BBC News presentation

BBC News (UK channel)

BBC News 24 launched at 5:30 pm on 9 November 1997 as a 24-hour domestic news channel, acting as a sister channel to BBC World. The two channels shared some overnight programming and a common identity designed by Lambie-Nairn, featuring rippling flags such as the Flag of St. George, the Flag of St. Andrew, and the Catalan flag, accompanied by an orchestral soundtrack heavy on percussion. The channel logo comprised the BBC logo with uppercase 'News 24' text to the right, displayed in white at the bottom of the screen and as a digital on-screen graphic (DOG) in the top left corner.

A digital clock sat in a translucent grey stripe at the bottom left, and Astons (information graphics at the bottom of the screen) used a two-toned translucent purple and yellow background that merged into the picture. When a broadcast was live, an orange stripe with 'LIVE' appeared above the clock. Promotions followed BBC Television network style, with the channel logo at the bottom of the screen and information added on top at the end; the channel font was Gill Sans.

In the final minutes before the top of the hour, a filler sequence showed one of the flags waving with music building, linking into the ident at the hour, often overlaid with a programme schedule or promotion for the BBC News Website. The look aimed to appear more open and friendly, with newsreaders not wearing jackets and filmed in the BBC Newsroom, whose walls featured panels with bold colours and shapes from the idents. A simple metal barrier separated the newsroom from the desk, and behind and left of the desk was a weather station with a computer and weather graphic monitor.

BBC Parliament

BBC Parliament launched on 23 September 1998, taking over from the cable-only Parliamentary Channel. It transmitted sessions of the House of Commons, House of Lords, Scottish Parliament, Senedd Cymru (Welsh Parliament), and the Northern Ireland Assembly, along with other political programmes. Upon launch, the channel was available on cable, satellite, and digital terrestrial television, though the latter platform lacked sufficient bandwidth for pictures and was restricted to sound-only transmissions with a fixed caption identifying the channel.

The launch identity featured the channel logo in the centre of the screen over a background resembling water, accompanied by an orchestral musical score. The logo consisted of the BBC logo with 'Parliament' written to the right in white uppercase text, as common with other BBC channels at the time. This logo also appeared as a digital on-screen graphic (DOG) in the top left corner for all programmes. Astons at the bottom of the screen provided information on speakers, using a black bar with the speaker's name and party affiliation at opposite ends, and a box beneath for additional information or constituency details.

This box was colour-coded by house: green for the House of Commons, red for the House of Lords, and additional colours for other committees and coverage. When broadcasts were not live but recorded, a circled 'R' appeared in the top right corner.

BBC News (international channel)

The channel originally launched as BBC World on 16 January 1995 at 19:00 GMT, formed after the split of BBC World Service Television into BBC World (international news and current affairs) and BBC Prime (entertainment). Its launch identity, designed by Lambie-Nairn, used various elements of flag designs such as coloured stars, crosses, parallel lines, and rectangular coloured flag segments moving off the screen in all directions to reveal the BBC World logo against a blue flag background.

The logo featured the BBC logo over the channel name 'World' in the typeface Twentieth Century, with a shadow below to give the impression of floating atop the flag. The music was an orchestral score heavy on brass instruments. News programme introductions also used flag segments moving across a globe before forming behind the channel name in a translucent rectangle with the BBC logo on top, intended to link the titles and ident visually. The channel logo served as the digital on-screen graphic (DOG) in the top left corner.

The channel did not use permanently placed Astons; instead, graphics consisted of a bar running across the bottom of the page, multi-coloured to match the flag designs but muted with a translucent finish. Promotional style was consistent with other BBC Television output, using a sidebar at the end of the ident containing an image from the BBC World flags ident, with the programme name at the bottom left and programme times in the sidebar to reflect different world areas.

Other continuity elements such as 'Coming up' and 'Next' graphics, break bumpers, and break fillers also used the flags. Some promotion stings revolved around people in a colour-filtered environment before the promotion ran.