March 2002, must have been one of the last racing days with the old look and in 4:3, before it (briefly) became attheraces. They managed to screw up the closing of the programme too!
Hmmmm this wouldn’t have come about throug a cricket clash, as March 2002 wasn’t during the cricket season. In any case, as I remember it, it was the cricket that went onto Film Four and the racing on a Channel 4. I wonder what punted the racing off the main channel in March 2002?
Looks like just a standard afternoon schedule on Channel 4 with Cheltenham Festival until 4:30pm then Countdown followed by Richard & Judy. Cheltenham coverage started on Filmfour at 4:15pm until 6pm.
Guessing they just moved it over to allow Countdown and Richard & Judy to go out as normal.
Bit strange those listings list TCM as "Astra", seeing as it had closed down on analogue the previous year (I assume DST means digital satellite). Same with British Eurosport which was never on analogue Astra (though of course the generic pan-European version still was at that time).
Strange for another reason. Digital satellite is still Astra. They should've referred to it as ASAT (analogue satellite), and digital as DSAT (DST usually means daylight savings time).
I don't recall digital satellite ever being promoted as Astra in the UK though even though it's (mostly) been their satellites (apart from the 14 years of Eurobird at 28.5), whereas the Astra name was seen quite frequently on analogue.
I don't recall digital satellite ever being promoted as Astra in the UK though even though it's (mostly) been their satellites (apart from the 14 years of Eurobird at 28.5), whereas the Astra name was seen quite frequently on analogue.
Nobody's arguing with you there. The point was, even if it's not marketed that way, digital is still Astra, so they shouldn't call either analogue or digital that, it's ambiguous.
A bit of Dailymotion Gold. The entire series of Calendar Countdown, the Yorkshire-only regional precursor to Countdown, has been uploaded. Here's the first episode, and click through to the rest of the channel to watch them all - if you dare.
The first episode continues the shoddiness of the unbroadcast pilots with the theme tune and clock music being played at the same time.
Episode 3 is a classic, with the so-called maths "expert" happily declaring that both of the sums are "probably impossible". They really aren't.
Odd how the first few episides have an analogue VT clock, episode 6 has a computer generated one.
Also notable that the format is evolving as the series goes on - that would never happen these days. In the early shows Whiteley announced the chosen letters and numbers, in the semi finals the "hostess" (something else you probably wouldn't have these days) announces the letters. And it's changed from 8 to the familar 9 letter format.
Last edited by Steve in Pudsey on 31 July 2019 9:16pm
