Some further gold from Reg Sanders - it's only the instructions for how to work OU Con!
If you currently work on Live TV transmission, BBC or ITV, then imagine the instructions for starting Stevensons Rocket... OU Continuity was a real eye opener to a brand new BBC Continuity Announcer back in 1989. Here are the Self Op guidelines. pic.twitter.com/M14iKy4RVC
I have a feeling it's made more complicated by writing it out in detail, it's just a case of being methodical and keeping your wits about you.
Interesting that one of the jobs is to call the "Number 2 standby announcer", presumably to stand them down and let them go back to bed, with a number 1 standby actually turning up at TVC?
I wonder if that was just for the early shift, apparently on one occasion Andi Peters had to do the junction into the Six when the scheduled announcer didn't show up to take over.
Mentioning switching the OU suite to TCF before starting programming means this must post-date when they used to use the OU test signal (the black screen with "OU" in one of more corners) as seen here:
Some further gold from Reg Sanders - it's only the instructions for how to work OU Con!
If you currently work on Live TV transmission, BBC or ITV, then imagine the instructions for starting Stevensons Rocket... OU Continuity was a real eye opener to a brand new BBC Continuity Announcer back in 1989. Here are the Self Op guidelines. pic.twitter.com/M14iKy4RVC
A really fascinating post. This has probably been mentioned before but what the reason for OU broadcasts being self-op? I'm guessing cost but in that day and age I'd have thought the unions might have objected, so presumably it was agreed OU would be an exception?
Presumably this all ended around 1995 when the control rooms moved?
The Schools programme sequences were self-op too, with the Announcer running everything from the NC1/2 Continuity (albeit with programmes played in from VT) so possibly an extension of the logic behind that?
This is what it looked like behind the scenes in the early 80s - lines of magnetic isobars, waiting to be moulded into the pressure chart, 30 mins before broadcast! pic.twitter.com/9xcnuNSPBZ
Ceefax pages move too fast, or maybe they’re too slow, the spelling is often rubbish and as for the spoliers on the sports results… #Onthisday 1987: Open Air visited the thrilling headquarters of Ceefax to give people a chance to air their grievances. pic.twitter.com/qulnr5eK84
You know what we need right now? Emu pulling Rod Hull into a freezer. No comedy, of any form, has ever, or will ever, top the unadulterated genius of these first few seconds. Humans will never get near this again. pic.twitter.com/kfVs3MUrOj
I'm not normally one for putting my own stuff in these threads. But I could only really add this one on Twitter due to the video content and it might interest some. BBC2 here with an alternative way of covering the 1987 election throughout the night.
One for the teletext fans now, and something you don't see very often when scanning tapes. BBC2 using in-vision Ceefax over music videos to bring you the results from the 1987 election (11/12th June 1987), for those who didn't want to watch the studio coverage. pic.twitter.com/7NTN5EXcFv
— TV Whirl Terence - 20 Purple Years (@TesTVWhirl) January 31, 2021
