This is taken from The Guardian:

BBC to create single news brand

by Leigh Holmwood
Monday June 12, 2006

The BBC is looking to rebrand all its domestic news outlets, including its News 24 channel, under the BBC News name.

News 24 and the BBC News website will take the first step towards the change by adopting the same updated maroon and grey colour scheme given to the main BBC1 news bulletins at the beginning of May.

One BBC news source said plans to "tweak" the website had already been signed off with the new look set to go live soon.

It is also thought News 24 will be given a new on-air look within the next few months.

"News 24 will have a rejig to bring it into line [with the rest of BBC news] while the website will also have a little tweak to bring the whole brand together," the source said.

"The news website used to be called BBC News Online but it is just known as BBC News now. The whole brand will just be known as BBC News."

In the longer term, the News 24 name is expected to be dropped and the channel retitled BBC News as part of a move to create a uniform brand across all the corporation's output on TV, radio and online.

The BBC director general, Mark Thompson, is understood to have let slip in a recent meeting with senior managers that News 24 would be renamed BBC News as part of the move to create a uniform brand.

However, it may be more than a year before the change is fully implemented, as BBC News executives work through the practical implications arising from Mr Thompson's Creative Future plan for the corporation's output to be available "any time, any place, anywhere" - the so-called "Martini media" strategy.

The BBC's domestic rolling news channel has been branded News 24 since it launched in November 1997.

News 24 initially attracted criticism for being inferior in quality to the BBC's established TV news bulletins.

But it has improved markedly in the past few years and won the Royal Television Society news channel of the year award this year, breaking arch rival Sky News' domination of the category.

A BBC spokeswoman said: "We are looking at branding in general terms, but there is nothing imminent."