Nightfly
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Post by Nightfly on Jan 17, 2022 19:25:12 GMT
Within These Walls at 9.0pm - I'm sure it was a ground breaking drama at the time, but the only things I can recall are Googie Withers (happens to the best of us at this cold time of year) and this classic trailer blooper with Michael Alexander John trying to fill in on a show he's probably never seen which apparently features Women's lib and a lot of bother...
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Nightfly
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Post by Nightfly on Jan 17, 2022 19:48:54 GMT
For late night viewers - a little easter egg just after the official closedown on Westward, the screen would go black for about 30seconds; and then a short 10 second animated piece with Gus saying 'goodnight' would be shown. Wasn't there an incident involving Westward in the 70s where a more sinister "easter egg" was once broadcast when, after closedown, some "artistic" films appeared ?  Westward blamed pirates hijacking the transmitter. I can't find any reference to this online (though the Southern TV "Alien invasion" message in 77 is mentioned). |
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Sparky
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Post by Sparky on Jan 17, 2022 20:08:45 GMT
For late night viewers - a little easter egg just after the official closedown on Westward, the screen would go black for about 30seconds; and then a short 10 second animated piece with Gus saying 'goodnight' would be shown. Wasn't there an incident involving Westward in the 70s where a more sinister "easter egg" was once broadcast when, after closedown, some "artistic" films appeared ? Westward blamed pirates hijacking the transmitter. I can't find any reference to this online (though the Southern TV "Alien invasion" message in 77 is mentioned). Not sure. Though, that with Southern did happen, during an early Saturday evening in November 1977, viewers receiving pictures from the transmitter at Hannington suffered a hijack of the sound only during the early evening news. No one has still managed to get to the bottom of how this happened - other than blame students; which doesn't offer much explanation.
Thing is - if it was output from Southern itself, every Southern TV transmitter would have put it out; so it was confined to one transmitter. Picture and Sound are carried in a composite signal - Hannington (then) received it's feed off air, and rebroadcast it - the signal would be decoded at the transmitter end, piped through various amplifiers, the two then are combined again, superimposed on a carrier wave and broadcast out again.
So - for someone to "hack" the station; using an off air feed - they have to hijack both picture and sound. So technically impossible. Whoever did it somehow isolated the sound portion of the signal and managed to broadcast that.
In 1983 - a couple of guys in Nottingham managed to broadcast videotape recordings to most of Nottingham by hijacking the transmitter at Kimberley. They discovered that about 2 minutes after Central closed down for the night, a pulse to switch off the transmitter was broadcast; and that it was also fed using a off air feed. So - about 1 hour after closedown they broadcast a pulse, switching the transmitter back on, and then used a small transmitter on the same channel to send their video tape pictures, which would be then broadcast across Nottingham and the Erewash Valley from the main transmitter.
They stopped it after about 4 days - as someone phoned Central to see what it was all about - and the IBA ended up investigating. No one was ever caught. But they couldn't isolate one part of the signal.
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Post by Arthur Pringle on Jan 17, 2022 20:58:21 GMT
I watched Within These Walls on yt last week, a series 5 episode written by Tony Hoare, looks like Googie Withers was replaced as governor from series 4. Not sure I'd buy the dvd set based on what I've seen.
I noticed one of the lags in the story had the line 'one of your own', the title of one of Hoare's Sweeney episodes. The story was about a Far Left activist & interestingly featured Carol Harrison, who according to an article I read by Gary Bushell was a member of the Communist Worker's Revolutionary Party in her youth, as was Bushell himself surprisingly.
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Del Boy
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Post by Del Boy on Jan 18, 2022 12:15:53 GMT
I watched Within These Walls on yt last week, a series 5 episode written by Tony Hoare, looks like Googie Withers was replaced as governor from series 4. Not sure I'd buy the dvd set based on what I've seen. I noticed one of the lags in the story had the line 'one of your own', the title of one of Hoare's Sweeney episodes. The story was about a Far Left activist & interestingly featured Carol Harrison, who according to an article I read by Gary Bushell was a member of the Communist Worker's Revolutionary Party in her youth, as was Bushell himself surprisingly. Too much Wolfie Smith in thier case I expect  |
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Post by Arthur Pringle on Jan 18, 2022 17:56:44 GMT
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Nightfly
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Post by Nightfly on Jan 18, 2022 19:11:14 GMT
Hello Cheeky was an interesting one. A BBC radio comedy show which ran from 73-79 with a brief transfer to two YTV series in 76 which received low ratings. It was a very basic show with the three stars just performing short corny jokes and one-liners to a mic with the odd prop and costume for assistance. I suppose Barry Cryer resurrected the format for the Kenny Everett Show a few years later for Kenny's short character inserts. I'm not sure if it was in this particular TVT edition, but I remember the show being promoted with the inclusion of a cardboard insert with cut out puppets of Tim, John and Barry (with holes to thread cotton through to animate them) and I think there was a little cut out TV camera included too. If any still existed I doubt they would be worth as much as the cut out Beatles included with the original Sgt Pepper albums. 
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Cartman
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Post by Cartman on Jan 18, 2022 19:35:46 GMT
I don't remember Hello Cheeky at all. The best thing in that issue is the repeat of The World at War. One of those programmes I never tire of watching.
At the opposite extreme, Yus my Dear....how bad was that?
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Post by D.C. Burtonshaw on Jan 18, 2022 19:39:56 GMT
I think my parents pick for that Sunday on that listing would have been Weekend World for my dad at lunchtime, and Columbo for both my parents in the evening.
Looking at the 17/01/1975 listing, looks like they've done a bit more for after school children's viewing a year later, with Looney Tunes, Magpie and Black Beauty.
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Three Litre
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Post by Three Litre on Jan 18, 2022 19:57:24 GMT
Hello Cheeky was an interesting one. A BBC radio comedy show which ran from 73-79 with a brief transfer to two YTV series in 76 which received low ratings. It was a very basic show with the three stars just performing short corny jokes and one-liners to a mic with the odd prop and costume for assistance. I suppose Barry Cryer resurrected the format for the Kenny Everett Show a few years later for Kenny's short character inserts. I'm not sure if it was in this particular TVT edition, but I remember the show being promoted with the inclusion of a cardboard insert with cut out puppets of Tim, John and Barry (with holes to thread cotton through to animate them) and I think there was a little cut out TV camera included too. If any still existed I doubt they would be worth as much as the cut out Beatles included with the original Sgt Pepper albums.  I remember the radio show quite well, it was never that good and do recall them trying it on ITV where it wasn't even as good as the radio version I recall. |
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Westward blamed pirates hijacking the transmitter. I can't find any reference to this online (though the Southern TV "Alien invasion" message in 77 is mentioned). 
