TV Breakdown Appreciation Thread

It wouldn't really have been affected by whether they were on air or not and when I remember them was the mid 90's so the building was on air 24/7 anyway.

I have two possible theories for the unusual 4 in the adverts breakdown sequence I mentioned on page 20 of this thread.

Theory one - the logo was used by TVS on their own channel, to publicise something on or coming up on Channel 4. This I think is unlikely, given the fact that I've seen other continuity from that time on ITV with the proper 4 logo. This would either be a still of the 4 logo, as Tyne Tees used, or a 4 programme holding slide, as used by YTV. The latter we get to see in the video with the Party Political Broadcast breakdown.

Theory two - that 4 was used by TVS for a C4 breakdown that maybe affected only the TVS area. In such circumstances, TVS would put that logo up, and possibly make a local announcement, if they were in a position to do so.

If anyone has other theories are to what the unusual 4 logo was used for, let us know.....

Here's another Channel 4 advert breakdown, from 1984. Note again, the yellow on blue C4 logo, but this time, in the normal 3D style. Once again it appears, given the comments to this video, this is TVS.



Any theories as to what went wrong this time?

The first TVS break (with the universal leader - ignore the Granada frame, it used to appear on all sorts of things, which had at one time passed through Granada's telecine department and had a leader glued on) ) looked suspiciously as if the first part of the break was on VT (cartridges) and the last commercial was on telecine, and possibly the telecine machine wouldn't start? The yellow and blue logo was obviously a monochrome caption shoved through a colouriser, so it's possible that TVS had it on permanent standby, not using up an expensive colour slide scanner. (The black and white part of it probably coming from a really cheap industrial camera, like the one we used at STV for the clock). Same goes for the Nov 8 break which I notice committed the cardinal sin of cutting off a commercial to return to the programme (something nobody ever knowingly did!!!).

Yes, its more to do with lines capacity.

If someone had missed recording a comm for whatever reason they would ring up LWT and ask very very nicely if it could be played out again. If you were lucky LWT had recorded the comm itself (not all companies needed every comm) and so you asked the local VT person if they would cue it up at a mutually agreeable time and play it out again for whoever missed it.

If you were unlucky and it wasn't recorded locally and you had to re-arrange a lines switch back to the original facility company and ask if they would play it out again. You always tried to help someone out. If you had time to put up a suitable caption it was sourced from a genlocked BBC model B - there was one on each of the main networking circuits, but it was a bit of a faff.

Regarding the cutting off of the as break to go back to the programme, would this have been automated at the time?

I know they were generally automating by 1991, on the Night Time service as well at companies which took Granada's service. One night I remember Tyne Tees was having a nightmare, clearly the ad break times had been entered incorrectly and on several occasions the programmes were being faded out and an ad break started, then switched back to programme a few seconds later. Wish I'd recorded it, would have made a good addition here. It may have been incorrect cue dot signalling, but I'll never know as I was watching on a TV with overscan at the time.

I don't think I can confirm or refute that either way, but here's the perspective from someone sitting in front of a VT machine somewhere in deepest London.

The promo exchange took place every Thursday morning. For those who don't know what that was, it was the regular exchange of programme promotion trails that each ITV company made for their own programmes that had to be sent to all the other ITV companies to use to promote that programme in their areas. The session started at 10/10.30am and took as long as needed - generally up until 12/12.30 depending on how much material was being exchanged. You sat at the VT machine with an orderly list of what sequence the companies were going to appear on your incoming feed, and what trailers you were required to record from that feed - that list usually came from your local promo department. No doubt some companies just set the VT machine recording and just simply recorded the whole lot.

As you can tell, with many companies playing out and recording trailers it had to be co-ordinated to bring order to the session. ATV/Central used to be the co-ordinating company. So it was them who switched the various feeds incoming to their MCR from the various companies and switched these out on one of their networking circuits in the agreed order. Not all companies contributed (you can imagine Grampian for example wouldn't) but every company recorded for obvious reasons.

Why ATV? I can only speculate that being in the middle of the BT distribution network it would be the easiest physical place to get many and various feeds into one spot from all around the country.

Generally this would all go very smoothly. Occasionally the person in MCR at ATV/Cen - who could talk via a microphone directly across the outgoing circuit carrying the trailers - would announce that we would be stopping for 5/10 mins or so as he was awaiting a line switch somewhere else in the country. He might typically say 'were just waiting on a line into HTV or a line into STV for 5 minutes'. But don't take that as gospel I'm just pointing out what might happen occasionally. The network was always going to be busy so a few temporary halts weren't unexpected.

C4 had the CATS playout system, that automated their playout from the outset in 1982. It also
had the ability to automate the regional playout of the ad breaks, (via VBI commands) but I don't think
any of the ITV companies ever used that facility owing to <cough> industrial relations ? Perhaps it was used in some areas towards the end of C4's 1982-1993 ITV supported era ?

One thing about TVS's attitude, from the outset , towards C4's ad breaks, was to always fill up the breaks with something. In the first few months of C4, there was very little advertising sold (owing to the Equity dispute). TSW abandoned any idea of showing any ads during the breaks until January 1983. So every single C4 break in their region was just let open with C4's default, '. ..follows shortly ...' captions.

Off peak, even Thames and Central either didn't opt out at all for some breaks, or opted back early on others.

However, I don't think I ever saw an unfilled break in the TVS region, (many breaks had the same ad more than once, and others were 100% public info films, (a fireworks one over and over again on C4's opening night !)

I don't recall ever seeing that yellow C4 logo though, and I watched an unhealthy amount of C4 in the early 80s !

Yes to your last part. CATS controlled C4's presentation, the system used to distribute and automate (if required) the remote companies was called IDENT - obviously it must have been integrated into CATS. C4 could also command their remote box at an ITV station to bypass the station altogether - maybe they were thinking of potential disruption to their service due to industrial action beyond their control - so they brought it within their control! I would if I were in their position.

From memory (it was a long time ago) IDENT could issue commands to 'standby' a minute before the break (used to tell a VT type machine playing back the comms) to go from 'stop' to 'standby/pause', a minus 5 second roll command for said device, '0' time to ' fade and take' from C4 incoming to the local VT machine (done I think within the C4 supplied box but not too sure) a 'return' command to 'fade and take' from the comms machine back to C4. I think the minus 5 second roll command must have been configurable because, for example, an ACR needed virtually no time to go from stop to fully play whilst a reel to reel quad would typically need at least 5 seconds. All a long time ago so some detail is foggy!

I remember IDENT when it was used for BBC World's advert opt outs (after C4/ITV stopped using it - I wonder if they got it second hand?)

The switching was done by a basic video switcher unit with about 4 sources - network, VT1, VT2 and a patch bay source. When it was time for the ad break it would stand up the VT at -2', play at -5" and then switch to the VT. The switch panel had buttons for each source easily be over-ridden (and u-links for each input/output if the box failed totally).

It was used fully automatically, but still needed some intervention - of course someone needed to comp and load each days tape (not that there were many adverts) but also because often the break times drifted as news changed so they could stand up the tape at -2' and then not go to the break in that 2 minutes so the tape would stand down and make for a very messy opt out. So if someone noticed they'd stand the tape up and watch the break go through