BBC bursts balloon with new logos

BBC1's hot air balloon logo is to be replaced this week - by a bizarre assortment of dance troupes, dressed in bright red costumes, prancing around the British landscape.

The corporation was criticised five years ago for spending £500,000 on the red and orange atlas balloon, seen drifting across the landscape between programmes. It was attacked for being expensive, boring, and out of touch with viewers.

Now station bosses are unveiling a new and equally weird set of images, which will cost the licencepayer £700,000. The new fillers - which will appear between shows from Friday - explore the "theme of rhythm, dance and movement through different activities, moods and world cultures".

They will comprise ballet, salsa, capoeira, rave, haka, hip-hop, tap and acrobat dancing, filmed on location at eight places across Britain. They will include 10 ballerinas dancing at the Minack Theatre in Cornwall, the Brazilian capoeira danced on the roof of a London building, the traditional Maori haka performed at Gilfach Goch in Wales, two women raving at a dance music festival at Bovingdon Airfield in Hertfordshire, salsa dancing in Sarratt, Hertfordshire, and wheelchair hip-hop at Shepperton Studios, Middlesex.

Each short film will emphasise BBC1's corporate colour - letterbox red. The BBC's hot air balloon will fly for the final time at the Bristol balloon festival this summer. Flights, and the balloon itself, will be auctioned off for Children in Need.