My guess is the actual switch is the glitch in the picture at 4:27. I think what happened was Central switched their output to the internal TV-AM feed coming from the GPO network prior to the transmitter switch occurring. Then after the switch, they faded out the IBA card from TV-AM and put up their local card. That's why the transition seems to be so 'seamless' between the two IBA cards.

Central always had great start-ups. Branding genius!

My favorite part about British television in the 80s were the cards put in front of a camera, like the clocks at closedown.

Spot on. I live in Anglia region and their start-up sequence was so ridiculously long that there was plenty of time for a cup of tea! Look up Angus Deayton room 101 and you'll see what I mean.

David Rappaport did tragically take his own life. I used to watch him on Tiswas as Shades or Green Nigel. Seemed a very likeable bloke. R.I.P.

@kimballcrocferd9988

5 жыл бұрын

Remember him from time bandits

Another superb upload, well done TBS! This appears to be from Friday 20th May 1983 - the final episode of Death Of An Expert Witness went out that night at 9.05pm, preceded by a PEB (this was during the election campaign). However, The Guardian has the 9.30am schools programme listed as "Manscape" rather than "Watch Your Language" - The Times simply lists it as "British agriculture". There's no indication of any variations elsewhere.

Incidentally my recollection is that the original intention was for an 0555 to 0915 timing for TVam-leaving the IBA able to broadcast their Engineering Announcements in the gap on Tuesdays. Greg Dyke asked for the times to be changed from 0625 to 0925 as part of his strategy to save TVam from financial ruin. BTW from the day TVam started the Tyne Tees start up dropped the Three Rivers tune and began using random music. When TVam was extended to 925, music was abandoned altogether.

Presumably the trailer for 'Death of an Expert Witness' was played out by TV-am - hence the ITV branding?

Great, this video begins and what do I see, bloody Gary Gliter, charming.

Would it be beyond the realms of possibility that the first slide was from TV-am and was fed by BT Birmingham to both the transmitters *and* to Central. Central put that feed onto their output and BT switch Central to the transmitter. They can then fade the TV-AM caption out and put their own up cleanly. (analogous to a BBC regional soft-opt)

ATV didn't lose its franchise per se, as ATV Network Ltd and Central Independent Television were owned by the same company (initially - indeed Central Independent Television was originally called ATV Midlands Ltd). Effectively ATV kept its franchise, but the conditions imposed by the IBA required it to a) Close Elstree, b) Open an East Mids Studio (Nottingham) for East Mids news and content (Central sensibly made it a fully equipped studio and both Lenton Lane and Broad Street were busy for many years afterwards) c) focus more on regional programming, d) ACC (who owned ATV) had to divest 49% of the shares (but could retain a controlling share if they wanted - it turned out they didn't) and e) Rename the company to reflect the midlands base (hence Central).

@andrewswift5690

10 жыл бұрын

Yes they had to vacate Elstree once Lenton Lane in Nottingham was up and running. However the first series of Blockbusters and Auf Wiedersehen Pet in 1983 and the fifth series of Family Fortunes (by which time Bob Monkhouse had gone back to the Beeb, and Max Bygraves was now host) were filmed at Borehamwood

@antster1983

10 жыл бұрын

They weren't in Lenton Lane initially - they operated from an industrial park in Giltbrook until Lenton Lane was up and running.

@cjmillsnun

9 жыл бұрын

Anthony Hobson That was the plan for the news only, however they initially didn't because of industrial disputes. The first east midlands Central news not till September '83 over a year after Central started. Until then the news all came from Broad Street. Other programming came from Broad Street and Elstree until Lenton Lane was ready.

@robertcomer2767

4 жыл бұрын

And all that and for what? All that money spent closing down Elstree and redundancy to make way for studios in Nottingham that didn't last 20 years. The IBA and their pompous Lord and Lady's Haven't Got a Clue should have been got rid of entirely long before the late 1980s. It wasn't just ATV, then Channel 4 entertaining no-one and then no adverts, TV-am (a franchise that should never have been awarded to them) and BSB (must be in D-Mac, waste millions on dishes that won't work and then get totally destroyed by Murdoch who just jumped on a Luxembourg satellite).

@dennis8196

2 жыл бұрын

@@robertcomer2767 what a lot of bollocks. C4 had a lot of entertaining programming, they had a lot of crap too. It was no different to the other 3 stations starting up. BBC1 started as a part time service. BBC 2 was the alternative to general news and films (eg the arts, literature reviews and what became documentary programming). ITV became the semi-independent (highly restricted/regulated) equivalent to BBC1 with a heavy focus on regional programming and a commitment to regionally made for national viewing programs. The rules for the franchise's were very strict to prevent what we have now since the IBA and DTI were devolved and OFCOM replaced them. The franchise owners could not own too large a share in the other media groups and branches of the media, this meant no one group could own most of the major newspapers, a large share of local papers and too many cinemas and radio stations. Now OFCOM has taken all of the restrictions away there isn't anything independent anywhere, the local papers are owned by 2 groups, the news in every region is typically 15% relevant to the area, and then 85% the same generic story passed around the region's usually with the same stock images. The ITV regions are all the same and most are owned by the same group who happens to own sky and most newspapers, either in part or whole. Thank you Tories! As for BSB, the technology was early days and dmac was quite good in the end, if Murdock hadn't sold pirated BSB cards and hardware using 3rd party hackers and financially crippled them, they'd have done well. Now we have 0 competition there as well. He / they tried the same crap with Freeview but was caught out. Slap on wrist for that. The IBA put strict restrictions in place to protect people from a monoculture of media who could pump their own brand of propaganda, and they were evidently right to do so. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't. Put you TV on now and tell me you can find something worth owning a TV for on those 600 channels. The comedy isn't funny the News is predictable, and nothing is worth watching because we don't make films any more and American films are just bad remakes, or sequels of bad films.

Wow, yes, this is exactly the sort of thing I find interesting and fascianting! Well done for uplaading!

Somewhat ironic seeing an ATV logo for the first schools programme given that they were rebranded Central.

Yes, this has to be 20th May 1983, despite the schools programme (no 'Central Presents' slide!) not fitting the published listings.

This would be one of the last TV-AM closedowns with the gap, as your example from 26 May 1983 (the following Thursday) goes all the way to 0925.

@andrewswift5690

10 жыл бұрын

The final closedown with the gap was 22nd May 1983 (a Sunday). Last time I heard the Tyne Tees TV start-up music Three Rivers Fantasy

@CaptainSiCo

8 жыл бұрын

This explains why Central reinstated a two-minute schools standby the following week, ie. Slide and clock.

They all had their own music for the local card, but (probably!) it was the same tape - so everyone heard the same music, but not at the same time on the same day. Local practice at each transmitter, especially in the first month of TV-am, may have differed. We haven't got a London handover from the same period, but the handover still applied to Thames/LWT (as can be seen in the horrendous picture roll elsewhere on our channel between Thames and LWT themselves!)

Did you know that ATV was re-awarded the Midlands franchise (they have been there since 1956) in 1980 and the IBA forced ATV to rename itself as Central Independent Television

It is indeed Mr Glitter, long before his fall from grace. Also present is the late actor David Rappaport, who had a stint on early GMB as their "funny man in residence".

And I thought I was the only one that noticed this! Yes, ITV must still be pissed about that clause, to define ITV Breakfast Ltd and their 0600 - 0924 slot. Did anyone notice their GMTV2 slot keeps moving from ITV2 to ITV4 from time to time. Plus, I wonder how they manage major sporting events that need an entire morning slot. It's a silly and well overdue for a revision, or will it close with the entire analogue Channel 3 closedown perhaps? Or will be see it until 2013 or 2015. Can't forget1993

Yes I assumed at the time that the first card was from TVam and the second was from the normal ITV network of which TVam was not a part. On Tyne Tees at this period the second card went off abruptly at 9-25 to be replaced by colour bars and tone and a few minutes thereafter the start-up.

UTV and STV. The licence for the regional ITV companies is to operate (ie, sell adverts) 0925 to 0559, the licence for the breakfast franchise is to operate 0600 to 0924. If ITV plc owned all the franchises, it could tamper with the breakfast times with nobody minding (OfCom would let them). But it doesn't own UTV and STV and they have the licence (ie, the right to sell adverts) between 0925 and 0559 in their respective areas.

Over 6 minutes of dead air time for switching, that wouldn't be allowed today.

Now thats info. Love it :)

30 years ago today - how time flies!

Love this

blimey..i forgot about the school tv shows.....now it's jeremy kyle!!!!...maybe we could learn more from 1983 with the school programes....

Well done.

Haha Love the Central startup music!

No. They were edited out because the music caused the whole video to be blocked worldwide.

I remember TVam used an alternative music cue on Saturdays and Sundays similar to the start up music one before the handover to the regional stations but I can’t find it anywhere

Gary Glitter. Ooh dear......

The second and third tracks are from the 1981 Bruton album "Street Level" (BRH 15). The liner notes say the tracks on that album are "Chart Toppers". 4:34 - Les Hurdle & Mats Bjorklund - "Sunshine Taste" (liner notes: "Vibrant Rocker") 5:20 - Les Hurdle - "Hero" (liner notes: "Determined theme")

@eduardomurcia9940

Жыл бұрын

I'm still searching for the first song, even I enter Usample, where I found one of the ITV Schools Clock themes (Chateaux, FRANCE BRR1), and nothing, that song its stuck on my head.

@far78

3 ай бұрын

@@eduardomurcia9940 Its Steve Gray - Going Places from Bruton LP BRN3 (Going Places)

@eduardomurcia9940

3 ай бұрын

@@far78 Thank you, thank you very much. Greetings from El Salvador 🇸🇻🇬🇧

@GeorgeLiquor

Ай бұрын

I'm looking for the song at 8:21. SoundHound returns no results

@eduardomurcia9940

Ай бұрын

​@@GeorgeLiquor For I know is a custom in house soundtrack, but somebody uploaded like a master recording of the Central Start-ups, ID's and Closedown Themes. kzread.info/dash/bejne/pJWo0NJ9ocqbeNY.htmlsi=sEx81jThln8Yy0Cl

I can just imagine Peter Jay quietly sobbing into his croissant and Cafe Hag.

@mrkipling2201

3 жыл бұрын

And Johnathan Aitken chuckling away to himself!!

Note that it's actually two captions, one coming (presumably) from the BT switching centre under Post Office Tower and one coming from Transmission Control at the Paradise Centre - the neat fade via black from one to the other showing that BT have finished the automatic switchover system as far as Birmingham at least by this point. Earlier handovers had an abrupt cut between the BT(?) card and one at each IBA site, without the fade between.

There is something very odd going on with Watch Your Language seemingly bring broadcast at 9.30. It was only scheduled mid morning on Mondays that term. Granada's The Land went out at 9.30 on Fridays in most regions. Footage exists on here from Friday 27 May showing The Land finishing at 9.50.

I think I would've edited out the first 1:56 of this clip!

figured i'd come here to say that this footage is now exactly 39 years old

TV am is now R.I.P and then switched central

Never seen that IBA interval caption online before - excellent find. Interesting that the ATV production didn't have any sort of Central ident preceding it - their policy was pretty inconsistent IIRC. It's Friday May 20th, 1983 by the way, and while the Times doesn't indicate any regional schools variations, at 12.30pm, in TVS's networked 'Writers on Writing', Richard Hoggart talked to A.S. Byatt. That's right, in what's now the 'Loose Women' slot...

Nope - there's no edit on the original tape. It's exactly as you see here, including the fade between captions, except that two pieces of music either side have been omitted (neither of which feature an edit either).

Ah, TV-am. The Iron Lady sadly brought an end to that. At least we got "Good Morning Britain" back on ITV Breakfast.

@RetroGUY77

9 жыл бұрын

The new Good Morning Britain sucks though

@JamieMurphy25

8 жыл бұрын

+Kris Starring Well, Margaret said in a private note to Bruce Gyngell, which he read out loud to a journalism awards ceremony, that she was heartbroken when TV-am lost their franchise.

@sillygoose635

4 жыл бұрын

@@RetroGUY77 nah it doesn't, aside from piers morgan

Hey, it’s the dude from Time Bandits! Oh, and Gary Glitter...

To think they took ATV off and this half arsed attempt at a startup with logos all over the place. Of all the companies that started in 1982, TVS was the most professional (and I lived in the Central region!)

It was just so messy - guess they didn't have to worry about a 15 minute gap losing viewers back in those days - all that time and no commercials. I used to love the gap between TVAM and Central's start-up - the music was so cool to me. What's funny also is that the first program to be shown is from Central's predecessor ATV, with the loud brash ATV jingle. TV is so seemless now, yet so crap - such a shame.

@michaelhall6178

7 жыл бұрын

In fairness, what else were you going to switch to back in the day? You'd go and do the hoovering instead, or something like that.

@sillygoose635

4 жыл бұрын

TV is not crap today.

8:28, so does the sphere split or is it eclipsing a light source behind, curious...

I had to skip forward to keep Gary Glitter off my screen

I'd have assumed that the first slide was from TVam and the second from Central. The idea being that the TVam slide would sit there on their output until it was replaced by a local one in each region. Would BT have ever generated an IBA slide? Having said that I,m not sure how the fade would have been done (assuming that's not the edit for time) The 'automatic system' have been able to do a fade, it was always a straight cut at 9:25.

According to Sam Hodkin, the Central startup theme was composed by Brian Bennett, Jim Stokoe and Mike Moran. Can anyone else confirm this?

@antster1983

8 жыл бұрын

Further to that, Jim Stokoe has said that he and Pete Bennett wrote the theme, and Mike Moran arranged and produced it.

ATV lost its franchise because it was required to provide better regional programming in the east of he region , and it couldn't convince the IBA that it would or could, even though ATV had a acquired the land in Nottingham

@cjmillsnun

6 жыл бұрын

ATV did not lose its franchise. It won with major conditions attached.

58 seconds of blankness. A rareity in today's broadcasting world. I guess that 58 seconds was allowed for them to switchover at the BT Tower? :-)

@nowster

3 жыл бұрын

Convention. It was probably part of the (historical and soon to be scrapped) IBA rules for how to do startups, like the authority announcement, the slide and the startup music.

I haven’t seen a schools and colleges clock with the programme title all in capitals before.

So Central didn't make an announcement for the start of the Schools & Colleges programming? That's nice of them(!)...

I''m afraid you're misinformed on this one. ATV was reorganised into Central, who often left the ATV frontcap on schools programming (which could be repeated for several terms, and several years, and still be relevant from an educational standpoint). This example is, admittedly, unusual for not having a "CENTRAL PRESENTS" title card before the ATV frontcap, but it is 100% genuine. As the 80s progressed, Central became more sure of itself and the frontcaps slowly died out. And now you know!

@michaelmcdonald2348

3 жыл бұрын

Frontcaps started to disappear around 1988 before the Generic ITV branding exercise in September 89. Central appeared to get round this by using an animated endcap for a short time.

@keda1981

3 жыл бұрын

Indeed, I believe it was around 1986ish when they introduced the 3D "cake" logo.

@jasonmatthews5173

Жыл бұрын

@@keda1981 Actually September 1985.

David Rappaport tragically killed himself..

Transdiffusion thank you for your kind reply.but,the screen here is currently black and has the following message"This video is currently unavailable"across the middle in white.

"WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE" Oh no. it's Megan Woodmansee's word.

If this is 1983, shouldn't there be a "Central Presents" slide before Zoom 2?

@michaelmcdonald2348

3 жыл бұрын

That's how I remember things post January 82, and in a lot of cases a trimmed down Zoom 2 with no "In Colour" section. I wonder why they didn't just replace the ident with the Central one, which they did on some other ATV productions (the last Sapphire and Steel shown in 1982 for example)

I would have expected quite a jarring opt between London and Birmingham, complete with non-sync frame-roll!

"Is there anyone watching?"

@Rexowogamer

6 жыл бұрын

Applemask “No, apart from that drunk guy who lives in a pub.”

Is there any chance of the full clip of this being available - without the 2 tracks edited out?

Still perfectly visible here. A KZread glitch?

The Death Of A Expert Witness final episode trailer on here had a odd 9:05pm Start Time this was most likely due to a Party Election Broadcast at 9:00pm

Trans... Is there any chance this is two recordings joined together?!

Shame it has a certain Mr G there!

I see the video has been removed for some reason,it is going to be reinstated anytime soon?

what are the two pieces cut?

I think that Glitter was disappointed that there weren't any young little girls around.

Do we know why we're still stuck with 9:25am as a finishing time for Daybreak? Why can't they change that now?

@Firthy2002

3 жыл бұрын

Because technically the original franchise hours still exist despite the merger of the regions into a handful of companies.

Who voices the PD James trailer? Anyone know?

One thing I'm wondering is just exactly does the switch take place? It's so hard to tell. The "fade" between the slides seems too clean to be a the switch!

@mubd1234

2 жыл бұрын

My money is on the very slight image glitch at 4:27. I believe Central took a feed of the IBA card from an internal feed of TV-AM via the GPO network and then after control of the transmitters was switched to Central, Central faded the TV-AM feed out before putting up their local IBA card.

I reckon that dwarf guy is David Rappaport, star of my all time favourite film, Time Bandits. PROVE ME INCORRECT!!!!!

@antster1983

7 жыл бұрын

R Wright It is indeed the late David Rappaport, you're right.

Michael Speake, possibly?

Oh dear!! Gary Glitter!

Why were there two identical IBA captions?

@markjeffries3684

5 жыл бұрын

One was coming from London, the other from Birmingham.

it sounds more like a cross between Jim Rosenthal & alistair Stewart

I can't identify where in the video the switch exactly takes place and where the cut is made, any help?

@antster1983

7 жыл бұрын

Small Sketches and Older Stuff From what's being said here, it occurs at 4:30 as the switch is automatic at Central in Birmingham by this point, allowing Central to fade out the IBA caption from BT Tower and cut to their own copy of the IBA caption instead, for what would be the third-from-last time.

@antster1983

7 жыл бұрын

In fact, elsewhere on Transdiffusion, there is the IBA Engineering Announcement from earlier in the week where they say that the entire ITV network was now covered by automatic switching.

That isn't Gary Glitter is it?

So Which means, TV-am is aired Weekdays from 6-9:30 AM on ITV in Early 80's?

@transdiffusion

8 жыл бұрын

+Kelvin Oabina TV-am aired from 6am to 9.25am, 7 days a week, from February 1983 until December 1992 (although it sometimes came on air a bit later - 6.30am or 7am - in the early days when it ran out of money).

@kelvinoabina8543

8 жыл бұрын

Running out of Money?

@transdiffusion

8 жыл бұрын

Kelvin Oabina Yes. TV-am very nearly went bankrupt in its first year - high setup costs plus a lack of advertisers and viewers almost sank it. That's why the (expensive) group of Ford, Rippon, Key etc were jettisoned and replaced by the (cheaper and more popular) faces of Nick Owen and Anne Diamond. Eventually TV-am recovered and even went into profit - only to be felled by the long strike/lockout that hit them later. It would then take them a long while to recover from that financially too.

@kelvinoabina8543

8 жыл бұрын

Let me say this again: TV-am aired 7 Days a Week from 6-9:25am UK Time. (2-5:25pm Philippine Time) It was aired from February 1983-December 1992.

@transdiffusion

8 жыл бұрын

+Kelvin Oabina Yes. It was a separate television station that broadcast on our main commercial television network ITV (which, at the time, was made up of 15 separate television stations covering different parts of the country). It was replaced in January 1993 by GMTV. ITV's separate stations then mostly merged into one, which calls itself 'ITV', and together they owned a majority share of GMTV, so they closed the station down and replaced it with a programme - Daybreak (re-using the name of TV-am's news programme) - and then a different programme - Good Morning Britain (re-using the name of TV-am's magazine programme). The current Good Morning Britain programme on ITV only runs on weekdays; both TV-am and GMTV ran all week long, from 6am to 9.25am every day.

Only just copped it was a player piano. Lazy TV AM.

@andymerrett

3 күн бұрын

What apart from the fact they showed a close up of it?

TV-am should have had that franchise removed.

人民은 國民이다

It must have been boring waiting all that time for the TV to come back on.

@michaelmcdonald2348

3 жыл бұрын

In general most people would have switched over (or off) after TVAM with only Schools programming at 9:25. There wasn't any normal programming until the preschool programmes at midday.

@andymerrett

3 күн бұрын

@@michaelmcdonald2348 Think it was similar for the BBC wasn't it?

Self-

We've no message from KZread saying it's blocked anywhere in the world, so this is a mystery and we're sorry it's just you that's suffering. We know this is annoying advice but: have you tried a hard refresh (Ctrl+R or Shift+F5) when on the page? If that doesn't work, could you delete your cookies & history, log back in and try again? If none of that works (but not until you've tried please!) email "editors at transdiffusion org" (work it out); we'll see if we can do you a download link.

Glitter the nonse