"Now We Return You To The Test Card, And Some Music..."

[TJ]

Not so long ago, the idea of a twenty four hour television service was the stuff of madmen's dreams (or at least something that kids who'd been on holiday to America could tell vaguely tall tales about). The BBC didn't introduce proper daytime programming until 1986ish, ITV only introduced their overnight service about three years later. Most UK channels regularly closed down before midnight until the early 1990s. BBC2 and Channel 4 only basically used to broadcast for a handful of hours a day.

The question is, does anyone find themselves missing this state of affairs? Would it actually be 'better' if similar limited broadcast hours were still in place?

[notnotnatnats]

Noooo!

In todays modern world we NEED 24 hour TV for insomniacs. What would I do without Sons & Daughters repeats when I wake up at 5am with the shakes?

[Margaret Thatcher]

What would I do without Sons & Daughters repeats when I wake up at 5am with the shakes?

Maybe you will find out, our Sons and Daughters, Are what, we too, were once about.

[notnotnatnats]

Exactly. Tears and laughter, joy and somthing and ha-ha-ppiness. Etc

[Purple Tentacle]

When I was 14 and gloomy I saw some of the best TV I ever did see on Channel 4 at 3 in the morning.

Remember? Those far off days when Channel 4 was the best channel on TV?

So no, although I see where you're coming from, and if you go to bed at working hours like, unfortunately, I do no, then you don't get to appreciate 24 hour telly.  

What do they show now in the wee hours anyway? Repeats of Vernon Cunting "I wouldn't change anything about myself" Kaye?

[Ambient Sheep]

The question is, does anyone find themselves missing this state of affairs?

Yes, I think so, although whether that's justified or just mawkish nostalgia is a tricky question.

Would it actually be 'better' if similar limited broadcast hours were still in place?

It would probably be better for the mental and physical welfare of the next generation.  I'm not talking here of all-night broadcasting (which is fine by me), but of the way that the TV used to close down in the afternoon (and in the *really* old days, mid-morning too), which meant that us kids used to actually go out and, um, do something less boring instead.  When faced with the choice of a test-card all afternoon or a green field, I knew which I used to prefer.  Even if there WERE trade test transmissions on.

Note that I *don't* necessarily subscribe to the "plonking your kids in front of the telly is bad" school, and here's why.  My parents taught my eldest brother to read before he went to school, and as a result he had a lot of problems with bullying, etc.  So when I came along, they decided not to.  However apparently without any other intervention I taught myself to read by the age of 3 off the telly from "Look and Read" etc.  I used to sit in front of the box and soak up so much stuff that it has to be at least part of the reason I'm the mine of use[less|ful] information that I am today.  Early 70s kids TV helped *make* me.  However the fact that in the afternoons I had to go and find something else to do was no doubt beneficial as well; additionally, when I occasionally glimpse kids TV nowadays I worry.

Sorry that was a bit rambling, I hope there's a point or two in there worth extracting.

[peet]

I'd much rather do without daytime telly than late night... at least in the small hours you can still find the odd bit of watchable music/comedy/sport or films on. I'm on a rare-ish day off and just had a look at today's daytime offerings on BBC1:
9.15   Houses Behaving Badly
10.00  Homes Under The Hammer
11.00  Garden Invaders
11.30  Bargain Hunt
12.30  Car Booty
14.05  Cash In The Attic

What the fuck. When did programs for dribbling home improvement/antique obsessed cretins take over the entire schedule?! Gimme Alan Titchmarsh being taught the proper way to make braised artichokes by a team of haughty gay men any day.

[zozman]

Do you think if they didn't have any daytime tv on at all, it would deter people from going on the dole?  Either that or just have opera or Alan Bennett plays or something.  that'd show em.

[Morrisfan82]

Do you think if they didn't have any daytime tv on at all, it would deter people from going on the dole?  Either that or just have opera or Alan Bennett plays or something.  that'd show em.

I hope you're taking the piss.

I confess to feeling a little nostalgic for the days when TV in the afternoon was all but non-existent (save for the strains of the entire orchestra that was hiding just behind that big piece of card with the clown on it), and when actual television programmes were presented more as an event than an inevitable continuous fixture.

But therein also lies the fault with interrupted, low-density television schedules - it pens everyone into adhering to an inflexible viewing schedule, and hinders and patronises the viewer through its limited scope for catering for the individual's viewing habits.

Regarding the debate as to whether limited broadcasting hours would create higher-quality programmes, I honestly don't think it would, in a similar fashion as to how re-instating the outmoded and constrictive Sunday trading laws we had in this country up until a few years ago wouldn't do anything to improve quality of services/goods in retail outlets.

Reducing broadcasting hours would also have a detrimental effect on the chances of quality programming being selected for production, not just the crap.

[Shaddock]

I miss the test card, particularly the BBC2 test card with its superior music.  However, I've recently acquired 6 CDs of test card music (about 50% of which I remember very well) so withdrawal symptoms have somewhat receded.  The test card and its music had a lot more class to them than current day-time TV.

I think Victor Lewis-Smith's Rediffusion production company might be making a programme on the test card -- just a hunch.

I also used to be fascinated by those transmitter information broadcasts, both from the IBA and BBC.  It was all double Dutch to a little kid of course, but fascinating nonetheless.

The best part of schools programmes was the music and clocks between each programme, particularly the   BBC Schools Diamond

[Purple Tentacle]

"The History of the Test Card" was shown in TV Offal in a sneering manner by VLS (although it did look charmingly awful), so I would be surprised to hear that he IS doing a programme about the test card.

[Shaddock]

BBC Schools Diamond Flash file is also HERE

[Ambient Sheep]

"The History of the Test Card" was shown in TV Offal in a sneering manner by VLS (although it did look charmingly awful), so I would be surprised to hear that he IS doing a programme about the test card.

Haven't you worked him out yet?  He secretly loves all that stuff and is a total TV nerd, but the only way he (assumes he?) can get it on screen is to be sneeringly ironic about it.

Despite his mickey-taking, I found that TV Offal thing really interesting.

Given what a good job he did on his Radiophonic Workshop documentary, I would look forward to a serious history of it.

[TJ]

Did anyone else ever catch any of the ITV 'startups' at the, um, start of each day's broadcasting? Normally extended 12" versions of the station's animated ident, with a bit of transmitter information, film of local landmarks, and a chummy announcer welcoming everyone to the day on [insert regional company here]. I don't know why, but it seems sad that we won't see them again...

[Morrisfan82]

Ooh, I dunno. My mate made his own, for a giggle. And I was roped into being said chummy continuity announcer...

[Ambient Sheep]

Did anyone else ever catch any of the ITV 'startups' at the, um, start of each day's broadcasting? Normally extended 12" versions of the station's animated ident, with a bit of transmitter information, film of local landmarks, and a chummy announcer welcoming everyone to the day on [insert regional company here]. I don't know why, but it seems sad that we won't see them again...

Yes, once or twice, on Anglia.  (We mostly got London from Crystal Palace, but could get a fuzzy Anglia picture from Sandy Heath when the weather was good.)  That knight just went round, and round, and round, and round, and round...

We used to get the transmitter info and a chummy announcer, but no film of local landmarks that I remember.

What *I* miss is the closedown guys.  Anglia (which I again sometimes used to watch late at night post-pub because surprisingly it often closed-down AFTER Thames/LWT) had a couple of good ones: the infamous Paul Lavers, who once treated us to a monologue about a tortoise he used to have; and another, older and extremely sad-looking guy, who used to say stuff like "...and as ever from me, an extra-special goodnight to those of you watching on your own".  I'll probably have the piss taken out of me royally for this, but to a depressed and love-lorn teenager, that helped.  A bit.  I'd like to know his name, and I'd recognise him from a mugshot: something like a cross between Paul Lavers and Kenneth Kendall.  Sort of.

EDIT: was just trying to find out his name, and came across this gorgeous recent blunder from Paul Lavers & co...

[Partridge's Love Child]

I always thought that the closedown of BBC1 every night was bizarrely camp and outdated.  The spinning globe and a rousing version of the national anthem, followed by an irriting beeeeeeeep beeeep beeeep before Ceefax kicked in.

During my first year at Uni I suffered from terrible insomnia, and was grateful for some of the terrific post-midnight programming that existed back then - Not Fade Away, which was a kind of Desert Island Discs without the desert island, The Little Picture Show with that tidy bint with the ginger hair and, probably best of all, The Beat with Gary Crowley.  Sadly, in Christmas 1995 most of these programmes were cancelled, in favour of a load of old tat, which I had to watch whilst desperately trying to get some shut-eye.  Now The Night Shift has gone, and late night scheduleing is taken up with repeats of that morning's Tricia and Des & Mel.  And yet, in their letter to me, ITV claimed that showing the Tour de France late at night on ITV1 was difficult to schedule because it's a mainstream channel and difficult to fit special interest programmes in.

I say they should cancel T4 and bring back Five to 11.  I hated that as a kid, and I think the kidz-wth-a-zed should suffer like we did eee by gum.

[TJ]

Yes, once or twice, on Anglia.  (We mostly got London from Crystal Palace, but could get a fuzzy Anglia picture from Sandy Heath when the weather was good.)  That knight just went round, and round, and round, and round, and round...

They showed that on "Room 101" once, when Angus Deayton wanted to send idents in. There's one priceless close-up of the exceptionally shoddy-looking face of the exceptionally shoddy-looking model ("was that Errol Flynn?" remarked Deayton). And it did indeed go on *forever*.

What *I* miss is the closedown guys.  Anglia (which I again sometimes used to watch late at night post-pub because surprisingly it often closed-down AFTER Thames/LWT) had a couple of good ones: the infamous Paul Lavers, who once treated us to a monologue about a tortoise he used to have; and another, older and extremely sad-looking guy, who used to say stuff like "...and as ever from me, an extra-special goodnight to those of you watching on your own".  I'll probably have the piss taken out of me royally for this, but to a depressed and love-lorn teenager, that helped.  A bit.  I'd like to know his name, and I'd recognise him from a mugshot: something like a cross between Paul Lavers and Kenneth Kendall.  Sort of.

Granada's team (Charles 'Bargain Basement Bob Greaves' Foster, Jim 'Beardy Man' Pope and Colin 'The Normal-Looking One' Weston) had a real camaraderie, and they'd often all appear together at Christmas and New Year closedowns, clearly very much the worse for festive wear.

Michael Alexander St. John was a continuity announcer at HTV for years - that's him in the famous clip where the animated yoghurt advert with 'The Yogs' was faded up instead of "Within These Walls", and Neil once found another clip online of him voicing a teddy bear in the continuity announcers' seat, doing a comedy routine about HTV cuts.

And still nobody knows what he looked like!

[Purple Tentacle]

Did anyone else ever catch any of the ITV 'startups' at the, um, start of each day's broadcasting? Normally extended 12" versions of the station's animated ident, with a bit of transmitter information, film of local landmarks, and a chummy announcer welcoming everyone to the day on [insert regional company here]. I don't know why, but it seems sad that we won't see them again...

My mum tells me (I have no memory of this) that for some reason when I was in the buggy in the local greengrocers, I would sing the entire 5 minutes of the TVS start-up tune perfectly. She said it was incredibly uncanny, and didn't say much about her ability to parent.

About a year ago I found TV-Ark, and found a long clip of TVS's startup.... and chillingly, I knew every bar, despite having no memory of ever having heard it in my life.


Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

[sick as a pike]

The Little Picture Show with that tidy bint with the ginger hair

Ah yes, Wendy Lloyd.  I just investigated and found that more recently she co-hosted "Brainwaves", with Prince Edward.

[Morrisfan82]

Five to 11

...Gnnnnhhh... ...theme tune... ...indelibly burned... ...into my mind... ...gahhh...

That said though, with regards to T4: five minutes of school-assembly type literature read out by some bloke, versus a constant barrage of interminable shite about Americans, celebrities, fashion, money, and how much money American celebrities spend on fashion: which is more torturous? Hmm?

[TJ]

Five to 11

...Gnnnnhhh... ...theme tune... ...indelibly burned... ...into my mind... ...gahhh...

Written by me, and taken from a joke 'Dream DVDs' feature in a recent edition of The TV Cream Update:

FIVE TO ELEVEN, BBC Worldwide

WHY IT SHOULD BE RELEASED: DVDs are all very well and good for those that like big-budget motion pictures and classic television comedy, but what about the people who'll do anything for a quiet life and just want a bit of relaxation, contemplation and poetry? This DVD, compiling classic editions of the BBC's 1980s daytime schedules mainstay - including highlights from presentation stints by Joanna Lumley, Kenneth Branagh, Stephen Pacey and Phillip Madoc amongst others - is *their* DVD.

WHAT'S IN IT FOR THEM: Well, they have to put out something to fill the gaps left by the continued non-appearance of "The Complete Watch With Mother" and "The Young Ones - Special Edition".

SUGGESTED EXTRAS: A 'Making Of' feature on the opening titles, detailing how the various images of flowers, kingfishers and gorillas were chosen and then put together; both theme tunes, specially remixed for Dolby 5.1; original scripts; 'Broom Cupboard' continuity from the editions that were broadcast during the school summer holidays.

OTHER DISCS IN THIS SERIES: The What The Papers Say Years, Classic This Is Your Right - The 1970s, Classic Aap Kaa Hak - The 1970s, The Complete Five Magic Minutes

[Ambient Sheep]

They showed that on "Room 101" once, when Angus Deayton wanted to send idents in. There's one priceless close-up of the exceptionally shoddy-looking face of the exceptionally shoddy-looking model ("was that Errol Flynn?" remarked Deayton). And it did indeed go on *forever*.

Yup...as you probably know it can be viewed several places online:

http://www.tv-ark.org.uk/itveastofengland/angliaknightidents.html
http://www.transdiffusion.org/ident/album/anglia/
http://www.tvfetish.net/IA_Anglia.htm

Michael Alexander St. John was a continuity announcer at HTV for years...And still nobody knows what he looked like!

Really?  Strange.

[Morrisfan82]

Five to 11

...Gnnnnhhh... ...theme tune... ...indelibly burned... ...into my mind... ...gahhh...

Written by me, and taken from a joke 'Dream DVDs' feature in a recent edition of The TV Cream Update...

...for one horrible moment there I thought you meant you wrote the theme tune... the snipers were on the roof & everything...

Yeah, they later changed it to a mellower affair didn't they? Presumably they got letters... probably from other traumatised schoolkids having their summer holidays ruined by the catchiest-yet-most-horrible piece of music ever written...

Dream DVD addition: in co-operation with the Met Office, a comprehensive DVD of the morning forecasts that were daringly presented in front of a window... with the map on a nearby monitor.

[Pinball]

The more TV channels and the longer they broadcast the better, I reckon. Sure there's a lot of shite, but at least it gives an outlet for all the archival material the TV companies have been hoarding (or throwing away in the case of the BBC)..

[gazzyk1ns]

9.15   Houses Behaving Badly

You couldn't make that up, could you...

I appreciate the nostalgia from everyone (seriously, I had forgotten about the old 12" startup bits until TJ reminded me just now, that's something I clearly am on the borderline of being able to remember) but what's the difference between having to not watch a test card and having to not watch a disliked programme?

24 hour TV has the potential to be great, doesn't it... but as has been said, so far the opportunity has been completely wasted. I think BBC 1 are doing better than anyone else though, they either switch it on to News 24 or show signed repeats... that's ideal, deaf people get catered for and insomniacs get to watch repeats of the shows deemed to be highlights of the week instead of just complete trash.

That's something I often wonder about... TV stations often mess about with showing programmes late at night which 99% of viewers obviously don't want to see... because they're cheap. Why not just show repeats of stuff which is very popular, e.g. repeats of documentaries everyone has been talking about that week, which lots of people might have missed.

Actually, I suppose I have a biased view... i still only have the basic 5 channels. Everyone else gets channels which are basically "repeat" channels, with advanced showings of new shows at primetime. So maybe my idea is dated already... I can't think of a better suggestion really though, TV channels are never going to have enough money, altruism, or in-depth knowledge of their audience to show what viewers would deem to be "high quality" television around the clock.

[Purple Tentacle]

Whatever happened to the 26-hour ITV Telethons?

I always hoped that Michael Aspel would collapse and die out of exhaustion, but he was built like a light-entertainment Jack Bauer.

[Tokyo Sexwhale]

Whatever happened to the 26-hour ITV Telefons?

I always hoped that Michael Aspel would collapse and die out of exhaustion, but he was built like a light-entertainment Jack Bauer.

Fuck, I'd forgotten that horror.  I'll never complain about Children in Need again.

[Ambient Sheep]

Whatever happened to the 26-hour ITV Telefons?

Fuck, I'd forgotten that horror.  I'll never complain about Children in Need again.

<nods sagely>

[TV Fetish]

Michael Alexander St. John was a continuity announcer at HTV for years

Michael St John was a rather charming man who was the CA at HTV West until the mid 70's. He was in his late 40's then!  He had longish grey hair, had a beard and glasses and had a liking for wearing sweaters!