A playout error on Prime Canberra in October 1990:
I think they didn’t switch to the network feed and then when they did someone accidently brought up a Marble Effect ad instead of the Prime logo (which is why the red sink is transparent with the Tonight Live set under it).
Does suggest that idents(?) where done by Wollongong?
I’m not sure how Prime operated back in the day in terms of play out, whether it was centralised or whether each station did their own play out. What I do know is that these sorts of stuff ups were quite common back in the day.
I didn’t think playout was centralised until the late 90s if not the early 00s
Prime Wollongong did do their own playout when they started in 1989. Can’t remember when, but it was moved to Canberra not long after. The Marble Effect TVC being keyed over the network feed looks like the betacart had the wrong item at the top of it’s stack and not the intended “Mature Audience” classification key. Being back then they keyed Lower Frame Supers (LFS) from the same source as break playout. Was a cheap way of running animated supers instead of some fancy high priced production character generator that was not tied to up with playout all day, with animated graphics recorded to tape.
Prime did their own playout on the Gold Coast in the early 90’s - they used a Panasonic MARC robotic tape library and M2 Panasonic 1/2 tape decks instead of the more common Sony Betacart/Betcam decks. The Sony LMS library(used by 7nee Sunshine at Maroochydore) did the same functions as the Panasonic MARC.
All made completely redundant by video servers such as the Grass Valley K2. All the previous technology being part of the many useless skills I now have.
So, the countdown timer from Wollongong would have been the MA key but cued too early?
And am I right listening carefully to it that from 0:16-0:21 is audio from a breakdown tape?
I guess it’s possible that Prime’s timing was too early for the feed from Seven, someone panicked and switched to the tape with the MA key, then switched to the breakdown tape saw that the Seven feed was live with Tonight Live and switched to that. In the panic the tape with the MA key had progressed and was now in the middle of the Marble Effect ad?