ARCHIVE: The TV Room
The internet is full of fakery.
There are news stories which are deliberately distorted and blogs which have a somewhat unusual relationship with facts and reality.
Perhaps inevitably, there are some clips of old television which are not all that they may seem.
It’s important to make distinctions.
There are some sincere attempts to recreate old presentation as accurately as possible.
For instance, someone may have taken original audio and attempted to find appropriate pictures to go with it.
And there are also some loving, high quality recreations of old graphics and sequences.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with these as long as they are clearly labelled as mocks or recreations. Nobody is pretending they are 100pc accurate but they are usually made with love and represent a genuine and informed attempt to celebrate a bygone era.
The problem is when material of questionable quality is uploaded to YouTube and other platforms.
A researcher, say, or someone too young to remember the way things were may assume these uploads are still broadly accurate even when they realise they are mocks.
There are a few things worth saying to help ensure people never fall into traps.
Firstly, it is worth making an obvious point.
Until relatively recently, the principle skill of most announcers was their voice.
Calm authority, good diction, no speech impediments and a pleasant tone were vital. Many had received formal drama or voice training. Network BBC announcers rarely had noticeable regional accents.
Putting those who are not in possession of such attributes in front of a microphone in the name of diversity, inclusion and authenticity is a modern trend.
If the voice on the video does not possess these traditional qualities, you should instantly suspect a mock or fake.
One particular poster often uploads videos which appear to show long intervals on ITV using BBC trade test and Ceefax music.
You cannot blame the layman for not recognising the music but there are a few giveaways.
It was very unusual for a commercial channel to ever leave the screen blank voluntarily between programmes after 1972. Before then daytime gaps were sometimes needed to comply with rules on broadcasting hours.
There are only a few occasions in the 80s where you might have caught a caption and music on ITV or Channel 4 such as:
- Schools intervals and the gap between schools and lunchtime programmes.
- Very specific examples of leaving the screen empty for a few moments to allow for good taste or comply with rules on how closely adverts could be placed to events such as church services.
- Strikes and serious breakdowns.
- Unfilled commercial breaks on Channel 4 before 1993 but especially in its early days.
I don’t want to condemn anyone posting these mocks. They may be vulnerable.
However it is important to ensure that nobody comes to believe they are even remotely related to the television of the era they claim to represent.
Personally I’m surprised anyone who chances upon a video appearing to show a musical interval on ITV in the 80s – voiced by someone who is clearly not a professional – could fall for it.
The second thing to do to avoid falling for fakes is to check old schedules.
Channel 4 never routinely showed programmes displaced from ITV because of news, events or local industrial disputes. CITV never moved to Ch 4 for the day in the way BBC children’s programmes hopped over to BBC Two.
It will be impossible, ultimately, to prevent unmarked fake videos being posted. In themselves they are harmless – unlike some other internet fakes posted by those with dark political or social agendas.
But those of us who are concerned with celebrating TV’s genuine history can do a lot to help ensure nobody falls for them.
Acknowledgements
PICTURED: fake continuity material from YouTube. COPYRIGHT: N/A.
Leave a Reply