From JODK and HLKA to a national radio and television broadcaster.

KBS is the short name of the Korean Broadcasting System (한국방송공사 in Korean), the national broadcaster of South Korea. English Wikipedia describes it as a television and radio broadcaster whose flagship terrestrial channel is KBS1, with KBS2 as its entertainment-oriented network, and which also runs the international service KBS World for television, radio and online audiences.

The organisation dates its start to radio. English Wikipedia says KBS began as the Gyeongseong Broadcasting Station, with the call sign JODK, established on 16 February 1927. The Honolulu Advertiser reported on 4 March 2007 that the station made its first broadcast at 1 p.m. that day in Kyung Sung, the old name for Seoul. The same report said Korea was under Japanese control at the time, and that the early broadcasts were in Japanese.

The name changed several times before the initials arrived. English Wikipedia says the station became the Chōsen Broadcasting Corporation in 1932. After liberation at the end of the Second World War, it took the call sign HLKA in 1947, once Korea had been granted the ITU prefix HL, and it was renamed the Seoul Central Broadcasting Station in 1948. The Honolulu Advertiser gives the same 1947 change in shorter form, saying the station was issued the call sign HL.

Those call signs survive in the lineage of the radio channels. English Wikipedia says the talk station now called KBS Radio 1 was launched in 1927 as JODK, became HLKA in 1947, and took the KBS Radio 1 name in 1981. The same article says KBS Radio 2, the broadcaster’s music FM station, was launched in 1948 as HLSA.

Television followed radio. English Wikipedia says television broadcasts in South Korea began on 12 May 1956 on HLKZ-TV, a station that KBS acquired in 1961. The Honolulu Advertiser dated the start of television under HL to the same year, 1961.

A public broadcaster from 1973, a headquarters on Yeouido and a channel spun off.

The three letters date from 1973. The Honolulu Advertiser reported in 2007 that the station was renamed the Korea Broadcast System in 1973, using its own spelling of the name. English Wikipedia gives the date as 3 March 1973, when, it says, KBS moved from being a state-controlled broadcaster and took on the concept of a public-oriented broadcaster.

A permanent home followed. English Wikipedia says construction of the KBS headquarters on Yeouido, the island in the Han River in Seoul, started in 1976. In 1979, the article says, KBS radio began broadcasting on the FM band with the launch of KBS Stereo, now KBS 1FM, and colour television began in the same year.

The family of channels then grew and shrank. English Wikipedia says that in 1981 KBS launched KBS 3TV and an Educational FM service, and that on 27 December 1990 both were formally separated from KBS to form the Educational Broadcasting System, known as EBS. The names that stayed with KBS were the numbered television channels and the numbered radio services.

The move to digital ran across a decade. English Wikipedia says KBS first broadcast programmes in high definition in 2001 and switched completely to digital broadcasting in 2012. The Honolulu Advertiser reported in 2007 that KBS planned a new high-definition studio and news broadcast in HD, and that in 2005 it had set out to produce Korean cultural programmes in HD.

The organisation was reshaped again in 2019. English Wikipedia says KBS carried out an organisational reform on 1 March 2019, creating a Content Production 2 Division responsible for production, marketing and content businesses, and a Public Service Media Strategy team under its Strategy and Planning Division to develop digital programmes across media platforms. The same reform widened the role of the Digital Media department in programming, the article says.

Three letters that carry a radio lineage onto every screen.

A broadcaster’s identity often lives as much in its channel names as in its mark. M+AD Daily reported on 30 September 2016 that TVNZ would rename TV ONE as TVNZ 1 and TV2 as TVNZ 2 from 2 October that year, in a rebrand produced by its in-house Blacksand creative team, with new channel idents carrying original music and a special TVNZ font. TVNZ’s marketing head, Sarah Finnie, told the site the aim was for the channels to “look and feel like one family of content brands”.

Initials can also carry a long lineage of older names. The Honolulu Advertiser reported on 4 March 2007 that the station behind KBS made its first broadcast as JODK in Seoul on 16 February 1927, took the call sign HL in 1947 and was renamed in 1973. When reading a broadcaster’s identity, look at which letters lead each channel name, which earlier names they replaced, and what the idents between programmes are asked to carry.

Call signs, a full name, three letters and numbered channels.

KBS’s identity is built on a long run of names. The organisation started under a call sign, JODK, and a station name, Gyeongseong Broadcasting Station, then passed through the Chōsen Broadcasting Corporation, the call sign HLKA and the Seoul Central Broadcasting Station before the three letters arrived in 1973. English Wikipedia and The Honolulu Advertiser both place the KBS start in 1927 rather than in 1973.

The initials now sit at the front of almost every service name. English Wikipedia lists KBS1 and KBS2 for television, KBS Radio 1 and KBS Radio 2 for radio, KBS 1FM for the FM service that began as KBS Stereo, and KBS World for the international service. The pattern is the same throughout: the letters first, then a number or a word that tells the services apart.

The 1990 separation of EBS shows the other side of that pattern. When KBS 3TV and Educational FM left to form the Educational Broadcasting System on 27 December 1990, English Wikipedia says, they took a new name and a new set of initials with them.

The headquarters gives the name a fixed place. English Wikipedia dates the start of construction on Yeouido to 1976, three years after the KBS name and the public-oriented remit of 3 March 1973. In 2007, The Honolulu Advertiser reported plans for a new high-definition studio, part of the same move to digital that, according to English Wikipedia, ended with a full switch in 2012.

For a design guide, KBS shows how a broadcaster can hold one short set of initials steady while numbered channels, radio services and an international arm are added beneath it, each one readable as part of the same family. Compare the BBC, which also numbers channels under its initials, or PBS, another public broadcaster known by three letters. For this guide we use blue, red and amber with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep KBS’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.