A great problem, this success business (1966) Rediffusion’s sales director on the fickle world of selling television advertising

A great problem, this success business (1966) Rediffusion’s sales director on the fickle world of selling television advertising

A rather worryingly comprehensive roundup of what today's kids are pleased to call the "lore" of Channel Four's Teletext cartoon The Adventures.of 4-T. More than you'll ever need to know about Vince the Valve.

Read it embiggend for teh interwebz here.

Something for History of TV Fans tonight on BBC4 It’s 100 years ago John Logie Baird first invented Television They are Repeats, but well worth watching - or recording if you’re old like me :-)

40 YEARS AGO TODAY: the launch of probably the most successful of the many adverts for the licence fee (ask your parents)

My husband's Tom Baker story (rpt) Early 80s, Chris is recording train announcements. In the other booth doing advert voiceovers is Tom. Tea break. Tom turns to Chris and says "DO YOU BUY ANY OF THE THINGS I ADVERTISE YOUNG MAN?" Chris: No, not really. Tom: "GOOD. THEY'RE ALL RUBBISH, YOU KNOW."

In beta - the Teletext Archive Online Recovery Editor! Soon you'll be able to fix all those VHS errors you see in recoveries. It's therapeutic and addictive! There is an approval process in place to keep things right; a context menu for cut/copy/paste and editing attributes, and clip art library

This is good fun. Choose your ABC (Australia) clock, tweak the interference, ghosting etc. You can even choose when to have the pips. @dirtyfeed.org @matt.cymru @aldupres.bsky.social mubd.net.au/tv-history/a...

Tomorrow is - arguably- the 100th birthday of 'fake(d) news'. The first radio hoax! A BBC news-esque pastiche panicked listeners, fearing the House of Commons had been destroyed + dignitaries were being roasted alive. ...Of course we're recreating it on tomorrow's podcast. podfollow.com/BBCentury

I'm struggling to think where Central Films got the inspiration for their logo* *No I'm not. Maybe they're fans of the Bullseye repeats on Challenge.

Don't think this has been online in full before. 27 Days Before the Mast - Richard Whiteley reports on the collapse of the original Emley Moor mast and how its temporary replacement swung into operation. @transdiffusion.org @tvlive.site @whydontyoutube.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jDz...

A blog post to mark publication day, with a note of what Magic Rays of Light has cost me to date. www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/magic-rays-o...

Happy new year from TBS and BBC Scotland. youtu.be/o-i7WlQkRfI?...

From the team at TBS Action-Central to all of you at home, cheers 🥂

New Year 1993 on ITV in the South and South East of England in a nutshell. @transdiffusion.org

That the BBC Television Service had an ordinary closedown on 1 September 1939, not a hurried one during a cartoon. This fact was so scandalously against received wisdom that Wikipedia editors spent over a month discussing it before deciding not to mention the wartime closedown at all.

🟥 REWIND | Output from the prototype hardware for the 1990s BBC One/BBC Two on-screen clocks is being livestreamed on YouTube today by its creator, Richard Russell. The design being demoed emulates an antique clock face (not broadcast). >> LINK: www.youtube.com/live/I0M9Ebh...

On iPlayer if you're outside Scotland.

I’ve spent this morning morbidly watching the MTV channels close down and the final songs played were: MTV Music - Video Killed the Radio Star (Buggles) Club MTV - Don’t Stop the Music (Rihanna) MTV 90s - Goodbye (Spice Girls) MTV 80s - Together in Electric Dreams (Oakey and Moroder)

Just some of those we lost in 2025. The gaps are there for us to remember those close to us. Wishing us all a better 2026. x

The year TV showed it is not just a toy (1968) Grumpy critic Milton Shulman looks back at the wider themes of 1968 on screen my1960s.com/shulman/the-...

The penultimate - and suprisingly NSFW, missus - ATV Today* from this day in 1981. * okay, the last proper one - the final edition was mostly played for laughs @tvlive.site @whydontyoutube.bsky.social @transdiffusion.org @thetvroom.com @ukpres1.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBWu...

BLOG UPDATE! I've gone and made a full rundown of the fifty TV programmes that have been broadcast most frequently throughout 2025. With the bonus added prize of revealing which FOUR television programmes appeared on all four BBC channels in 2025. brokentv.uk/2025/12/28/t...

This isn't news to regular users of my online teletext viewer as it's been online for ages, but one of the channels has a service from this evening 40 years ago. This was recovered from a VHS tape and every page painstakingly repaired and turned back into a packet stream zxnet.co.uk/teletext/vie...

This is a great game... guess the country from the TV channel that's being live streamed. www.tvguessr.garden h/t to a user on @pres.cafe for this brilliant waste of time!

Don’t fancy 2025’s telly today? Need to hide from family for an hour or two? Enjoy Christmas 1975 instead! 🎅🏻🎄 Open the PDF, click on a programme title and start streaming from various platforms. visualmutterings.com/1975-christm...

And for those interested in the ad breaks during what I uploaded of the review as well, I've uploaded them into a separate video a month ago @transdiffusion.org @brokentv.uk bsky.app/profile/tola...

Merry Christmas! Here’s our tele-snap of Rediffusion celebrating the day back in the late 1960s, and @kecskebak.bsky.social’s wonderfully detailed reconstruction of it.

Merry Christmas!!! In the first of a series of planned updates, sub-tv.co.uk has its Christmas jumper on and some snow falling :-)

We’re just hearing reports that Andrew Emmerson, a name presentation enthusiasts of the 1990s will be very familiar with, has died. Very upsetting. We doff our caps to you, good sir. Sleep well.

It's the 24th of December! What better time to do my first blog post of the year? While the 25th is renowned for putting on the same few programmes, are there any ubiquitous offerings on TV each Christmas Eve? There are, but often not ones you'd expect. brokentv.uk/2025/12/24/s...

They said it couldn't be done. From Norwich, it's About Anglia...On Ice! (incoprorating Christine Webber Sings) @whydontyoutube.bsky.social @ukpres1.bsky.social @transdiffusion.org @tvlive.site @thetvroom.com @paul-hayes.bsky.social @colmincambs.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHxL...

If you fancy a trawl through the history of the Christmas music that accompanied the Test Card and Ceefax Pages, here's a programme I made for Care Radio two years ago with added visual bits. youtu.be/83hcKpmRa0A?...

Lewis Ringway describes what happened with the Horizon Radio DAB hijack. [Contains strong language, obviously]

The extra special 1975 Christmas Radio TV Times starts today!

🫤

...and here's the South version. @davidfurness.bsky.social @whydontyoutube.bsky.social @ukpres1.bsky.social @tvlive.site @transdiffusion.org www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pKC...

A look back at the Coast to Coast years - one of two VHS tapes released by TVS in 1992 to mark the end of their franchise. This is the South East edition... @davidfurness.bsky.social @whydontyoutube.bsky.social @ukpres1.bsky.social @tvlive.site @transdiffusion.org www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEQG...

We are sad to report that longtime BBC Children's TV producer-director Angela Beeching has died at the age of 84. Angela recently shared her memories for our book Box of Delights, and her work on Jackanory and other classic programmes entertained millions of young viewers across three decades.

Yuletide felicitations! The 1975 Christmas 'Radio TV Times' magazine is now available! 🎁 Explore 10 days of December 1975’s TV listings across both BBC and ITV. Open the PDF, click on a programme title and start streaming from various platforms. 🤶 visualmutterings.com/1975-christm...

One of my Christmas traditions is reading this brilliant article about an absolutely fascinating period by Gary Rodger transdiffusion.org/2018/12/24/a...

It's 1984 BBC One Christmas Greeting promo, Who is Santa? ( everyone thought it was noel last year) However were missing the last 15second alas.. Has anyone seen this promo else where?

Thanks for the memory…. (1964) Sally Sutherland in the press office at Television House retires

LWT’s Humphrey Burton has died at the age of 94.

And now, from Norwich...BC - the show! (that never was) An Anglia pilot for their erstwhile birthday mascot. Curious mix of semi-educational stuff, regionalism writ large and Helen McDermott adopting the spirit of Chairman Humph. @whydontyoutube.bsky.social www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UZc...

OFCOM begins consultation on STV's revised proposals for regional news. = 70% shared content / 30% split in 6pm programme - All short bulletins shared for North & Central - Opts for Edinburgh / Dundee axed Consultation runs until 9th February. www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and...