BBC Regional logos from the early 70s

Calling all logo and ident freaks, I stumbled across this French site, that has off screen shots from long distance reception.

Scroll down, and you'll see various BBC Regional TV idents from 1970. Some I've not seen before. The website's author is a bit confused about UK geography, (he thinks BBC NW is actually the Grampian region, but hey, I wouldn't know where to start with French regions)

http://francoisfrappe.blogspot.com/

You might need to hit 'reload' a few times for all the picture to appear.

Carole Hershey appeared in "ITA" testcards?

Yes, Testcards D and Testcard F (also E?) were used by BBC and ITA stations in the 60s and 70s. Lots of people refer to Testcard F as the BBC testcard but this is rather misleading. Admittedly it was a far more common sight on the BBC.

I haven't seen some of those images before - the BBC West clock is in particular a new one to me. The BBC East Anglia and BBC North West logos are also quite rare AFAIK. How long was the region known as East Anglia instead of just East?

Yes, in fact all test cards up to and including Test Card F (the one with Carole) were joint collaborations between the BBC, ITA, ITV companies, and BREMA (British Radio and Electronics Manufacturers Association). It was certainly not an exclusive thing of the BBC.

In the late 70s, the IBA went their own way with ETP1, used early mornings on ITV, but of course that became synonymous as C4's test card.

Further reading:-

http://www.pembers.freeserve.co.uk/Test-Cards/index.html

Thanks. I did not know that.

Excellent link! You can see some of the actual BBC captions on this link at TV-Ark. http://www2.tv-ark.org.uk/endboards/slides_index.html

Great find. Who'd have thought some unique images of British television would come via a DXer abroad?

Great to see some of the English regional logos. One day an image of BBC Scotland's old ident will surface!

And how strange to see the HTV logo on the test card if you look carefully. Usually ITA/IBA just printed the name of the contractor. Indeed I seem to remember the words here were "IBA Scottish Television" even though STV rarely used their full name at that time.

Yes, that HTV logo on the test card is strange. I think the test cards as seen on ITV were transmitted from an ITA slide scanner either at the transmitter, or the nearby ITA regional control centre. I didn't think the ITV companies themselves were responsible, so it's odd the ITA customised their slide in that way ?

Later in the 70s and 80s, HTV would before and after their day's programming have colour bars and tone, with a big white HTV logo superimposed over the top.

[quote="Markymark" pid="667512"]

It is interesting to read that HTV used colour bars in the late 70s and early 80s rather than the IBA Test Card - It seems back in the days of the 15 ITV companies, some preferred to do their own thing in terms of test patterns.

It was really good to see the old BBC Midlands ident on the website - another example of the days when regional identity was much stronger - even on the BBC. I was also interested in seeing the IBA versions of Test Card F as shots of the test card from ITV stations are much rarer.

I remember the Channel 4 Test Card from the 80s and as a kid I used to find it really scary

Stronger but incredibly wasteful. During that period the regions used to do their own continuity for most of the evening despite the fact that they all showed mostly the same programmes. So there'd be 5 or 6 times as many people doing essentially the same thing at the same time in every junction.

Like this one?: http://www.hhg.org.uk/images/htvbars.jpg

Where as I remember being really excited when I managed to tune the TV in my bedroom into it (before November 1982). I do wonder why you found the C4 testcard scary.

From what I remember, it was just the electronic version of ITV's usual testcard, although I seem to recall that Granada (my region at the time) generally did just colour bars rather than a testcard after closedown, but a proper testcard before start-up.