BBC blows £1.2m on 80 seconds of hippos, kites and surf scenes

[Shipoftheline]

When they know they have a guaranteed income of £3 billion plus at your expense (I don't pay and never will)

The BBC has spent £1.2 million of licence payers' cash on 80 seconds of programming. The money has been spent on a new series of eight 'idents' for BBC1 - the 10-second clips that link TV shows. It is part of a major rebranding of the channel, which means ditching the old links featuring wheelchair dancers, Bollywood performers and tangoing couples.

But the cost is bound to stir up controversy as the broadcaster wields the axe over hundreds of jobs and enforces budget slashing measures.

The £1.2 million bill would pay for nearly two hours of primetime drama featuring a bigname cast and overseas filming.

The corporation may attract further fury because many of the segments, despite featuring extensive use of computer generated images, were shot in foreign locations including a surf scene on Mexico's west coast and a peninsula in northern Croatia.

The new links will also disappoint traditionalists, who have long been campaigning for the return of the old BBC globe motif.

Instead they include synchronised swimming hippos, surfers, people flying kites, a motorcycle 'wall of death' and children playing in a meadow.

A circle symbol runs throughout - to represent a 'disparate group of people or things coming together, the way BBC1 brings people together'.

BBC1 controller Peter Fincham today defended the rebranding exercise, which viewers will see on-screen from 7 October.

He said: "In an increasingly competitive marketplace a channel needs to stand out from the crowd and I believe our new identity is just what's needed for BBC1.

"It's set in the everyday but shows people doing extraordinary things. It's got variety and range - everything from daredevil motorbikes to synchronised hippos. It's warm and it's dynamic." He insisted the circle logo was a "nod" to the BBC's heritage, including the much-loved globe which ran for almost 40 years.

The red colour scheme of the old idents has also been toned down, and the BBC1 logo 'softened'. The music has been changed to feature eight different tunes, ranging from jaunty to plaintive, with a 'thematic link'.

It is not the first time the BBC has sparked controversy with its idents. The last series of six, introduced at a cost of £700,000 in 2002, was attacked for being too politically correct because it featured disabled basketball players and various multicultural scenes.

Others claimed the films were "irritating" and expensive. A BBC spokeswoman today insisted: "The new idents show magical things happening when people come together, but not in an overly cuddly, fuzzy way. They are dynamic and modern with an optimistic feel."

She said the BBC had not abandoned its multicultural and diversity theme because the new links include a blind man and black and Asian actors.

The eight idents were shot in a variety of locations. The first, featuring bikers on a death-defying stunt run was filmed at Shepperton Studios, while the children playing in a meadow were in the garden of Northamptonshire's Coton Manor.

A group of extreme kiteflyers shot their scenes in sand dunes on the Welsh coast at Ynyslas beach in Borth.

An apartment block featuring in another ident is in the new Greenwich Millennium Village, while a group of footballers were brought together in Islington's Haberdasher Estate.

A more sombre scene featuring a group of fishermen apparently piecing the moon together was made on location on Croatia's Kamenjak peninsula, while the surfers were filmed at Puerto Escondido in Mexico - with cameras mounted on jet skis.

The hippos, sadly, were not trained in synchronised swimming - they were a product of special effects, computergenerated by the team behind Walking With Dinosaurs

BBC blows £1.2m on 80 seconds of hippos, kites and surf scenes | the Daily Mail