44 years ago this week: a BBC1 Saturday night junction. Newsreader Angela Rippon wrapped up the bulletin with a curious story about the famous Dallas plot “Who Shot JR?” (the Beeb aired the episode that night, one day after CBS in the US).
This was followed by the weather prospects, a Children in Need appeal update (with Esther Rantzen and Sue Lawley), BBC1’s globe ident and a Royal Variety Performance promo.
Excerpts of CNN International’s morning news in November 2004, based out of Hong Kong.
This compilation also features lots of glossy CNN idents, including one filmed at Sydney Harbour! 
In light of Chuck Scarbourough retiring from WNBC, this is the farewell speech he gave last time he left a TV station… WNAC Boston, in audio only, 1974.
(His speech starts at 18:03)
Staying in Mendoza, but this time crossing to LV89 Canal 7’s arch-rival: LV83 Canal 9 Televida. This station (which signed on in May 1965) has a very exotic logo: a “groovy 9”, used since the 1970s.
Let’s begin with an advertisement published on 29 November 1993 by the newspaper Los Andes that contained the channel’s schedule, highlighting Madonna’s Australian performance (likely the Sydney one). It was quite innovative that both stations (7 and 9) chose to print ads to display their whole day’s skeds (and not on dedicated TV supplements): it reminds me of what Mexican networks did for years.
Here is a potpourri with other of Televida’s idents and news intros over the past few decades.
The first 30 minutes of the BBC’s broadcast of 2000 Today, nearly 25 years ago:
The project was originated by Zvi Dor-Ner, a documentary and factual production executive from WGBH in Boston in 1995; he presented the idea to the BBC, who agreed to jointly lead the broadcast and serve as the main production and distribution hub for the mammoth consortium. 60 of the world’s biggest broadcasters were part of the consortium, including the ABC, Canada’s CBC/Radio-Canada, China’s CCTV, Brazil’s Globo, Record and Band, Japan’s NHK and TV Asahi, France’s TF1, Germany’s RTL and RTL II, South Africa’s SABC, Mexico’s Televisa, Canal Once and Canal 22, Argentina’s Canal 13, Chile’s TVN, Colombia’s RCN, South Korea’s MBC, Israel’s Keshet, the Philippines’ GMA Network, Singapore’s TCS, Vietnam’s VTV and Hanoi Television, and the USA’s ABC, Univision and PBS stations, among many others. Many EBU broadcasters also joined in as host broadcasters, with Italy’s Rai, Spain’s TVE, the Netherlands’ NOS/NPO and Czech Television among the members.
As host broadcaster, the BBC was in charge of receiving and distributing 78 satellite feeds from around the world. Over 1,500 people worked at Television Centre, whose 8 studios were used for production and studio needs, including using Studio 1 as the main centrepiece of the BBC domestic coverage, which ran for 28 straight hours, beginning at 09:15 GMT/UTC (25 minutes before the start of the world feed) and ending at 13:30 GMT/UTC (nearly 2 and a half hours after the final global broadcast was made). The reliance on live feeds posed problematic when many CET countries celebrated midnight; a decision was made to air the midnight observances in rapid succession, with a slight delay in most cases. In total, around the world, over 6,000 employees, 979 cameras and 116 live shows were part of the mammoth telecast. BBC technicians also developed automated transmission galleries in the case staff had to make breaks, and also developed a highly securised intranet website which was specifically developed for the broadcast, in which information was delivered to member broadcasters.
Unlike many of the broadcasters worldwide which aired the marathon programme, which decided to format their shows under a more informative and current affairs-based show, the BBC’s broadcast had a heavy emphasis on light entertainment, whilst retaining a strong informative and journalistic element. The BBC has been known historically for a strong line-up of light entertainment during the Christmas and New Year, and didn’t want to stay away for that tradition; hence, whilst the show was introduced by David Dimbleby, the core of the show was hosted by Michael Parkinson and Gaby Roslin; in fact, most of the UK edition of the special was entertainment-led, with an all-star cast of guests and presenters from many BBC shows, which included Tomorrow’s World’s Peter Snow and Philippa Forrester, Dale Winton (who hosted two National Lottery special New Year’s lottery draws), Blue Peter’s Jamie Theakston (who hosted the Millennium Countdown concert at the Greenwich Observatorium) and Katy Hill (who co-hosted with Parkinson the finale of the “2000 to 1” Children’s Promise game show, which included an appearance from Lenny Henry, and reported on the opening of the London Eye), and staff announcer Alan Dedicoat. Dimbleby and Juliet Morris reported on the opening of the Millennium Dome. Contributors included Sir David Attenborough, Michael Palin and Fergal Keane.
The live coverage also included two special episodes of EastEnders, with the highly awaited weddings of Melanie and Ian and Natalie and Barry, special comedy performances from Barry Humphries (as Dame Edna Everage), the Two Ronnies, Harry Enfield, Neil Morrissey, Jack Dee, Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, a special Live & Kicking edition with performances from S Club 7 and Britney Spears, and the broadcast of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s New Year message. However, current affairs was not left away: regular news updates were delivered, among others, by Peter Sissons and Michael Buerk, and many top BBC foreign correspondents were placed in key locations across the Nations and around the world: Kirsty Wark from Edinburgh, Noel Thompson and Patrick Kielty in Belfast, Shauna Lowry in Londonderry, Tim Vincent and Siân Lloyd in Cardiff, Nick Knowles in Southampton, Meera Syal in India, Rolf Harris in Australia, and Jeremy Bowen from Bethlehem. Unsurprinsingly, most of the newscasts led with the resignation of Boris Yeltsin. Coverage was also focused on the Y2K bug, with frequent updates on the situation as it developed.
Branding was commissioned by the BBC to Martin Lambie-Nairn; the logo was designed by Lambie-Nairn himself as part of the presentation of the project at MIPCOM 1995, with the inanimate stone representing the Earth itself, and reflecting the global nature of the broadcast. Then, Lambie-Nairn suggested a pitch to develop the audiovisual elements of the broadcast; the pitch was won by an in-house team at the BBC’s graphics department in Manchester, led by Liz Friedman and Kevin Hill; their work further expanded on the Stone logo device by associating it with the natural elements of the Earth itself which people around the world could relate to. In total, ten idents were made, each reflecting the Sun, water, ice, fire and metal. Alongside the graphical idents, which were primarily designed as studio transitions and to link to interstitials and promo breaks, they were five idents featuring hands as break bumpers. All the music for the idents was composed and orchestrated by David Arnold. A special opening sequence for BBC News bulletins was also produced by Friedman and Hill; it used the normal David Lowe theme tune of the time, but the china red and cream were dispensed in favour of a lila purple sequence showcasing the stone design.
Alongside the idents, directed by Karl Watkins, edited at Glassworks and Asylum in London, and wholly post-produced in-house using Quantel HAL, Friedman and Hill produced and enormous “kit of parts” which was distributed to all participating broadcasters. All these elements were delivered as textless templates which could be then edited to add local texts and branding, with supers sent to each broadcaster’s graphic generators. Elements included menu backgrounds, information panels, lower third straps and stings. The idents won a Promax World Class Award and a BDA Silver Award, and were nominated for a BAFTA Craft Award for Best Visual Effects and Graphic Design.
The concept even extended to the set design for the British broadcast, whose design was influenced by the graphics; in fact, stones and water wereused as flooring for the set. The sun ident on screens on the set was the primary backdrop of the broadcast’s large videowall. The massive studio set, which covered the entire footprint of Studio 1, had space for live studio audiences, plus various presentation spaces, which included the home base, a performance space, a news desk, and a balcony for Fergal Keane’s feed monitoring.
The broadcast was a rousing success: by midnight, the broadcast peaked at 12.6 million, a true accomplishment long labored by the BBC, given the millions poured into the broadcast, and doubling the audience figures of BBC’s 1999 New Year’s Eve schedule; television director Alan Yentob was ecstatic at the success of the marathon broadcast, saying “2000 Today has been an unprecedented success. The power of BBC television has united the whole world”. The BBC competed with less than stellar offers from its rivals, allowing them to take with ease the ratings crown: the only one which did some effort was ITV, which even if they decided to fill many of its primetime hours with normal entertainment programming, they did air a millennium special produced by ITN, plus regular newsflashes throughout the day.
Artear, as said, was one of the member broadcasters of the consortium, and their work was, as usual, a mammoth thing: nearly all of the broadcasters’ news, sport and special event teams were in duty for the coverage, and the network’s top anchors had to delay their year-end holidays to be part of the special. Under the direction of VP of news Carlos d’Elia and executive producer Hugo Di Gugielmo, the network dedicated the entirety of its schedule on New Year’s Eve to airing the full broadcast, complete with a local presenting team and local segments. This forced Canal 13, which regularly started broadcast around noon daily and ended around 1-2am, to extend its broadcast hours exceptionally. Mónica Cahen D’Anvers and César Mascetti introduced the local broadcast at 6.25am, including the live performance from Tan Dun; thereafter, a succession of presenters from both the news and entertainment programming of the network took turns: Pancho Ibáñez presented New Year’s Eve morning, Luis Otero dayside, Santo Biasatti and Silvia Martínez Cassina on the midday, and Julián Weich during the afternoon, before Mónica and César came back for the primetime segment and Argentina’s New Year’s celebrations. Afterwards, Guillermo Andino hosted the overnight slot, before Santo Biasatti came back at 5am to close the broadcast at 8.30am; the network and affiliated regional stations closed down thereafter to sign-on again at normal hours.
Artear was the Latin American broadcaster with the most slots allocated at the world feed. In fact, three segments were broadcast worldwide to the members of the consortium. The first two segments were pre-recorded: the first one, which aired around 13.27 local time (16.27 GMT/UTC), was directed by award-winning filmmaker Carlos Sorín, and produced using Artear staff and technology. It was set at the Perito Moreno Glacier, inside the Los Glaciares National Park at El Calafate, Santa Cruz Province; there, Lito Vitale and his band, joined by the Buenos Aires City Choir, conducted by Carlos López Puccio, founder and longtime member of the legendary musical comedy troupe Les Luthiers, performed the theme music specifically commissioned by Artear for their coverage, aptly titled “El Día del Milenio”; a new-age piece which mixed elements from tango, traditional Argentinian music, Argentine rock and ambient music which perfectly intertwined with the breathtaking scenery showcased in the segment. The segment was particularly praised by both critics and the BBC, receiving rave reviews from the production team from the world feed HQ at Television Centre.
The second one, recorded at the Argentinian side of the Iguazu Falls, located near Puerto Iguazú, Misiones Province, was aired at 18.25 local time (21.25 GMT/UTC); also directed by Sorín, and filmed under extreme weather conditions, a high humidity index and other risky situations, the segment featured singer-songwriter Alejandro Lerner, the legendary representative of the Latin American “nuevo canto” Mercedes Sosa and a choir of 100 kids selected under a contest organised by Artear, singing a custom piece based on their participations, written and composed by Lerner, “Niños del 2000”, which again, mixed traditional Argentine music and Argentine rock under a message full of positive intentions. The segment was again praised by critics and the BBC.
The third one, which aired live, was produced by Eduardo “Coco” Fernández and Roberto Mayo, directed by Edgardo Borda and broadcast, again, entirely using Artear staff and technology. The segment, which aired live from the city of Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego province, was open to the city’s population for free, and the state and local authorities also attended. Introduced by Marley, it featured a dance performance from primi ballerini Julio Bocca and Eleonora Cassano, which bridged from fusion tango (with a piece specially commissioned from Vitale, “Tango 2000”) to contemporary dance (featuring the classic of Argentine rock “Matador” from Los Fabulosos Cadillacs), plus an spectacular fireworks display along the bay, which was filmed from helicopter, jib shots and even using a scuba diver.
The special received a high degree of promotion: Artear’s internal design team developed a campaign, “La tele del 2000”, which included 433 ad pieces showcased on newspapers, TV and radio, plus surrounding promo and presentation elements. On the day of the telecast, the broadcast used a custom graphics package, though the Lambie-Nairn stone logo was used for the entire presentation. The graphics were on the line of Artear’s design language at the time. The campaign continued during the first few months of the year, up until June, when the network launched a new, brighter and cleaner graphics package which also saw the network drop the “13” numeral beside the sun logo, in order to give full prominence to the symbol.
The event was a rousing success for Artear too: the network led the ratings during the entire telecast, with an average share of 9 and a peak share of 14.5; highlights were the 19.9 share during the Perito Moreno segment, and 17.2 during the Ushuaia party. It was so successful, that Artear decided to broadcast two compilations during the prime time schedule of the following two nights, and the company produced a limited edition VHS which featured all three Argentinian segments, plus behind the scenes footage introduced by Guillermo Andino.
As we celebrate Christmas, let me tell you another (hi)story, a story about a dream come true, but which eventually turned out to be a nightmare for who invested a lot of effort on this dream. This story is about ITV’s ill-fated attempt to revolutionise breakfast television in the UK, Daybreak.
Daybreak replaced the long-running ITV breakfast programme GMTV, which, by the late 2000s, was facing turbulent times. The main rationale for the decline in both viewership (now losing to the BBC Breakfast programme and even competition from Freeview and subscription channels) and credibility was the 2007 premium rate phone-in scandal, which badly affected GMTV and led to viewer lawsuits, a fine from Ofcom and refunds made to viewers affected by the scandal. Additionally, their output had been strongly dumbed down from its peak in the late 90s, where the news and current affairs coverage of the network had been substantially improved, with more overseas coverage and access to key figures in the news, and equally mixed with more tabloid, human-interest and lighter content, particularly in the regard of entertainment and celebrity news; not helping matters was an outdated presentation and on-screen look, which had evolved very little since the start of the franchised programme in 1993.
As a result, ITV and then minority-owner Disney UK (which jointly controlled the franchise holding company, GMTV Ltd, by then with a 75/25 shareholding) brought Red Bee Media to help refresh the look of the show, dumping the long-running sun logo in favour of a “capsule” design, and investing £4.5 million in updated digital production facilities. The changes made in January 2009 coincided with the departure of co-presenter Fiona Phillips and weather girl Andrea McLean, who were replaced by Emma Crosby (who came from Sky News) and Kirsty McCabe (who came from Five); the news bulletins were also extended, with 7-minute bulletins on the TOTH, an extended report at half past, and top stories at :15 and :45 minutes past the hour. Though ratings did improve slightly, but not enough to take on BBC Breakfast, in November, ITV bought Disney’s own stake in GMTV, and decided to make a clean start.
Immediately after takeover, the company was renamed ITV Breakfast Broadcasting Ltd, and behind the scenes changes started to happen. In December, then Editor Martin Frizell was let go, with ITV already working on plans for a totally new show by the following month, with a new format and new presenters. During the Spring, the company made a massive high-profile set of hirings, hiring away Adrian Chiles, Christine Lampard (née Bleakley) and Ian Rumsey from the BBC; there they had been responsible for the immensely popular The One Show, the company’s main access prime infotainment magazine and chat show, in which Chiles and Lampard had won a strong popularity with viewers due to their chemistry and mix of hard news content, human-interest stories and celebrity interviews; ITV was keen to replicate that on their new breakfast programme.
On July 9 that year, ITV announced that the new show would be named Daybreak, airing from 6 to 8:30am. The new show would had a mix of existing GMTV personalities with new presenters; whilst some GMTV veterans resigned or were laid off, including presenters Andrew Castle, Ben Shephard, and Crosby, newsreader Penny Smith, political editor Gloria De Piero and entertainment correspondents Richard Arnold and Carla Romano, many other presenters were retained, including presenter Kate Garraway (who moved to the position of Entertainment Editor, and also served as regular stand-in), sportscaster Dan Lobb (who had been hired from Sky Sports as part of the 2009 GMTV relaunch), health specialist Dr. Hilary Jones, newscasters/reporters John Stapleton and Richard Gaisford, and weather girl Kirsty McCabe. New hirings included newsreader Tasmin Lucia-Khan (who came from BBC Three’s 60 Seconds), entertainment correspondent Steve Hargrave (who came from Sky News, would later be Sunrise’s UK correspondent) and weather presenters Lucy Verasamy (who came from Sky News) and Alex Beresford (who was part of ITV’s existing national weather roster, and served as stand-in when needed).
Alison Sharman, who led ITV Daytime and Factual programming at the time, defended the changes, saying “Since acquiring GMTV we have carried out a thorough review and set out to transform and significantly invest in a business that had been lagging behind its competitors in recent years. Change, both on and off screen, is an essential part of the process in our bid to reclaim the top breakfast show spot.” In fact, ITV poured millions into the show, including rebuilding Studio 7 at the London TV Centre (London Studios), which was the old home for London Tonight during the LNN era, and was being used by Al Jazeera Sports (now beIN Sports) for its English soccer coverage.
In order to begin the rebuilding, GMTV was moved to the smaller Studio 3, and Al Jazeera to Studio 5. Studio 7 was fully retrofitted with HD-quality production and gallery facilities, and a sleek new studio set designed by Top Gear’s production designer Jonathan Paul Green, which included new windows into the River Thames which could be electronically made opaque, depending on the weather and time conditions. The new show was heavily promoted with the rest of ITV1’s schedule, in contrast to GMTV, whose promotions were branded and aired separately from the rest of the network’s promos.
GMTV’s final show aired on September 3, 2010, with a self-celebratory special presented by Andrew Castle and Emma Crosby, which featured recollections and moments from the show’s former co-hosts, reporters, and contributors. In the days before the launch, Daybreak was heavily promoted, with trails featuring humorous pieces featuring Chiles and Lampard, and themed break bumpers.
The show finally went on air on September 6, with a high-profile consumer investigation from Stapleton on the collapse of the Farepak Christmas savings club in 2006, plus an exclusive interview with Tony Blair on his controversial post-premiership memoir “A Journey”, just days after being interviewed in Irish television. The inaugural show also featured reports on cuts to the schools building programme and a viral video piece of a skateboarding bulldog. It also visited Forth Park Hospital in Kirkcaldy, Fife, to meet parents of newborn babies, coinciding with the start of the programme. The show also had live shots from various regional locations around the UK featuring sunrises.
In a sense, the format was a major, if not total, departure from the GMTV format, with no more separate news hour and entertainment/general interest shows; instead, the format was much more American in style, blending national news headlines, interviews with newsmakers, lifestyle features, other light news and gimmicks, regional news flashes and some of the chemistry Chiles and Lampard had succesfully achieved on The One Show; however, the show still had heavily all-in the tabloid edge GMTV it had during the last few years. Some of the shows’ key initial segments including bitesized headlines under the name “your 5-a-day” and a viral videos block called “Daybreakers”, in which viewers could vote their favourite video of the day and would be revealed at the end of the broadcast.
Lorraine Kelly’s show was also retained, with a new format in a separate slot, but retaining its emphasis on the female audience; the new show, simply named “Lorraine”, retained the lifestyle edge of its predecessor, with an emphasis on celebrity guests (actress Gemma Arterton having been the show’s first guest), star chefs (James Tanner cooking on the first week) and its resident health, fashion and entertainment hosts (Ross King, Dr. Hilary Jones, Mark Heyes…), though the new show became more reliant on tabloid human interest stories and the appearance of soft editorial content; this included a daily press preview, with various pundits discussing the headlines at tabloid newspapers, and interviews with anonymous personalities, with the show increasingly becoming a safe platform for LGBT people for sharing stories. During the first few weeks, Irish TV presenter and rugby analyst Craig Doyle fronted a “Lorraine Investigates” segment profiling true crime stories; this segment didn’t last long.
The new Daybreak and Lorraine programmes only aired on weekdays, with weekend programming entirely consisting of cartoons. However, unlike what GMTV did, which featured dedicated blocks of cartoons, one for the main ITV frequency and another for the ancillary block for ITV2/4 and CITV (long known as GMTV2), named Toonattik and Action Stations, plus some pre-school programming (under the name Wakey! Wakey!), the new weekend schedule was just a straight simulcast of the CITV channel’s breakfast programming; the block continued until the closure of the CITV channel in September 2023; since then, a mix of repeats from older daytime programmes, plus some original talk shows, have occupied the slot.
Daybreak’s awkward mix of old & new didn’t go well with critics: though The Guardian praised both Chiles and Lampard’s intact chemistry and performance, and the Daily Mail saw them as looking “incredibly cosy”, The Independent concluded that the duo “were clinging to each other for dear life”. The Daily Telegraph was more critical, saying it “could have been any old edition of any other breakfast show”; the paper even went down to the reliance on GMTV-style reporting: “Daybreak’s producers had promised that it would help set the day’s news agenda for its viewers. For most of the show, however, the news items were flabby and lacklustre”. The format’s first day was however very competitive, mainly due to viewers’ curiosity: in fact, the first show averaged a little bit more than a million viewers, a smashing improvement over GMTV, with a peak of 1.5 million viewers; however, BBC Breakfast still narrowly edged the show out with a slight advantage, with an average of 1.4 million and a peak of 1.9 million viewers.
The bad press surrounding the first day’s programme and the awkward mix of old and new led to quick turmoil: by March 2011, ratings had sunk to the 500k-600k level, leading to ITV attempting to place the show under the oversight of their ITV News Group, which also oversees the regional news shows and ITV’s stake on ITN; however, by June, ITV further changed things and that the production of breakfast programming was to be placed under the oversight of ITV Studios’ Daytime division. By September, David Kermode, who had overseen BBC Breakfast, was hired to replace Rumsey as editor from December, with Karl Newton, a producer coming from This Morning, overseeing the transition; by then, major plans were in place to revamp entirely the presenting team and format in order to thrown “one last throw of the dice” to boost its ratings, with a chief focus on “hassled mums” and families.
One of the first moves was to ditch Chiles and Lampard as presenters; they left on December 5, 2011, and were replaced shortly thereafter by Dan Lobb and Kate Garraway, which were their regular stand-ins. Chiles and Lampard also continued to present various ITV shows during this period, with Chiles also fronting ITV’s 2014 World Cup coverage. Adam Crozier, ITV’s CEO at the time, defended their hiring as necessary to “take a risk”, whilst Chiles and Lampard expressed their desire to “go with our dignity intact”. From January 2012, the graphics were tweaked, with the cold purples and lilas giving way to more appropiate sunrise colouring. Lobb and Garraway were retained as presenters during the interim.
After delays, in May, initial details of the relaunch were announced: the format would return entirely to the old GMTV format and scheduling, with a new presenting team, with Lorraine Kelly fronting the main part of the programme whilst retaining her duties at her namesake programme, with her being paired with singer and broadcaster Aled Jones; a hard news hour would also be reinstated, with Matt Barbet and Ranvir Singh hired away from 5 News and BBC North West, respectively, with Singh also serving as newsreader during the main part of the show. A new weathercaster, Laura Tobin, was also hired from the BBC. Kate Garraway was also retained as main stand-in for Kelly on Fridays and holidays.
The new format launched on September 3; the show vacated Studio 7 (which remained in use by ITV Sport until the broadcaster left the South Bank in 2019 after a failed redevelopment process) and moved with the Lorraine show to Studio 3; the space had been upgraded to HD in 2011. Addtionally, new graphics were commissioned to Jump Design & Direction, as well as music, composed and produced by Henry Gorman, Simon Hill and Rob May of Sitting Duck Music & Media. Again, critics didn’t warm out to the new format initially, particularly with the new set by Simon Jago, being derided as “garish” and “old-fashioned”, however, the return to the GMTV-style format led to a slight increase in viewers, to around 700k-800k.
Though an improvement, it wasn’t enough to save the show: by 2013, Neil Thompson, a factual editor at ITV Studios, had been selected as editor, with plans for a further relaunch of the format, with the show becoming increasingly newsier in the interim; the opening titles added an opening voice-over and with the headlines always taking front seat at the TOTH sequence, and graphics were tweaked to add a news ticker during the News Hour.
That further relaunch was actually a total new show, with Thompson discontinuing the “Daybreak” brand. Lorraine was retained to do her 8:30am show, as were Aled Jones (who remained to host a lifestyle show for the weekend, which ran for three years), Ranvir Singh and Kate Garraway; Matt Barbet returned to 5 News, with no space for him on the new show. Thompson wanted to make the show more American in style, hiring Erron Gordon to direct the programme. The result was GMB, which featured a new team of presenters (including a returning Ben Shephard, and the high-profile hirings of Susanna Reid and Charlotte Hawkins away from BBC Breakfast and Sky Sunrise), a new, aggressive style of presentation and more hard news.
After a bit of tinkering, GMB would eventually become the definitive answer to how to compete with the BBC, with the hot-button and confrontational debates (and Piers Morgan) finally attracting the much-needed eyeballs to ITV and closing the difference in the viewer figures with BBC Breakfast (which still had a very consistent lead). But that’s another story, and another story in which they all lived happily ever after. Or maybe not? Only destiny tells the story of success is a rocky one.
Merry Christmas everyone!
A Merry Christmas to those who celebrate!
Here’s a festive junction from TVB Pearl on Boxing Day 40 years ago (in their The Pearlwatcher touch campaign), with not-so-merry ads of a burning iron pan and possible gas leak from your stove, and a 60 Minutes+ story on a patient who was stuck between living and dying…
and a Christmas ID from ATV World a decade later. Don’t ask me why (ha!) Bee Gees’ First of May was used of all the festive songs available…
To add to this, the Hong Kong broadcasters seemed to do their own things for the millennium countdown: TVB, being the major one, had their own live show with all their artistes, and cut to RTHK’s main, government-organized celebration performance in their first moments of the new year.
Meanwhile, ATV had a earlier show that followed the first sunrise of the new century, then broadcast the RTHK celebrations live, with additional footage and variety show with Chinese and Taiwanese broadcasters. Judging by the footage available online, both World and Home channels aired the same show.
And tangentially related to Hong Kong, Phoenix TV was the one that actually used the 2000 Today footage - look at the MLN stone symbol before they inserted their own titles!
Well, the song does mention Christmas trees.
Merry Christmas everybody!
To celebrate this day, a small selection of visual pieces not necessarily related with Christmas.
#1: a 1992 junction of Chilean public network TVN. Includes the end of the late news and some idents (featuring its catchy signature melody).
#2: Timecheck, headlines and intro of the evening news bulletin (7:30pm) from the Netherlands’ RTL4 in June 2004. The fanfare was created by Stephen Emmer.
#3: a chaotic Christmas ID from Portuguese network RTP1 2009.
A small British compilation to wrap up 2024:
1993: Tomorrow’s World correspondent Kate Bellingham explains how BBC News’ groundbreaking virtual set and graphics worked, focusing on the technological devices.
30 December 1991: 33 years ago this week, Thames Television’s late night news bulletin read by Robin Houston. The classy ITV company was about to start its final year on the air.
Happy 2025 to everyone here at MediaSpy!
I am delighted to make the first post of 2025 by showing the start of another franchise period in ITV history: the first ever program shown by Television South this day, 43 years ago under high promises and plans. The first programme, which aired mostly live, was presented by the first anchor of the South edition of Coast to Coast, Khalid Aziz, out of Southampton; the show also included appearances from the newly-launched studio facility at Vinters Park in Maidstone, where the South East regional content and various programming would be produced.
In the memory of Oliver Ashmole-Day, from whose Collection comes this video.
This video also kicks off our commemoration of ITV’s 70th anniversary, which is being celebrated this year. In the ocassion, for those of you interested, the Transdiffusion Broadcasting System in investing on a special publication celebrating 70 years of the launch of the first franchise holder in London, Associated-Rediffusion Television, which was as groundbreaking as was ITV: it was a respectable and expansive broadcaster which sought to make ITV not only a downmarket broadcaster by making content covering all aspects of content and audience spectrium. That ethos expanded to Rediffusion’s de facto succesor Thames. The book, which features internal and publicity material published by Rediffusion, is being made in a limited edition (or limited sales window, according to TBS) basis, with the fundraising campaign having started, with plans to ship the book worldwide to supporting premises during March.
A good news for the younger, American members here: The full T.A.T. Communications endcap has been found, at the end of a July 1980 recording of The Jeffersons:
This caption from the American sitcom production house had been a notorious case of plastering and spurred a frantic search and recreations among the ‘logo community’, after its partial formup, spliced by a CBS ident, surfaced in 2018.
Speaking of the talented Hans Donner , here’s a compilation of Globo’s abstract bumpers to announce the start/end of Brazilian Daylight Saving Time between 1989 and 2021.
