Overseas TV History

Speaking of ITV, here’s an edition of Thames News, London’s local newscast, from 1980 – an Underground crash is the top story:

And here’s a 1989 launch promo for Sky News. The style of the promo may seem familiar; a version with very similar text and graphics was developed for U.S. local television and then adopted by Melbourne’s ATV-10 in the early '80s:

I can’t find the Melbourne version – I believe it used to be on one of aussiebeachut’s channels. Here’s one of the American versions, from WDVM in Washington, D.C.:

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This still looks good 50 years later!! Take a close look at the ID:

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Taped by me - one of my very first memories of news as a kid. Not a favourite, but a first:

Local British news in the 80s - and in some cases the 90s - was quite funny in that there was no evidence really of the “American style”. Australia was all “Eyewitness News”, even Action News in Adelaide, and anchor promos and happy chat anchor pairs sitting close to each other. That was just not a thing in the UK. This is so typical of how it was:

Thames News - and i remember this from the kitchen table so well (I recorded this too) - went quite bizarrely and humorously Soviet-bloc looking to my eyes. I liked this look, don’t get me wrong, but there was something retro about it. And the theme was kind of wild and wacky :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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2 stations on the same station!? Incredible duplication of resources? Amazing overnight entertainment. Live announcers!? This video ticks all the boxes! I also remember LWT News - yes, a 3-night-a-week news service for London was a thing. Even at 10, I remember thinking they never seemed to broadcast much apart from Pam Royle in something that looked like a car park surveillance room - but I liked it anyway!



There was something very endearing about ITN’s anchor line-up in the late 80s. They were very personable and well-presented, and also casual. Fiona Armstrong was one my favourites. Her sign-off here was typical of the ITN style. Actually, she signed an autograph for my sister and I, lol.

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And here’s the very first newscast from Sky News, February 1989:

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I pretty much prefer that style from Sky News you posted and these ones - with the plain cool dark video wall and nice logo - than anything that came after it.



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The first edition of the BBC’s Breakfast Time in 1983 included a segment with video greetings from other morning shows around the world, leading off with the team from Good Morning Australia:

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A historical compilation of news opens from KTLA in Los Angeles; one of the anchors featured is an Australian, Kevin Sanders:

The remains of Skylab crashed into Australia just over 40 years ago. France’s TF1 – which had a very psychedelic look at the time – devoted the first six minutes of its evening news to the story:

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By a striking coincidence, 9 days later, the Miss Universe pageant was held in Perth (TVW-7 was the host broadcaster and it was broadcast to the US live via satellite).

Here’s Bob Barker introducing a very large piece of debris onto the stage:


^this video is pretty interesting, it’s also got the parts between commercial breaks where Bob is talking to the audience, who are clearly totally unfamiliar with his role on the Price is Right…

I’ve never watched a Miss Universe pageant, but I was always under the impresson that the actual scoring system was kept under wraps until they revealed whoever was eliminated. Having the ladies on screen with a score superimposed underneath them like that is super duper tacky IMO

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Leslie Nielsen (Airplane!, The Naked Gun, etc.) in a 1986 promo advertising a Sacramento, California, TV station’s satellite truck that could even transmit pictures from beyond the Nut Tree:

This has been mentioned before on this forum, but I believe this clip is a bit longer than the previous ones (and even if its not, it seems appropriate for this thread):

Anne Fulwood anchoring the news on KTVV (now KXAN) in Austin, Texas, as part of an anchor exchange program in 1986:

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And of course it’s only in the last few years the duplication came to an end, with the bulletin ending in 2012. The Morning News was cut to 30 minutes at some point in the 90s but remained fixed at 5.30am until just a few years ago, airing practically every day apart from a few shorter summary editions over the Christmas week in later years. And although once it was axed ITV News branding began to appear firstly on Daybreak and then much more prominently on it’s successor Good Morning Britain from 2014 the breakfast news operation does remain somewhat distant from the network operation, with one produced by ITV Breakfast and the other by ITN. The breakfast operation has stayed on air a couple of times past 9.25am to cover breaking news, something which ITN were not too happy about.

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I really liked Sky News’ Novocom graphics package introduced with the 1993 update:

By the way, this is where Sky News’ first theme came from – an American local news package called Great News:

And here is CNN’s first hour on the air – you can skip to the 8-minute mark if you aren’t interested in Ted Turner’s opening speech:

Here’s an interesting bit of presentation from Super Channel, a pan-European English-language cable/satellite channel set up in the 1980s. In its early years, the satellite that distributed Super Channel would undergo periodic eclipses, during which transmissions would cease for several hours.

Here’s how the channel would announce a satellite eclipse:

In 1993, the channel was bought by NBC and became known as NBC Super Channel. Here are various IDs, promos, etc., from the NBC era – as you can see, the programming was a hodgepodge of NBC (non-primetime), CNBC, and European-produced material:

NBC Super Channel later became NBC Europe, but was shut down as a pan-European venture in 1998. It was replaced by the National Geographic Channel on most European cable systems. Of course, CNBC Europe is still going strong.

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CBS Evening News 1990 - very nicely done, as usual from this era.

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HTV Wales News/ITN News at Ten 1989 - beautiful


By the way, how fun did they make TV feel with that “Night Club” line up?! Those were the days. The live announcer obviously gives it a more intimate feel. And, Alastair Burnett and Sandy Gall were, like, my favourite pairing! I don’t know why but those two old guys with a seeming combined age of 150 (Sandy Gall is still with us 30 years later, bless him!! He had a mix of authority and a laid-back vibe that was very charming.) I just dug the authority that was oozing out of ITN - I mean, was that ever really repeated? 2 elderly white guy anchors, in an attractive modern package. Nice.

Wales at 6 - awesome Blade Runner-esque theme

An excellent mock

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The Time The Place - remember well from sick days off school! Of course, I loved the opening!


I remember this - the Tallinn and Russia titles amazed me!


I think I loved it so much because the map would change depending on where the show was broadcasting from.