Wales has become the first nation in the UK to have entirely switched off analogue TV.
BBC1 Wales and S4/C both marked the occasion, S4/C will be posted later. But here’s how BBC1 Wales closed on analogue for the very last time.
I expect to see other similar closedowns in the future. Where I am, we have already gone all digital and there was nothing special when it happened, so it’s nice to see this happening as part of television history.
For those who have never heard of BBC Select, let me briefly introduce you to the service, as it was.
BBC Select was a service that broadcast on the downtime of BBC1 and BBC2, usually between about 2am and 6am. Programmes were very specialist and usually only available by subscribing to them. An occasional free to air programme did occur, mainly towards the end of the service.
BBC Select began in January 1992. The programmes may have been scrambled but the bits between them certainly were not. You’d have this rolling identity with the station theme that carried on for about 6 minutes a time, then just before the programme began, you’d go to the ident, which faded out, and then the scrambling began, and the programme started.
The service ended in 1994 through lack of use. This all happened prior to the launch of BBC News 24, which didn’t happen until 1997. After BBC Select finished, BBC came up with the BBC Learning Zone for overnights on BBC2.
It has to be said that the logo is very simple, just a gold ring. It actually comes from the gold ring of communication that circles the globe on the BBC’s crest of arms.
Here’s the video of the signature theme to BBC Select, the one that aired repeatedly in a 6 minute loop.
I used to love that music. Sounded almost like a very extended fanfare. Reminiscent as well of the startups of old that used to occur on both BBC1 and ITV.
More later here on Ident City. Stay tuned!
BBC Parliament, the BBC’s channel for continuing coverage of parliament and the various assemblies across the country, got a new look at 2.30pm on Monday 20th April 2009. Two videos to bring you, one showing the end of the old look and the first highlights of the new look, and the second shows the first five minutes or so of the new look unedited.
There’s more to come here on Ident City, so stay tuned.
BBC News 24, or the BBC News Channel as it is now known, launched on Sunday 9th November 1997 at 5.30pm in the afternoon. There was a half hour ‘preface’ before the first bulletin, and before the preface, the very first BBC News 24 countdown…
Stay tuned for more from BBC News 24/BBC News Channel shortly here on Ident City.
The second of my posts about the new look BBC News for 2008, takes us back about a half hour before the previous post, when the channel relaunched after the Breakfast simulcast at around 8.30 am.
More to come ater this meassage, and a word from your local station!
After a few days, the new BBC News Channel has settled in and we can now start bringing you the video clips of the new look. First, the new look Top Of The Hour sequence, as first seen at about 9am on Monday 21st April 2008.
More coming up shortly, stay tuned!
With the new look to BBC News 24 just a couple of days away, including a rebrand to BBC News Channel, I thought it would be a good idea to fill out our BBC News 24 section a bit, so you can see how the channel has changed over the years. Recently, I posted the whole 90 second countdown from the 1999-2003 era of News 24. Now, I post an entire TOTH from recent times. This one was a bit different from normal in the sense that we got the spinning background for a moment before the countdown to the TOTH began. Your anchors for this hour are Louise Minchin and Tim Willcox.
More to come on the history of BBC News 24 shortly, and I hope to have some video from the new look added soon too. Stay tuned.
The video I’m presenting here is BBC World’s output, but from an unsual day. It had been around 6pm when power got cut off to BBC Television Centre and the area around Shepherd’s Bush where TV Centre is located.
Now, there are standby generators that are used to keep channels on air, which cut as soon as a loss of power is detected. However, the power they provide is not enough to do much more than keep the gallerys and offices running. Certainly it does not provide the power necessary for studio operations. So, BBC News 24, BBC World and BBC Television News was decamped to Westminster where the power was still flowing nicely. For about a day and a bit, a combined BBC News service went out 24/7 on both BBC News 24 and BBC World, with both BBC1 and BBC2 dipping in at certain times. In fact, I remember that instead of a political programme at Midnight on BBC2, they took a news bulletin from the combined BBC News 24/BBC World service.
Here’s the video.
You will notice that the 10 second countdown is followed by an almost 1 minute long BBC World ident, before the news programme begins. The voice on the ident is Adrian Finighan, who these days can be seen anchoring CNN bulletins.
This has gotta be one of my all-time favourite pieces of presentation. The classic BBC News 24 90 second countdown to the top of the hour, from 1999. It managed to air in its entirity just once, on BBC1 just before they joined BBC News 24 to fill in the overnight hours. On that occasion, they managed to plan it so that they joined the channel at the top of the hour, hence the use of the full countdown.
One of the all time greats, and I’m so glad I’m able to present it here.
Ident City 