A simple logo design led to national headlines, an NBC legal dispute and an unexpected windfall for Nebraska's public television network.
Welcome to From the Archives! I’m Alexis Scargill, Media Archivist here at Nebraska Public Media. Each month, I’ll highlight treasures from our collection spanning more than 70 years of broadcast history in our great state.
Our Logo Makes National News
Welcome to July! I’m giving myself the birthday gift of choosing an event that I’ve been wanting to cover, even if it has no connection to this month. Fifty years ago this year, our logo landed us on Saturday Night Live and NBC Evening News, as well as in the pages of the New York Daily News, Time, and local newspapers in every state of the U.S. including Hawaii and Alaska (I verified!). Even if you’re a lover of local television logo lore (and there’s a vibrant community of such people, operating a site called Logopedia), you may wonder how this happened.
Great Minds...
In the 1950s, two completely separate comic strips debuted days apart in the U.S. and U.K., both bearing the subject of a mischievous character named Dennis the Menace. One hundred years earlier, Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace independently developed strikingly similar theories of natural selection. Why do I mention this? Mostly to say, these things can happen—I'm not trying to cast aspersions. But, in June 1975, Nebraska ETV debuted its new logo; six months later, NBC debuted its new logo. And, well, here they are:
Just five days later, NBC Evening News anchor John Chancellor read a report highlighting the similarity. Four days after that, Chevy Chase took a more absurdist approach on the subject on Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update" segment. I won't include a clip because, as I said, I'm not trying to make any NBC enemies, but I'll tell you it goes on for nearly 90 seconds, and you can check it out for yourself on Season 1, Episode 9 (host: Elliott Gould).
Compare & Contrast
While the shapes are identical, there are some key logo differences.
Color:
- NBC: red and blue
- Nebraska ETV: red
Designed by:
- NBC: Lippincott & Margulies, Inc.
- Nebraska ETV: Bill Korbus
Estimated cost:
- NBC: $750,000 - $1M (adjusted for inflation: $4.4M - $5.8M)
- Nebraska ETV: $13 (accounting for Korbus’ salary time) (adjusted for inflation: $76.57)
As I sifted through newspapers and internal documentation, I couldn't help but notice the cost disparity seemingly snowballing in each retelling, but let's chalk that up to artistic flourish.
The Legal Battle
Okay, to call it a battle might be a stretch. The issue was resolved amicably in March 1976, less than a month after the case was filed in court. Nebraska ETV gave up its new logo in exchange for an out-of-court settlement. While officially the settlement terms were undisclosed, unofficially this was another one of those "fish stories" where the value of the settlement seemed to increase in each retelling.
We reportedly received: $55,000 to cover associated costs; a used color mobile unit, color cameras and cables, worth an estimated $500,000-$750,000; and $2,500 to pay our design team to craft a new logo, which we used until 2005. Was it worth it? For NBC, maybe not. They changed their logo just three years later. For us? Yes, except the windfall was not without a pitfall, as the remote crew learned in the Nebraska Sandhills:
View the full video on the American Archive of Public Broadcasting
The Man Behind the "N"
I want to take a moment to appreciate our former Creative Director who designed the original logo. Bill Korbus emerged as the dark horse of my research, quickly becoming my favorite part of the whole story. Korbus, a Chicago native, was hired in November 1974 and immediately asked to imagine a logo for the station which, until that point, had none. He's quoted as saying designing the logo was not exactly "doing the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel." His reaction to seeing "his'" logo on NBC? "I kind of liked it. It was nice to see it on a big screen and getting lots of publicity." He also added, "I'd really like to know if the guy [who designed the identical logo] is a Scorpio" (Korbus is a Scorpio).
What would you like to see from the archives?
I would love to hear from you! Send me your feedback at fromthearchives@nebraskapublicmedia.org. I’ll see you next month!