NHK Tele-1 (1959-2022)

The arrival of the NHK's second channel presented a problem for the Kyokai. What to call it? Some suggested simply "General" and "Educational", but progress was already well under way to rename the NHK’s radio channels with numbers (Radio 1 and Radio 2 instead of the existing General Radio and Cultural Radio), and it was thought that this might present confusion. In the end, the obvious solution was find - call them NHK Television 1 or NHK Television 2. In practice, this was always shortened on screen to Tele-1 and Tele-2.

It also provided the opportunity for a significant refresh. NHK Television had been using an abstract model of Mount Fuji as its symbol for a year or so, but using still captions as a channel ident seemed a little old hat. Time for some stylish mid-sixties animation!

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The first NHK ident with a proper formup, Tele-1 didn’t do it by halves.

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Half-way through now - you can probably see where this is going.

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Here’s the endboard. Sadly, the excitement wasn’t carried over to programme slides, which were captionless and relied on the dulcet tones of the duty anno.

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Colour came to Tele-1 in 1960, bringing Asia with it - and with it, this little alteration.

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And a menu from the same year.

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A look at what’s coming up on Tele-1 and Tele-2 provides an opportunity to look at Tele-2’s logo.

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Regional programming saw the usual logo being replaced by a stylized pagoda apparently meant to represent in this case, Osaka - unfortunately, only captured in rather poor quality black and white.

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A little excitement came to programme slides in the mid-70s.

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A programme menu appears before the news on a Friday evening to inform us of the thrills to come later on.

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From the same year, an updated ident was brought in, losing the corporate logo. A bit of colour variety here as well.

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Typically, if there was a problem, something like this would appear. Interludes were still used for longer suspensions of service. Similar slides were used on Tele-2, hence the appearance of the generic "NHK Terebi" slide, usually only seen in copyright details at the end of programmes. This kind of slide was used right through from 1971 to 1989.

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The next big change to presentation came in 1988. A more corporate look appeared across the channel, consigning the animated Tele-1 logo to the dustbin, finally. This new ident had no formup, and wasn’t even animated. Rather disappointing. Mind you, it was the first one to be computer generated.

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The new programme slides were similarly buttoned-up.

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The start of a trail for Saturday night programming.

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But the next big change, to fit in with a new corporate brand at the NHK, coming in 1995, signified a rather more interesting approach. For a start, there was a little update to the familiar logo, it being contained within an egg.

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Programme slides were similar to the old ones - mind you, they were starting to appear slightly less often, in favour of longer trails and promos.

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Another, more dramatic corporate rebrand came in 2000. Ukiyo-e paintings abound as the new Tele-1 ident moves yet further from its roots. Seen here in its regional, Fukuoka variant.

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Both NHK Tele-1 and Tele-2 retained their existing logo (after a fashion) in 2006, but with the addition of a little egg-shaped logo in the corner of the screen and a more general alteration of presentation. Tele-1 retained its rather antiquated Japanese paintings look.

(INFORMATION ON 2007-PRESENT TO BE ANNOUNCED)