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Archive: Television presentation gem of the week

BBC Select

10 June 2011 12:30

Categories: Television presentation gem of the week

In the early 1990s, the BBC ran a short-lived service called BBC Select. It was designed to deliver highly specialist programming to narrow audiences. The programmes were broadcast after BBC One or BBC Two had stopped broadcasting for the day.

This example demonstrates the sort of thing BBC Select did. This is a programme about the Disability Working Allowance.

BBC Select was notable for using scrambled broadcasts. Anyone who wanted to receive BBC Select broadcasts had to buy a set-top box that would decode the signal and set your video cassette recorder to record it.

This video shows the scrambling in action. You need to fast forward to around 5:25 in this video. Alternatively, you can wait patiently through the four minute long ident — typically over-the-top for the 1990s!

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Grandstand theme tune

3 June 2011 12:30

Categories: *, Sport, Television presentation gem of the week

Is this the greatest theme tune ever? And have you ever heard the full version of it?

I bet many don’t know about the guitar break in the middle!

I reckon you could probably tell how old someone is by what pictures they associate the boing with. For me, it is a snooker ball going down a pocket — or that goalkeeper’s handstand save. Sadly I haven’t been able to find either of these on YouTube.

Here are a few of the title sequences from over the years.

Grandstand really ought to still be on TV for the theme tune alone. If you ever wondered why it is no longer on TV, here is the answer. It was killed forever by a weedy remix. They even removed the boing!

The terrible music is bad enough. But what is incredible is that almost everyone in the video is doing anything apart from watching Grandstand. They are in the gym, drinking coffee, playing pool, and even doing the shopping. But they are not on the couch watching five hours of sport (apart from the young family at the end, but that is totally implausible).

Needless to say, the remix didn’t last.

It was a rocky path to recovery. This one from 2004 is bad in the opposite way. There is too much happening, but the classic montage style is gone. Worst of all, the theme tune is being spoken over!

Here is the beginning of the final episode of Grandstand, from 2007.

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Scottish Television ident (1962)

27 May 2011 14:30

Categories: Scotland, Television presentation gem of the week

Some television presentation is designed to tell you what programmes are coming up. Others might tell you the time.

This ident, on the other hand, tells you what country you are in — just in case you found yourself sitting in your front room and suddenly wondering where you are.

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BBC Two closedown (1998)

20 May 2011 14:30

Categories: Television presentation gem of the week

This isn’t even from all that long ago — 1 January 1998 in fact. But you wouldn’t see a closedown like this on BBC Two nowadays. I love that classy clock. Clocks would disappear from BBC Two later that year.

It is topped off with an appropriate sting, even if it is a little bit spooky for 3am!

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Welcome home to ITV

13 May 2011 14:30

Categories: Television presentation gem of the week

The 1979 ITV strike was the longest in the history of British television. It was also the last major strike. When service resumed after ten weeks, this is what viewers saw.

With this naff jingle, viewers must have immediately wished that ITV never came back.

Following the ten week break, it would be a further ten weeks until new original programming was ready to air again as all of the regional stations had stopped making programmes during the strike. It must have been a long struggle for ITV to win back viewers from the BBC after this five month period.

In the first few days following the end of the strike, the station had to make do with generic ITV presentation, hence the generic ITV clock. This generic approach had only been used once before, during the 1968 strike, although it is pretty much the norm today.

Brilliant ITN theme music.

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