FROM THE ARCHIVE OF: Dave Baldwin
A brief mention on BBC Breakfast Time about the shutdown of the final 405-line transmitters.
Video content
[00:00:00] PROGRAMME: Debbie Rixx reads a short piece on the 405-line transmitter shutdown.
We see pictures from a special closedown party, in the transmitter room at Crystal Palace. The machinery there recalls the golden era of 405-line television.
The newsreader tells us that the 405 format was doomed with the launch of the ‘high-definition’ 625-line service in 1964.
In January 1985, there were thought to be less than 700 405-line sets in use in the country.
We hear an excerpt from the previous night’s closedown announcement by David Miles on BBC One. It should be noted that BBC Breakfast Time had the on-screen visuals out-of-sync with David’s announcement.
RELATED ARTICLE: you can see David’s announcement full-screen and via 625-line transmission here.
Acknowledgements
PICTURED: shot of BBC One airing on a 405-line TV set. COPYRIGHT: BBC.
For some reason “less than 700 homes reliant on 405” became “less than 700 405 sets in use across the country” when in fact, there were many hundreds of thousands still in use either as main sets or demoted to secondary sets where 625 was perfectly watchable.