NBC Loses Peacock—Sort Of

Comcast takes over NBC Universal today, and some feathers are already being ruffled—the peacock has been removed from the corporate logo. Though the colorful, 55-year-old mascot will still be used on television, internally, it's been swapped out in favor of the the name NBCUniversal on a purple background, reports the New York Times. The Times notes that Brian Williams brought up the change in a company-wide town hall yesterday, saying to NBCUniversal's new chief exec, "It’s our Coca Cola. It’s our Apple. It’s our Ford Motor Co, that instantly recognizable thing."

Replied Steve Burke," Today we rolled out a new corporate logo, which is actually going to be used in a very limited way for corporate things. The consumer’s not really going to see this logo." Except, of course, that the consumer has, courtesy of the media. Writes Linda Holmes for NPR, "I sat here for quite some time, thinking that I might try to write a list of Ten Things This New Logo Says To Me. But then I thought, "At least nine of them would be, 'We Give Up.'" (More Comcast-NBC merger stories.)