BBC Continuity 1967

Including Jackanory and Blue Peter.

[@wulfrunian]

I remember we only had a wireless set when I was very little, but my Nan & Granddad had television. By the time we did get a television set, Blue Peter was presented by Christopher Trace and Valerie Singleton.

[@MrDannyDetail]

The live edition of Blue Peter on Monday 27th February 1967 featured a Distance Control Opener with Petra and Patch, followed by Bandit - The World's Smallest Mongrel. Then we were told, by Val, the Story Of The Sumari, including 8 captions by Bob Broomfield. After this was a pre-taped piece with John in a Samuai costume, followed by something called Kendo with Roald Knudson. Then there was a film about a parachutist, followed by some parachutist toys (action man by any chance?). We were then shown some new trains and a make on the Blue Peter Layout, before the show ended with some Tortoise Stories.

[@hf6150]

You clearly had to trust them on the "blue" part.

[@marcse7en]

NEWSFLASH: TV wasn't always in COLOUR! 😂😂😂

[@billbogg3857]

And lucky they did not know about Valerie Singleton's private life.

[@robotwrench]

⁠@@marcse7enNEWSFLASH: I think he knew that already!!!

[@Sheffield_Steve]

Gawd! The silence in between waiting for the continuity announcer to speak was eerie! But I'm guessing it was the old Auntie Beeb's way of doing things like on rafio which was think of what you're going to say, pause, think again and then finally say it! 🤔😉

[@daverhodes362]

A very long clock - can almost imagine Biddy Baxter saying 'We're not going on until the second we're billed. And we'll finish when I say so."

[@marcse7en]

TV is all about TIMING! Precise timing!

[@Thomas828]

Robin Carmody, well, that would explain why I can't find many references to "Jackanory" online... or "Jacka-bore-y" as my cousin called it.

[@garyssmith4559]

'Blue Peter' legend has it that Patch, the puppy had died suddenly. The producers did not have the heart to break the news to the public. Instead, a look a like replacement was acquired. In those low rez monochrome images, the change was not apparent.

[@KevinM913]

The announcer did not have enough to say to fill in all that time.

[@w1lf1ewoo]

they didn't need to fill every second -there was no competition, just watch and be grateful for what you were about to receive

[@KevinM913]

Thanks Richard. I hadn’t thought of that. It was a different world in those days.

[@cormacdoheny470]

Meryl O' Keefe announces behind the BBC1 clock.

[@trevordance5181]

Before going on to work for the BBC Meryl O'Keefe was Southern Independent Television's first continuity announcer when it first went on air in 1958.

[@coreymurray432]

(The following has been deduced from information gleaned from the Genome Archive website) Broadcast date and time of day: 27 February 1967, approx. 4.55 pm

[@Mummyjen2012]

Kinda jealous of my parents growing up with that psychedelic shit 😂 TV now isn't chill enough! And 90s kids TV was well...traumatising 🤣

[@sarahbrummitt4320]

Amazing! I'd not seen this footage before. 1967 being the year I was born.

[@EmotionallyBankrupt]

This was on the old 405-line transmission system, that had been invented in 1936. 405-line was switched off in 1985? 625-line had been first switched on in 1964. Now with DVB, I'm not sure if it's still 625-line or not? It's a bit like DAB radio - vastly more choice, but if the aerial is not sufficient or in the wrong place, you get no broadcast. I think that fewer people can now pick up their local TV transmitter due to this, or not all of the available digital multiplexes. With analogue, you could mostly pick up anything. But newfangled TV sets are much better at tuning. In the dark ages of the 1970s, it was a bit fiddly.

[@anonUK]

The standard channels are still on SD, which is the digital version of the former 625 line PAL colour system, now usually referred to as 576i. The BBC shows some of its channels in 1080i as well, as do the other basic channels (ITV1, Ch 4 and Ch 5). If you have a TV manufactured in the last few years, there will be no trouble getting these- but if you have an old CRT or plasma TV with a Freeview box, you will realistically only have the SD channels. For TVs with digital tuners made before 2015 or so, you may or may not have the HD channels- if not, you should still be able to watch HD using a separate box.

[@Sheffield_Steve]

I'm guessing the remaining 49 lines of 625, was the spare space where Teletext was able to fit into?

[@hydna1968]

Jackanory with Nina and Frederik? I'd love to see that!

[@RobinCarmody]

This is from Monday 27th February 1967. Needless to say, that's all there is of the Jackanory - it has a dismal survival rate for its first decade, and if the number of already long-missing shows wasn't bad enough, some later 1970s / early 1980s editions were wiped in 1993.

[@doubledeckers]

Do you know if any Blue Peters from this era survive on videotape or are they all telerecordings? Also I wonder if the continuity into Robinson Crusoe survives at the end of any?

[@deanprananda]

why some recording and some archive were wiped and weren't protected securely at that time?

[@TheGramophoneGirl]

@@doubledeckers Blue Peter was telerecorded from about 1965 onwards and went to video tape recordings in 1970 when colour came to Blue Peter. Some appear to have been telerecorded from videotape. Virtually all episodes from about 1965 survive thanks to Biddy Baxter who insisted on it.

[@TheGramophoneGirl]

@@deanprananda Back then nobody felt the need to keep the programmes and BluePeter was live. Also, in the 1960's broadcast video tape was enormously expensive. Certain high status recordings were kept on videotape, such as Olympics, Wimbledon etc, but many shows were wiped after a few years with just the odd episode surviving. Add to that the change to colour in the late 1960's in the UK and by the early 1970s nobody really wanted to watch old black & white shows and their tapes were used to record newer, colour programmes.

[@marcse7en]

Yes, but the BBC weren't MADE OF VIDEOTAPE! 👎😂😂😂

[@trevpr1]

I guarantee 4 year old me was watching this.

[@haydenthecyber-lord14]

Doctor who episode: moonbase was in the same year as this 😁

[@marcse7en]

Are you expecting the CYBERMEN to come crashing through the BLUE PETER studio wall? 😂😂😂

[@Robert_Manners]

You are correct and of course the early episodes of Season 5 were transmit in 1967 with the first two episodes of the 'Enemy of the World' to the last to be shown in that year.

[@marcse7en]

A very LEISURELY continuity link? Unlike TODAY'S TV? 👎😂

[@kernow9324]

I love her! Far better than the annoying fool on "Boi-Boi_Soi Wonn" we have now. Just go away. Him, not you.

[@hebneh]

A little bit of proto-psychedelia at the beginning, it seems, but since I'm not British I have no idea what that actually was.

[@Foebane72]

Hippie culture.

[@marcse7en]

It's a children's story programme called "Jackanory"! If I know about "Sesame Street", how come you don't know that?

[@hebneh]

@@marcse7en I suspect "Sesame Street" was shown in Britain (along with a great many other countries), but "Jackanory" certainly wasn't shown in the USA.

[@wulfrunian]

It was Jackanory. I used to love that.

[@anonUK]

No, although they drew heavily on the Victorians- and not only did the Victorians invent the kaleidoscope, they also invented being completely high/ zoned out on various substances that were subsequently outlawed. However, the Victorians didn't invent LSD or MDMA- these were 20th century inventions.

[@barbarellamichels686]

bbc erased most of top of the pops but kept that shit

[@Foebane72]

What a stupid clock, all the hands are the same length!

[@marcse7en]

Your hands are the SAME LENGTH too! Does that make YOU "stupid" too? 😂😂😂 Obviously it does, if you can't figure out it's five-to-five? 😂😂😂

[@woking1970]

Agreed an odd clock.