FROM THE ARCHIVE OF: NC2
A Saturday night closedown from BBC Two in what was the final weeks of this on-screen presentation package.
Video content
[00:00:00] PROGRAMME GRAPHIC: a slide for Humoresque – the Midnight Movie next Saturday on BBC Two at 11.25pm. Joan Crawford stars as a rich, fashionable woman, who drinks a lot and adopts a poor, young but talented violinist, played by John Garfield.
[00:00:15] PROGRAMME GRAPHIC: a slide for Sunday Cinema: The Blue Dahlia. Continuing a season of films from the writings of Raymond Chandler. Starring Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake. It starts 10 minutes later than billed, at 10.30pm.
[00:00:27] CLOCK: at 13 minutes past 1, it’s time for BBC Two to close for the night.
When the clock fades out, we have 30 seconds of black and silence, before tone kicks in. There’s only about 20 seconds of tone here, which doesn’t seem right. We suspect the original recording may have been edited down. 2 minutes of tone was more common on BBC Two at closedown.
There’s then another brief spell of black and silence.
[00:01:59] TEST SIGNAL: the sawtooth signal was a common sight at closedown and early morning on BBC One and BBC Two in the 1970s and early 1980s.
After less than a minute or so of this, the video feed would be withdrawn, triggering a phased shutdown of the transmitter network across the country.
Acknowledgements
PICTURED: BBC Two clock. COPYRIGHT: BBC.
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