40 years since hijacking of Southern Televison

A Reddit thread I think went down the route of certain people possibly knowing who was responsible for the Max Headroom incident but as you might expect no names were given and it was probably in vain anyway all these years later.

In fact the Lost Media Wiki seemed fit to decree the first hijack's "buzzing noise" as a piece of lost audio. Considering the garbage the individual came out with on the second video, I think its probably safe to say whatever's "lost" (if anything) on the first one is no great loss.

It's beyond the statute of limitations now so whoever it was only has his reputation to risk.

I assumed that they recorded the bloke in the Max Headroom mask and it was just two attempts. So is there any lost audio at all?

Probably not, LMW decrees things are "found" by virtue of the fact they're on YouTube. Which as we all know isn't a long-term storage solution.

The clip that's on YouTube of the first Headroom incident with the buzzing is apparently a recreation. The second incident only preserved thanks to Doctor Who fans, otherwise it may have fell into the great abyss of "urban myths" filed under "during Dr Who, somebody dons a silly costume, does something incredible silly and (literally) gets an ass-whipping. We are not crackpots."

The Oddity Archive speculates that there was one just recording, and the PBS attack occurred when the tape had already been playing for a bit, which explains why the initial ramblings are so incoherent - not that the rest of it makes much sense either. Whether or not the tape was further back during the first hijack is something that'll probably never be answered.

I'm surprised that the footage of the first interruption is reconstruction as it appears on contemporary news reports with the reaction of the newsreader in the studio afterwards: 'well if you're wondering what that was, so am I'

Unless that was from the stations studio recording and the news report edited the two together

Im sure it did because the first one was during a live news programme and the tech team was able to switch feeds pretty fast to stop it.

Turns out Fuzzy Memories uploaded footage of the WGN hijacking mere days ago. Feast your eyes!

See it is correct.

The audio distortion seems to be in time with the movement of the sheet of corrugated metal, don't know if that's a coincidence or not?

It can't be, it's perfectly synced.

Interesting upload. Compare to the second video behind all the garbage the same noise is there on the same movement patterns as in the first video. As the spinner slows down the noise vanishes so I'm wondering if the distortion on the first video is simply the microphone picking up the noise of the mechanism spinning the metal sheet background.

This is clearly not a "budget" operation technical wise in terms of what "aired" - a camcorder or some other home domestic equivalent, a sheet of metal and a homemade mask. Though its interesting to think the kit to get this on air overriding a signal probably wasn't cheap either. And for what purpose? A prank? Expensive prank if you had to buy stuff to hijack a signal...

It could be that the change in video level caused by the movement of the background somehow caused interference on the audio in whatever lash up they used to transmit it. That might explain how it's there on the first one when there's no audio at all. If the mic was working it would have broadcast the voice too

I think the prevalent theory is that it was someone in the industry, if so it's very likely that they had access to the equipment to override the signal. It was the link between studio and transmitter that was interrupted, in those days microwave links were the norm for ENG. Maybe it was someone with access to another station's links equipment or even something obtained second hand