Is this a custom font or just an off the shelf font?
The "N" is weird, isn't it missing a serif or two?
The "N" is weird, isn't it missing a serif or two?
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New NBC Logo . . . really?
- Thread starter MyDesktopBroke
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It is truly amazing how you so vociferously introduce examples that totally discredit your assertions. You are also amazing wrong on several of your "facts." NBC paid Nebraska Public Television for its logo because the two logos were virtually identical and because NBC and Nebraska Public Television are both television networks. It was a terrible embarrassment for NBC and a windfall for the cash-strapped public network.
As the point that you seem to have so much difficulty grasping is that NBC kept the Nebraska N unchanged for another four years. That was hardly a rush to chuck it. You also seem not to have a clue as to why it was modified. It is not modified for a reason, but for a personality. The personality was Fred Silverman. Silverman was still at CBS will NBC adopted the Nebraska N. He moved over ABC and turned that network for worst to first. NBC hired him in 1978. More than a year later in 1979, he "brought back the peacock." This was hardly a precipitous move. Did he chuck the Nebraska N? No, he placed a new stylized peacock over the Nebraska N, but the Nebraska N remained. It was not until 1986--some seven years later--that NBC removed the Nebraska N, and simplified the peacock with a forward-looking bird.
And you compare this with New Coke. The example discredits your premise. Six months after Coca Cola put New Coke on the shelves, it announced that it would bring back the old formula (actually a variation of the old formula) in the form of Coca Cola Classic. Within a year of bringing out New Coke, "Old Coke" returned.
New Coke, one year; Nebraska N, eleven years. Yet you seem to believe that they are comparable
I didn't say it wasn't an embarrassment, I said it was a sideline. Whatever the payment was (I don't think it was in the millions) it might have been an embarrassment, but all the talk was about what a stupid logo it was. The Nebraska thing was just frosting on the cake.
Four years is not long compared to the CBS eye or the ABC ball, which have had minor changes by comparison. When NBC changed again, they also did not make a new variation on the sterile "N," but went back to the peacock (sans interlocking single line logo). Just because the change was done by Silverman, that neither means it was non-rational, without reason, or done simply to establish turf (Silverman already had the cred to not worry about that).
Fred Silverman was not just a personality. At the time he was considered a television guru. Apparently a man who had so much success in the field thought it was a stupid logo, too, and replaced it with what could have been considered a natural progression from the previous animated peacock.
And you compare this with New Coke. The example discredits your premise. Six months after Coca Cola put New Coke on the shelves, it announced that it would bring back the old formula (actually a variation of the old formula) in the form of Coca Cola Classic. Within a year of bringing out New Coke, "Old Coke" returned.
New Coke, one year; Nebraska N, eleven years. Yet you seem to believe that they are comparable
New Coke was not pulled after one year. It lasted in widespread distribution until the death of Roberto Goizueta... making the moves after to reduce it further (it was still available under the name Coke II even a few years ago in the south, and may still be bottled in foreign countries today.) only after a new personality took over.
The only way the comparison is invalid is in that a formulation can kill a brand very quickly, while a bad logo isn't really capable of killing a network. NBC tried to work with it, but as I originally stated, it was DIMINISHED, just as New Coke was, very shortly after introduction, shrunk and put into corners ... disappearing from local affiliate test patterns, etc. They tried to see if people would get used to it. When Silverman dropped it, you didn't exactly hear a lot of moaning or witness a lot of hand-wringing over it. The response was generally positive. And of course, NBC itself would start to do better only a little later.
NBC's paid Nebraska Educational Television for the new because copyright infringement is a huge deal. NBC had the choice of paying for its past violation of Nebraska's copyright and paying for a new logo, or paying to the logo and keeping it. It chose the latter.
You continue to carry-on about all the talk about how stupid the logo was. What "all the talk"? We know that there was not enough talk to embarrass NBC into dropping the logo. Post a credible link to "all the talk."
You may be correct that four years is not long to keep something. However, it is a very long time to abandon something, especially when NBC didn't abandon it. To repeat myself, the Nebraska N remained part of NBC's logo for another seven years.
It might come as a surprise to you that I know who Fred Silverman is. He is grown man. He was a grown man when he took CBS, ABC, and NBC to No. 1. As such, he would not sat around with his buddies talking about how stupid the company's logo was. That is something that a 15-year-old would do.
That said, Fred Silverman did not drop the Nebraska N. He kept it. Silverman left NBC in 1981. The Nebraska N remained a part of the NBC logo until 1986, some five years after Silverman left. By way of comparison, the NBC color Xylophone logo also lasted five years before it was replaced by the original NBC peacock.
Here you are disputing something that I did not say. I said that Coca Cola put Coca Cola Classic on sale one year after the introduction of New Coke. I never said that it withdrew New Coke after one year.
Again, Silverman did not drop the Nebraska N. You assert that somehow this icky, gross logo was "diminished." Diminished how? Logos at all networks grow and shrink with time and application. The Nebraska N alone or in combination with the Silverman peacock was clearly visible on NBC on-camera equipment and on screen and printed promotional materials.
its not nearly as bad as the new Comedy Central logo
What the hell? Its either a copyright sign or a rip off of the company that [I think] shows up on a lot of really old PBS shows during the "brought to you by" logos. Neither of which make me think of comedy. Its too boring even for a financial firm. And why is the "central" upside down?
What the hell? Its either a copyright sign or a rip off of the company that [I think] shows up on a lot of really old PBS shows during the "brought to you by" logos. Neither of which make me think of comedy. Its too boring even for a financial firm. And why is the "central" upside down?
It's an ear.
I don't know why an ear would be particularly funny.
It should have been a bone.
A funny bone.
Oddly enough it made me think of the hearing impaired, maybe I was thinking of closed captioning. Its also terrible as a watermark, its too thin and shapeless, it makes comedy central look like public access tv since its so generic.
I don't think that's the new NBC logo, maybe just the new company name. I would be shocked if I saw that on the bottom right hand corner of my TV screen when i turned on NBC.
I don't know what to do, laugh or cry... Either way, I seriously hope there is more to this story than what we are getting. This can't be all it is...