In Search of the Lost Signoff

[AdventOfPanurge1989]

When I was a small boy, it was the common practice of many a broadcast TV station to sign off the airwaves at night, typically between midnight and 0300 hours. As part of this practice, stations would often broadcast a summary of the day's news, followed by a sermonette and/or a bunch of public service announcements. They would then give the signoff announcement, detailing the next day's programming and listing technical details such as the city of licence and the street address of the station itself. Usually, the sequence ended with a recording of the national anthem or other patriotic song; but sometimes, a pop song like Neil Diamond's "African Suite" would play in the background while shots of local life aired. ABC-TV affiliate WFAA in Dallas-Fort Worth did so (if my memory serves me well) in the 1970s.

Now, by the late '90s I was accustomed to television being 24/7, though the programming has typically been very low-quality fare such as infomercials. It appears that when the broadcasting industry was deregulated in 1996, the signoff sequences disappeared fairly quickly. Nevertheless, as with so many aspects of my first decade of life, television signoffs suddenly popped back into my consciousness; and it all started with circumstances regarding my family's ability to watch TV.

As is well-known, the F.C.C. ended analogue programming in America in 2009. To continue watching television--my family didn't have cable or satellite at the time and our TV still isn't digital--we had to buy a converter box to receive D.T.V. At first we liked this arrangement, but within a year the box started to have serious problems, going kaput in autumn 2010. Fortunately, we'd already had high-speed internet service for a few years by then and had already been wireless for at least a year. Hence, we decided to get our news entirely online.

It was a few years that curiosity led me to stumble on WNBC-TV's (N.Y.C.) analogue shutdown sequence from 26 June 2009. It was a bit unsettling (to say the least), especially after the sequence in reverse chronological order of NBC's logos from the 1960s to the present. Before long, I came across more signoffs from the D.T.V. transition from various cities and noted the considerable variety of such sequences. Some were quite classy, including CBS affiliate KDKA-TV of Pittsburgh. Some were more abrupt, such as WCBS-TV in New York. The rest fell somewhere in between, such as that of Philadelphia's CBS affiliate KYW-TV, where they showed an old test pattern briefly before showing the CBS eye with the word "Goodbye" below it.

Thenceforth I breathed in a curiosity concerning signoff sequences, including some from BBC1 and 2. By the time we got back TV last summer, I was showing great interest in the U.S. and Canadian sequences from the past (and even a few from more recent times, such as ABC affiliate WDAZ-TV of Grand Forks, North Dakota). In fact, I had begun to imagine myself as the head of a station owned and operated by S.R. Brant's Kitsune Society with such an end-of-day routine.

Which leads me to ask the question: Do you guys have any memory of broadcasting signoffs? If so, what are they?

[superCalo]

as a child we did not have television let alone the electrical power to make one work, so we did pantomimes at the dining room table to amuse ourselves. Pretty soon the whole neighbourhood became involved the pantos used to go on for hours, many a hearty chuckle was had let me tell you.
But sadly it ended when Pablo's family got a television, all the kids started hanging out at his place leaving our table empty, barren just like my unfertile mule. I never went to Pablos house, I was too ashamed of what had been lost, sadly his tv was later destroyed when his house accidentally burnt down. Pablo survived but we never let him back for the family pantomimes, those were gone forever like our youthful dreams.

[Megaterio Llamas]

CBS Bellingham Washington had a great sign-off in the seventies - a religious choir signing a hymn with a shot of the Peace Arch in the background. Another cool one was CHEK tv Victoria BC with Santos and Johnny's Sleepwalk playing over a short film of Vic nightlife. I also recall falling asleep to KOMO Seattle's Indian Chief test pattern a time or two. Honestly, I hadn't thought about sign-offs and test patterns in ages.

[Daglord]

I remember the '60 signoff 'subliminal message' hoax... or was it?!? :shock:

[Megaterio Llamas]

Here's one for CHEK 6 circa '87.

[Megaterio Llamas]

KVOS from the 80's

[Megaterio Llamas]

CBUT 80's - shame I can't find earlier ones I remember so well

[Megaterio Llamas]

KOMO 4 '89 - A note of faith

[Megaterio Llamas]

here's one from KING 5 I remember well.

[Megaterio Llamas]

Here's a sign-off for Big Ben