Southern Television - Identity

Identity

Southern's logo is sometimes said to be a compass, what with the directional station name and the fact that the bottom point on the logo is longest - thereby suggesting a compass pointing south, in the direction of Southern TV's service area. However, the general consensus is that it is a star, named after the Southern Star and because Southern's final transmission showed the logo zooming off into the night sky. For the purposes of this article, the logo will be referred to as a star, to reflect what it is most popularly called.

Southern's first identity featured an art deco style star which zoomed into screen before the bottom point extended downwards. The colour scheme of varying tones of grey, black and white. This was replaced in the early 1960s with a white rotating star against a black background against a drumroll jingle. This was again altered in the mid 1960s to the familiar star shape against a black background and accompanied by a jingle featuring a cacophony of noises. This shape formed from a circle, with the diagonal lines moving out and joining the circle and the horizontal and vertical lines being drawn last, with the name added last.

This ident remained with the station until the end of its existence with some modifications, firstly the jingle was altered to nine notes on a guitar a few years later, and then the background was changed to blue in 1969 with the introduction of colour. This ident, occasionally supplemented by a subsequent caption stating 'The Station that serves the South', lasted until the company went off air in 1982.

In addition to these idents, a clock was used featuring a blue background and Southern legend, and for introducing links between programmes, in-vision continuity was utilised often. Continuity announcers included:

• Brian Nissen
• Christopher Robbie
• Keith Martin
• Gill Hewitt
• Verity Martindill