Circle 7 logo

The Circle 7 logo is an often-used television station logo in the United States. Designed in the early 1960s for the American Broadcasting Company's five owned-and-operated stations (all of which broadcast on VHF channel 7), the logo, or a version of it, is being used not only by several ABC stations and affiliates, but also by a number of television broadcasters around the world, most notably GMA Network in the Philippines, ntv7 in Malaysia and TV7 (now Trans7) in Indonesia.

History and information

The Circle 7 logo was created by G. Dean Smith, a San Francisco graphic designer,^[1] and was first used in 1962 by ABC as the logo for its (then) five owned-and-operated television stations: WABC-TV in New York City; KABC-TV in Los Angeles; WBKB in Chicago; KGO-TV in San Francisco; and WXYZ-TV in Detroit. When ABC applied for television station licenses in the late 1940s, it was thought that the low-band channel frequencies (2 through 6) would be removed from use for television broadcasting, thus making these five stations broadcasting on VHF channel 7 the lowest on the television dial; those plans never came to pass.^[2] American Broadcasting-Paramount Theatres, ABC's then-corporate parent, registered the Circle 7 logo with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in 1962.

When WABC-TV adopted the Eyewitness News format in January 1968, all reporters and anchors were required to wear a blazer with a Circle 7 patch (a lapel pin in later years)^[3] when they appeared on the air – a marketing practice that spread to the other ABC O&Os, and eventually to other ABC affiliates. Stations commonly used the logo on microphone flags, newscaster clothing and design of sets, as well as on-air graphics for locally originated programming.^[4]

Circle Seven Animation, a short-lived (2005-2006) division of ABC parent company Disney that was working on sequels to Disney-owned Pixar films, was indirectly named after the logo, as its studios were located on Circle Seven Drive in Glendale, California, a street which was renamed for the logo when KABC-TV moved its studios there.^[5]