FROM THE ARCHIVE OF: Dave Baldwin
It’s launch day for Channel 4 – the UK’s first new terrestrial TV channel since the launch of BBC Two in 1964.
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[00:00:00] TEST CARD: the Channel 4-branded version of the IBA ETP-1 test card. Note the absence of horizontal white lines above and below the ‘IBA:CH4’ text in the blue box. The lines were added later – not sure if this was for purely aesthetic reasons or if there was another explanation.
[00:00:03] GRAPHIC: one of the original team of announcers, Keith Harrison, tells us that the channel starts today, “offering a variety of new and interesting programmes, seven days a week”.
This is also one of very few occasions where we would hear a Channel 4 announcer say “…broadcasting through the transmitters of the Independent Broadcasting Authority…”. Channel 4 did not indulge in the elaborate IBA-branded start-ups that were a common sight on ITV stations across the country for many years.
We then launch into the first track of the Channel 4 trade test tape of the same name, Almost Together.
Acknowledgements
PICTURED: Channel 4 pre-launch graphic. COPYRIGHT: Channel 4 Television Corporation.
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