The intro to the Japanese version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire from its launch year, 2000. You can see how the format was adopted for local viewing tastes. Further seasons would adopt more Japanese variety show elements.
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Quite possibly the saddest way to end the broadcast day – the 1970s closedown / sign-off sequence from Antenne 2 in France, designed by the artist Folon:
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This is what a televised air raid warning (bilingual, in English and Arabic) looked like in Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Gulf War:
And a closedown / sign-off of Saudi Arabia’s English-language Channel 3 from 1983:
In Japan, a tsunami warning interrupts a morning show (at the 0:15 mark) in 2016:
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In the 1970s, NBC introduced a new logo amid great fanfare. The only problem: that same logo – or one just like it – was already being used by a small educational station in Nebraska.
This is how Tom Snyder of WNBC, the NBC station in New York, explained the embarrassing situation:
In the end, NBC had to purchase the rights to the logo from the Nebraska station – and, of course, the peacock did eventually return as NBC’s logo.
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I once read that they also supplied the Nebraska station with thousands of dollars in new equipment as part of the deal.
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After German reunification in 1990, East Germany’s former state broadcaster Deutscher Fernsehfunk (DFF) still existed for a year and a few months as the regional channel for the five New States. They also provided regional opt-outs for ARD programming until replacement organisations were ready.
DFF still provided an eastern-wide newscast at 7.30pm, as below.
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From Timothy Green’s 1972 book The Universal Eye: World Television in the Seventies, a description of HSTV (Channel 5), an unusual army-run TV station in Thailand:
Half a century later, the station is still owned by the Thai Army. This is what its newscasts look like:
Changing continents, here are a few pages from a 1960 issue of Tele-Guía, Mexico’s leading TV listings magazine:
Some bits an pieces of Mexican television from that period:
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A 1983 promo from WBNB in the U.S. Virgin Islands, an American territory in the Caribbean:
From 1989, a special report from WBNB on the approaching Hurricane Hugo. The station ended up being destroyed by the hurricane and was never rebuilt:
Bits and pieces of East German TV from 1983 (weather forecast, program previews, breakfiller, news update, in-vision continuity):
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And speaking of WBNB, here’s a promotional feature about the Caribbean station from 1982 or 1983:
A promotional video about the nearby Franco-Dutch island of St. Martin / St. Maarten produced by WBNB:
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This thread needs a bit more activity with the wonders of overseas television, but here goes. In the United States in many markets, one channel would have a late night horror movie block which was hosted by a character that was related to the genre. This example shows “Saturday Night Dead” a horror show that aired on KYW-3 Philadelphia in the mid to late 80s on a Saturday Night after “Saturday Night Live.” The name of the host is Stella played by Karen Scioli.
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And to mark today’s affiliation change in Australia, here’s a report about a similar switch in Atlanta in the 1990s:
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In 1989, Channel 4 News in the UK reports on the launch of Sky Television (or rather the transformation of the pan-European Sky Channel into a UK-focused multi-channel DBS service):
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Funnily enough, 14 years earlier, this Atlanta station was running promos that it was not changing affiliations during the 1980 switch:
East German television coverage of the country’s first democratic election in 1990 (minus the computer graphics for rights reasons). The surprise win of the CDU meant that the country would be united with West Germany – and that that would happen sooner rather than later:
Various bits and pieces of CNN and CNN International from the early 1990s:
A look at America’s “smallest and lowest-rated” TV station about 40 years ago:
Staying in the U.S., a 1982 CBS News report on the national news explosion of the early '80s:
A Miami local newscast – from 1953!
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Found this while scrolling YouTube. Rare footage of EMTV from PNG from 1989. Good to find an old off air recording from PNG on YouTube.
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That somewhat familiar EMTV National News graphic/theme at the 6:15 mark would suggest it may have had some form of connection with Australia’s Nine Network even back then?
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yes, EMTV was owned by Nine
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1987: a person in a Max Headroom mask interrupts the 9pm WGMTV news and WTTWTV in the US - To this day no one has been caught: news reports on 1987 max headroom tv broadcast intrusion - YouTube
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Particularly the first 15 minutes of this anniversary special may be interesting; it’s a self-laudatory but worthwhile history of WSVN in Miami, a station that lost its NBC affiliation in the 1980s and adopted a news-heavy, tabloid-oriented format that turned out to be a ratings success:
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I posted a link to this YouTube video about the original Family Feud in another thread…
Well, part 2 is now up. It’s a fascinating story about the ups and downs of the television business, so I would recommend it even to those who aren’t otherwise interested in game shows:
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A historic compilation of news opens used by CJOH, the CTV affiliate (now O&O) in Ottawa, the capital of Canada (including a very early sighting of a young Peter Jennings before he moved south of the border):
The consequences of a fire that destroyed much of the station in 2010:
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