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ABC1 set to rebrand as “ABC”

"ABC1" is set to go, simply to be known as "ABC" with a new channel rebrand.

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abcABC1 is about to be renamed, simply to be known as ABC, as part of a wider refresh with new branding: #ourABC.

The change follows extensive audience research that indicate people say they watch the “ABC” rather than “ABC1.”

“Now more than ever, ABC Television needs to be relevant to all Australians and our new positioning and branding demonstrates the role of our main channel beautifully,” said Richard Finlayson, ABC Director of Television.

“ABC also acts as our gateway to more targeted content on ABC2, ABC4Kids, ABC3, ABC News 24 and increasingly ABC iview. There really is something for everyone on ABC Television – everywhere, every day.”

A channel anthem for ABC will be introduced, a Hunters & Collectors re-recording of their classic hit ‘Throw Your Arms Around Me’.

New channel idents will use imagery sourced from ABC Open’s library, featuring real-life characters plus on-air personalities.

“We’ve captured absolute gold using real-life Aussies in our idents,” said Diana Costantini, ABC Television Head of Marketing and Communications.

“This rebrand is about providing a stage and the magic comes from authenticity, diversity and a few damn fine yarns as told by colourful Australian characters.”

While the broadcaster has attracted criticism from Murdoch press and some government ministers, the Twitter-created hashtag ‘#ourABC’, cleverly encourages ownership and inclusion -although it clearly favours one commercial social media platform which may raise eyebrows.

An #ourABC site will also launch with highlight imagery, stories and anecdotes from around Australia.

The refresh begins on Sunday 20th July.

32 Responses

  1. I have no problem with the main channel being called the ABC. It always was with me. I only labelled it ABC1 here to distinguish it from the other channels.

    I didn’t watch the video. But I’m not a fan of twitter hashtags on stuff. Although have no problem if listed on the website or EPG. As a separate issue I don’t mind the twitter names if that’s what they want to do in general. I have problems with how they do it sometimes when they change the show format for naming.

    I like the look of the photo above with using real people. Although why do they have to have a horrible colour clash with the yellow symbol? Also is yellow really a good choice?

    As for the watermark I really hope they don’t change it. As for me it is a low stress one at the moment and fear they’ll make it a high or medium stress one. Like it was last decade. Watermarks aren’t the safe computer graphic…

  2. @dshan, Subsection 41G of the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 last ammeded June 24 2014 states that Primary or Main channel is a designated SDTV service. Thus meaning all the networks can not simply turn off the main channel SD service and replace with a HD only main channel as yet. This has yet to be changed by Parliament.

    Link:-
    comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2014C00304/Html/Volume_2#_Toc391461789

  3. Why would they make a change to go back to the logo they had 30 years ago. And they have paid some agency to make this recommendation. Stupid!! Just a waste of money and the perfect fuel for the government decision to cut budgets at the ABC. Spend the money on programming. That is what you are there for.

  4. I played the John video… and spent the first five second trying to work out if that was the new version of Throw Your Arms Around Me!

  6. @Tex, no that’s no longer true. Since the switch-off of analog broadcasts last year the former “transition” rules about the primary channels having to be SD no longer apply.

    The networks are now free to split up their channels however they like. They can have their main channels in HD if they like, AFAIK they could in fact make all their channels SD if they wished and thus squeeze in a couple extra each. They could have just two channels, both HD (e.g one 1080i and one 720p) instead of one HD and two SD, etc. There are no restrictions any more, whatever combination will fit in a network’s 7MHz frequency allocation is allowed I believe.

    The problem seems to be that for years the government allowed retailers to sell SD-only digital set-top boxes and DTVs and so there are an unknown number of sets out there that would not be able to receive the networks primary channels if they…

  7. “This rebrand is about providing a stage and the magic comes from authenticity, diversity and a few damn fine yarns as told by colourful Australian characters.”

    *groan*

  9. @laurie: Yeah, but the regulations still say that the primary channel must be SD.

    That’s not the ABC’s fault; you can blame successive governments for that.

  10. Don’t you love bureaucrats and their fetish for “branding”? Reminds me of how the National Film and Sound Archive spent a lot of their meagre budget around 15 years ago rebranding itself as Screensound Australia. The public hated the name, thought that the NFSA had disappeared and stopped donating rare material. Around two years later they rebranded themselves as … the National Film and Sound Archive. It would be very amusing if they weren’t wasting taxpayers’ money on this nonsense.

  12. Its only right that abc should update their logo and branding. I doubt that it would cost a huge amount if it was carried out inhouse. They maybe govt funded, but they also have to keep themselves fresh and relevant……good job

  13. What a waste of a HD channel given to the news oh forget about those documentaries and others that could have used that bandwidth to good use!!

  15. wow. so much snideness from the comments. I quite like the look and feel – certainly better than the current ones. Its nice to have a nod to history with the logo.

    Having said that – I would love them to replay some of the old 70s ones like this: youtube.com/watch?v=6mGMK-z7BBc

    that would upset people.

  19. Interesting they have also reverted to using the pre-Shier worm logo. Hopefully the on-screen watermark now shrinks or disappears. The BBC does not even run watermarks on general programming on BBC1 or BBC2 anymore, why can’t the ABC follow suit?

  20. I like the name ABC1, I’ve been using that since the change to ABC1 as well as the classic Channel 2. This is just change for the sake of change.

    Those two promos are terrible, thank god for the mute button. I could not care less about John and Dave. And to use such a boring song from Hunters and Collectors in future branding makes it worse. Good thing I PVR everything and can FF through these promos.

  21. Will be interesting to see how ABC fares now their BBC deal is changing. Have notiiced a lot more repeated BBC series presumably before they lose the rights to the repeats, and the 3 or 4 BBC weekly series they have shown each week will from now on be replaced with what?

    .

  22. Guess the budget cuts are starting then! The amount of money and time they’ll save by not having that extra number at the end, or having to say “one”.

    Maybe they can rename ABC4Kids to ABCKids, and ABC News 24 to ABC News – or even ABC 24 – thats an extra 3-5 letters / 2 words! 😉

  23. So they spent a bundle on rebranding as ABC1, then spent a bundle re-rebranding as ABC? That doesn’t seem very cost effective. That’s money that could’ve been spent on content, or improving services.

    Silly. Should never have changed.

  25. Let’s face it – the name change for digital never sat ciomfortably. We all watched “Channel 2” and suddenly we were watching ABC1. Que?

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