The Very Early Telly Thread

Perhaps because they were regional rather than national, those companies didn't have to try to balance the sensitivities of nationalist/republican groups in the nations.

I believe that the Welsh Home Service always opted out of the closedown to play the Welsh anthem as well as GSTQ, at some expense in terms of staffing. I suspect that may have continued into tv.

Showing pictures of the royal family in NI may not have gone down well with some.

The National Anthem was used on both BBC Northern Ireland and Ulster Television, with the latter using film footage of the Queen:

Something we last saw at DSO, but rarely from the 1990s onwards, Transmitter Information. The BBC had a blue slide with a transmitter on it, with the words "TRANSMITER INFORMATION" in black. I haven't seen that slide for years, and haven't found any continuity with it. On STV, they had a slide with IBA - transmitter information on it.

If anyone can find continuity with these, especially the BBC version, post it on here please.

That's another theory screwed then

Is there any relationship between which ITV companies played the anthem and which are descended from cinema companies? I understand it was standard practice to play the anthem at the end of cinema screenings.

Well Granada didn't..... whereas Westward and Southern I'm pretty sure did

Up until the early 1960s apparently according to The Guardian. Wonderfully lampooned in an episode of Dad's Army as well where they all trample over Captain Mainwaring at the end of a film to get out before the anthem starts

Yep, Westward did, as shown in this example from 1980, with Ian Stirling in the continuity booth.

Haven't we been here before? I cant remember which stations never played the NA?

Tyne Tees always signed off with the National Anthem, until the start of 24 hour broadcasting. Occasionally they would also play the anthem at start up, such as Royal Wedding days, landmark Royal birthdays, etc.

ATV played the St Chads 'church organ' version of the National Anthem each night and would also play it again first thing in a morning on some Royal occasions - birthdays etc.

Central never played the anthem - instead using the more relaxed version of the Central theme.

Did Yorkshire ever use the anthem? I don't think I've seen any clips of them using it.

They seemed to do alot of musical montage closedowns in the 70s and 80s, usually accompanied by what looked like someone's holiday snaps!