PBSCopied

PBS's black-and-white logo, the overlapping P-heads in a round shield, had not had a major makeover since the 1980s. Designed for the broadcast era, it was not travelling well, said Don Wilcox, vice president of multiplatform marketing and content, who led the two-year project. With more than 330 member stations using varied versions, and streaming rivals owning colours, PBS wanted one brand that lit up every screen.

PBS worked with Lippincott. Announced on 4 November 2019, the identity made the P-head an electric PBS Blue, chosen, Wilcox told the public media outlet Current, because it is the most loved colour on Earth and conveys trust and integrity. Asked about red and blue politics, he said it was not Democratic blue: even Fox News has blue in its logo. The shield was shortened so the mark read better small, and 'PBS' moved from a slab serif to a custom typeface, PBS Sans. Chief digital and marketing officer Ira Rubenstein said the look preserved the most iconic aspects of a beloved brand. Lippincott's global creative director Connie Birdsall called it flexible and modern. Stations were barred from splitting the shield from the lettering.

The rollout ran through 2020, the 50th anniversary year, starting on PBS.org. About 70 per cent of member stations planned to adopt it; PBS gave rebranding grants to 79 stations, and several, such as Wisconsin Public Television, became PBS Wisconsin. Some stations chose to keep the old logo and see how it went. A Rocky Mountain PBS executive put it simply: if Netflix owns red and Hulu owns green, PBS will own blue.

Current, the public media trade paper, reported that the black and white P head had not had a major makeover since the 1980s and, as marketing chief Don Wilcox put it, was not travelling well in a cluttered landscape. Blue was chosen as the most loved colour on Earth and a signal of trust, and the letters moved from a slab serif to a custom PBS Sans. Amanda Mountain summed up the logic: if Netflix owns red and Hulu owns green, PBS will own blue. Stations got a year to roll it out on their own timelines, which is the federated reality of public television.

Readers on Current mocked two years of work to pick a colour, but that misses the point. The real achievement is getting hundreds of independent stations under one mark. The blue is a smart, simple asset. The P-heads are untouched, as they should be.