BBC to create single news brand

Ah, the fun of corporate branding.

Mention Sky News to someone and unless they work for Sky they are most likely to think of the rolling news channel, whilst BBC News conjures up images of a multifaceted news operation. Although BBC News 24 has been very successful, there is presumably a desire to promote the news operation behind News 24 as being 'more than just a channel', hence the proposal.

One intention I suspect is that renaming BBC News 24 to BBC News means that (at least officially) people will have to include the 'BBC' bit as part of the channel name since it would be nonsense to shorten the name to just 'BBC' or 'News', whilst at the moment we can talk of 'News 24' and the news channel immediately springs to mind, but that leaves out the BBC brand.

However to refer to the news channel explicitly, people would then have to elucidate the fact by calling it the 'BBC News Channel', which is an even clumsier name than 'The CBBC Channel', and although in turn it may be possible to shorten this title to 'News Channel', you are then left with an even worse question: "Which news channel?".

Then of course there is the cost cutting factor. Point a camera at a wall with a BBC News logo on it and its output can be simultaneously reused on several platforms, including (crucially) BBC One news bulletins and what would be the BBC News Channel. This already happens to a degree at the moment but this sort of activity will no doubt increase given time.

My money is on nearly everyone - including most BBC employees - still calling the channel News 24 even if Mark Thompson decides to rebrand it as BBC News (Channel), unless BBC News Online retains its full title, in which case BBC News might just work as a channel brand (as with Sky News). But getting the general public to accept such a change will be the hardest part.