stylised numbers - very stylised in this case! |
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2007-date Radio 3's latest logo is probably one of the better efforts of the 2007 revamp, with the figure '3' based around musical notation. |
Radios 1-3 Radios 4-7 |
