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BBC One closedown (25th December 1985)

Posted on 26th February 2021 by The Rewind Team
Last updated on 9th June 2021 Filed under Channel Presentation
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FROM THE ARCHIVE OF: Dave Baldwin

The early hours of Christmas Day, and you’d normally expect to see a long playout of the Christmas BBC One symbol at closedown. Not this year folks.

VIDEO: BBC One closedown. Announcer: Martin King. TX DATE: 25th December 1985. COPYRIGHT: BBC.

Video content

[00:00:00] PROGRAMME GRAPHIC: a reminder about the religious programme, This Is the Day, airing at 9.35am in the morning.

A festive slide design is used. Incidentally BBC Two’s Christmas slides used an identical design this year, bar the channel logo.

NOTE: the weather for tonight and tomorrow – read by the continuity announcer – followed next. Unfortunately, most of it has been edited out on our VHS recording. So, we’ve left it out of our clip.

[00:00:17] CLOCK: the announcer signposts some special programmes on BBC Radio 2 (and not BBC Radio 1 as stated), BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4 in the morning, before wishing us a Happy Christmas.

[00:01:02] IDENT: normally, when the Christmas ident has been airing already – and certainly at the end of Christmas Eve’s viewing – the Christmas symbol would be played now, accompanied by the National Anthem.

Unfortunately, the Christmas symbol was not played at closedown at all this year. We asked former BBC network announcer, Mark Waddington if he could recall any reason for this:

“Yes, I do recall that if it ran for more than a minute in the hot studio lights it’d speed up and the robins fly off!”

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Acknowledgements

FEATURE IMAGE:
PICTURED: BBC One clock. COPYRIGHT: BBC.

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Broadcaster/Channel: BBC, BBC One
Broadcast Area: UK: England

OSP Category: Christmas Presentation, Clock, Closedown, Ident, Partial Junction, Standard Presentation

OSP Package: BBC One: Christmas 1985, BBC One: February 1985 - February 1991

On Air Talent: Martin King

Decade: 1980s

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