Big Ends

TWW was a similar level of arrogance to Southern. I think Westward were similar too, and they ended up handing the reigns over to TSW several months early, just like TWW did.

I wonder if you could argue Southern got the last laugh though, their archive is still being repeated and released on DVD, whereas TVS's has vanished down a black hole.

Surely the joke was that TVS were ignorant of their new patch and didn't know where Maidstone is?

Which would have been fine, if the commitment to building a new broadcast centre for the Southeast/Kent area wasn't in the licence application, but I'm pretty sure it was - and a lot more commitment to that part of the patch.

It was actually worse than that. The IBA initially returned Southern's 16 page application and told them to come back with something more detailed.

The biggest irony about the Portakabin TV song is that TVS were only confined to the Portakabins in the first place because of Southern's lack of co-operation in selling them the studios.

Didn't DevonAir Radio have a similar issue in that they had really missed what the IBA were after with split frequencies, and realised too late. Gemini won the franchise instead.

And then 11 years later Meridian were based in the same temporary accommodation

Virgin Media viewers would've just seen the generic "this channel isn't on air at the moment" slide rather than the one made for Bravo, as I remember putting the timer on and record the last moments on VHS that day.

Over in Sydney, they did a great job closing down on their last day of analogue tv as they shown their old 70's sign-off sequence.


And a few months earlier in Brisbane


And how did Melbourne close down the same channel, but on another day?

That's interesting, because that's the startup card that the ITV companies used in the 50s, interesting it made it to Australia years after the ITA had stopped using it.

Interesting that the Channel Islands got a mention on “Meridian: The First Ten Minutes”.

I haven’t managed to find out if Channel TV opted out of the TVS Goodbye show, though I’m pretty sure they didn’t show that first Meridian programme and aired a short Happy New Year filler.

Perhaps they fell back on the Stockland Hill feed and showed the Thames farewell programme that was taken by TSW, and indeed most regions. Does anyone know?

Might get my collar felt for posting this, but seeing as it's appropriate, this is the earliest upload on PP, apparently put together for the final closedown of NBC Europe:



Wonder if it actually aired!

As a Frenchwoman it is naturally impossible for me not to recall the sad end of La Cinq, a generalist channel which lasted six years from 1986 to 1992.

La Cinq apologizes for the permanent interruption of picture and sound. It's over

(Link to the video of the last moments of La Cinq)
(or on Dailymotion)

L!VE TV's closedown surfaced on YouTube last year, taken from the Birmingham L!VE feed.