Tvam- Timeslot

[Inspector Sands]

Was it a case that TVam had to feed the caption and music until they were told everyone was in circuit and “off it”? If so, continuing until a set time would be just as easy.

No need to get a clear they'd just have to leave it there till at least a certain time. I'm sure they wouldn't have been any rush to cut away from it anyway.


That clip is a good example of how TV has changed and viewers expectations have changed over the years. Can you imagine GMB finishing with the presenter and the mornings guests round a piano followed by 10 minutes of caption? And those end few minutes of TVam were always messy at the best of times

[Inspector Sands]

One thing we never did establish was how the IBA Engineering Announcements were able to go out in that gap.

At the UHF sites I guess the IBA switched the C4 distribution circuit into the ITV transmitter as it went out on both. But the VHF sites wouldn't have had a feed of C4, so I guess some other arrangement was necessary?

Or did Crawley Court play it out via TV am and the regional stations and put up with a frame roll when the switch happened?

I hadn't realised they put it out at 9:15, I thought it went out before TVam until it moved to C4?

As for how it was done, it would have been the latter. I can't imagine they'd even have the facility to put one channel out on the others at a transmitter level let alone want to use it regularly.

I suspect they just sent the tape to TVam

[Markymark]

One thing we never did establish was how the IBA Engineering Announcements were able to go out in that gap.

At the UHF sites I guess the IBA switched the C4 distribution circuit into the ITV transmitter as it went out on both. But the VHF sites wouldn't have had a feed of C4, so I guess some other arrangement was necessary?

Or did Crawley Court play it out via TV am and the regional stations and put up with a frame roll when the switch happened?

The C4 simulcasts were definitely just a case of C4 pres receiveing the programme as an outside source (just like any other remote programme) They had Oracle teletext present, and smooth fades in and out of the CharIotte St ETP1. I can’t rembembet how it looked or what happened on ITV, but I do recall seeing it (in TSW land) with no Oracle data in the VBI (which is another mystery!)

[Steve in Pudsey]

One thing we never did establish was how the IBA Engineering Announcements were able to go out in that gap.

At the UHF sites I guess the IBA switched the C4 distribution circuit into the ITV transmitter as it went out on both. But the VHF sites wouldn't have had a feed of C4, so I guess some other arrangement was necessary?

Or did Crawley Court play it out via TV am and the regional stations and put up with a frame roll when the switch happened?

I hadn't realised they put it out at 9:15, I thought it went out before TVam until it moved to C4?

As for how it was done, it would have been the latter. I can't imagine they'd even have the facility to put one channel out on the others at a transmitter level let alone want to use it regularly.

I suspect they just sent the tape to TVam

There's a full example here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYJLr37sm20

Albeit this example is the last one on ITV, so by that point BT had probably got automated switching operational in most areas, so you can't read too much into the frame roll after TV-am's last trail.

[Markymark]

One thing we never did establish was how the IBA Engineering Announcements were able to go out in that gap.

At the UHF sites I guess the IBA switched the C4 distribution circuit into the ITV transmitter as it went out on both. But the VHF sites wouldn't have had a feed of C4, so I guess some other arrangement was necessary?

Or did Crawley Court play it out via TV am and the regional stations and put up with a frame roll when the switch happened?

I hadn't realised they put it out at 9:15, I thought it went out before TVam until it moved to C4?

As for how it was done, it would have been the latter. I can't imagine they'd even have the facility to put one channel out on the others at a transmitter level let alone want to use it regularly.

I suspect they just sent the tape to TVam

No, it was definitely a simulcast on ITV and 4 (and S4C) EIA was recorded at Crawley Court on Monday afternoons, and played out from there on Tuesdays. The simulcasts didn't last long, about 6 to 8 weeks I think

[Markymark]

Albeit this example is the last one on ITV, so by that point BT had probably got automated switching operational in most areas, so you can't read too much into the frame roll after TV-am's last trail.

Actually the clues are possibly contained within that programme. They stated that BT had completed the automated switching mods. So that frame roll must have been at 09:15:00, and what we see is Sutton Coldfield etc being switched by BT Brum from TV-am national station output to Central Birmingham's o/p. At the same time BT in London replace TV-am station output with IBA Crawley Court on the 'ITV' national dist, and Central fade up the IBA feed at 09:15:05. At 09:17 the programme starts, then at the end Central fade it out, and fade up the IBA slide that says ITV progs get going shortly, then Central go into their start up sequence.

Presumably from the following week, TV-am carry on to 09:25:00 hrs and BT perform their line switches at that time, and everything carries on like that until 1993.....

[Inspector Sands]

Actually the clues are possibly contained within that programme. They stated that BT had completed the automated switching mods. So that frame roll must have been at 09:15:00, and what we see is Sutton Coldfield etc being switched by BT Brum from TV-am national station output to Central Birmingham's o/p. At the same time BT in London replace TV-am station output with IBA Crawley Court on the 'ITV' national dist, and Central fade up the IBA feed at 09:15:05.

Yep although of course they didn't have to switch/route the output of Crawley Court to the ITV companies at exactly 09:15, that could have been done at any time before

[Markymark]

Actually the clues are possibly contained within that programme. They stated that BT had completed the automated switching mods. So that frame roll must have been at 09:15:00, and what we see is Sutton Coldfield etc being switched by BT Brum from TV-am national station output to Central Birmingham's o/p. At the same time BT in London replace TV-am station output with IBA Crawley Court on the 'ITV' national dist, and Central fade up the IBA feed at 09:15:05.

Yep although of course they didn't have to switch/route the output of Crawley Court to the ITV companies at exactly 09:15, that could have been done at any time before

Well, perhaps not, all the ITV national distribution circuits from London would have been full up with TV-am's various macro regional distribution feeds until (and not before) 09:15:00. However nothing unusal with how the ITV was switched around by BT

[Si-Co]

Actually the clues are possibly contained within that programme. They stated that BT had completed the automated switching mods. So that frame roll must have been at 09:15:00, and what we see is Sutton Coldfield etc being switched by BT Brum from TV-am national station output to Central Birmingham's o/p. At the same time BT in London replace TV-am station output with IBA Crawley Court on the 'ITV' national dist, and Central fade up the IBA feed at 09:15:05.

Yep although of course they didn't have to switch/route the output of Crawley Court to the ITV companies at exactly 09:15, that could have been done at any time before

Actually the frame roll in that recording comes at a random time of about 09:15:35 (and Engineering Announcements lasts only eight minutes). I assume the IBA caption and music before EA is also being sent to Channel 4? Other than that, I agree with your thoughts.

[Markymark]

Actually the clues are possibly contained within that programme. They stated that BT had completed the automated switching mods. So that frame roll must have been at 09:15:00, and what we see is Sutton Coldfield etc being switched by BT Brum from TV-am national station output to Central Birmingham's o/p. At the same time BT in London replace TV-am station output with IBA Crawley Court on the 'ITV' national dist, and Central fade up the IBA feed at 09:15:05.

Yep although of course they didn't have to switch/route the output of Crawley Court to the ITV companies at exactly 09:15, that could have been done at any time before

Actually the frame roll in that recording comes at a random time of about 09:15:35 (and Engineering Announcements lasts only eight minutes). I assume the IBA caption and music before EA is also being sent to Channel 4? Other than that, I agree with your thoughts.

How did you deduce the apparent line switch was at 09:15:35, back timing from the schools clock starting at 09:29:00?

Yes, the IBA caption and music started up on C4 at 09:10 ish. However, how could the IBA feed have been fed to the ITV companies in advance of 09:15 (ish) when the ITV national distribution was still carrying TV-am? That was the whole point of BT's regional switching, to locally 'trombone' the local company back into circuit at 09:15, (09:25 once automated)

[Inspector Sands]

Yes, the IBA caption and music started up on C4 at 09:10 ish. However, how could the IBA feed have been fed to the ITV companies in advance of 09:15 (ish) when the ITV national distribution was still carrying TV-am? That was the whole point of BT's regional switching, to locally 'trombone' the local company back into circuit at 09:15, (09:25 once automated)

Were the circuits that took TVam from Camden to the transmitters necessarily the same ones that were then used to carry ITV programmes around the country?

The 'switch' at 9:25 changed the feed into the transmitters from one company to another. Was the circuit that took TVam to Scotland the same one that a few minutes later took schools programmes to STV/Grampian? Years later there was only 10 seconds or so between the end of TVam and the first networked item.

Were there not enough circuits around the country to have both TVam going to the transmitters and the first ITV programme going to the regional companies at the same time?

[Markymark]

Yes, the IBA caption and music started up on C4 at 09:10 ish. However, how could the IBA feed have been fed to the ITV companies in advance of 09:15 (ish) when the ITV national distribution was still carrying TV-am? That was the whole point of BT's regional switching, to locally 'trombone' the local company back into circuit at 09:15, (09:25 once automated)

Were the circuits that took TVam from Camden to the transmitters necessarily the same ones that were then used to carry ITV programmes around the country?

The 'switch' at 9:25 changed the feed into the transmitters from one company to another. Was the circuit that took TVam to Scotland the same one that a few minutes later took schools programmes to STV/Grampian? Years later there was only 10 seconds or so between the end of TVam and the first networked item.

Were there not enough circuits around the country to have both TVam going to the transmitters and the first ITV programme going to the regional companies at the same time?

Up the main London Brum Manchester trunk there may have been extra capacity, but generally no, what Tv-am used for their dist, was what was coming into each region for networked ITV programmes. Yes, there were often only 10 seconds for BT to perform multiple switches, but that was all routine stuff for them.

What was 'hard wired' until TV-am came along were the network BT feeds going directly to each regional company. For the first few months of TV-am BT's regional centres had to manually repatch those connections to bypass the ITV studios, hence the 10 min gap of mystery!

There were extra local ends that were bookable, and protection circuits that were available as back up for all broadcasters, but I'm pretty sure TV-am used ITV's primary core

[Markymark]

That's not to say the 09:25 switch didn't ever go wrong!

https://youtu.be/AJExDkOJC0g

[Inspector Sands]

That's not to say the 09:25 switch didn't ever go wrong!

https://youtu.be/AJExDkOJC0g

Yes I thought of that clip too. Although of course if it had been a problem with the switching then it would have been downstream of Granada so it was either finger trouble there, or he's listening to the output off-air.

Difficult to tell if he presses anything and sorts it or whether it just went right all by itself

The TVS jingle actually fits the awful Granada animation quite well

[Steve in Pudsey]

Were there not enough circuits around the country to have both TVam going to the transmitters and the first ITV programme going to the regional companies at the same time?

Could they have used the C4 distribution?