Christmas at TFTP (Sign-Off Edition): Station Sign-Off from WTTW/Chicago (Dec. 25, 1978)

Posted to YouTube by user 'The Museum of Classic Chicago Television'
Length - 4:30

Each Friday afternoon, TFTP signs-off for the week with a classic station sign-off segment for your enjoyment and to bid farewell until Monday...

In anticipation of Christmas Day on Monday, here's a 1978 Christmas Day station sign-off from WTTW/Chicago, "public television for Chicago" (as stated in the station voiceover). The clip begins with the last few seconds and the end credits of a Christmas concert program called "Sing We Noel". This is followed by the sweet 1970s PBS network ID with its bouncy musical cue. Then a program promo for the upcoming "New Years at Pops" program precedes a PSA with Phil Donahue for a local social services organization called Yule Connection.

Announcer Marty Robinson does the ownership/technical voiceover on a slide of a birds-eye view of the loop in downtown Chicago (the photo for which was probably taken from the top of the Sears Tower). This is followed by (and the sequence is concluded with) a national anthem film (which was not always included in public TV sign-offs) that features scenes in and around Chicago.

TFTP Signs-On for May: Station Sign-On (w/ "A.M. Weather") from WTTW (Chicago) (Oct. 18, 1983)

Posted to YouTube by user 'The Museum of Classic Chicago Television'

Television from the past was not 24/7 like it is now, and stations usually signed-off for the night at around midnight or 1:00 am; this, of course, meant that they had to sign-on again the following morning each day.

This is a station sign-on for Tuesday, October 18, 1983, from Chicago PBS station WTTW, which starts with the color bars used by TV engineers to adjust the transmitted picture, followed by the customary voiceover info about the station's frequency and ownership (as required by FCC rules). This is followed by the day's segment of "A.M. Weather", a national round-up of weather information produced by Maryland Public TV with the support of several aviation-based organizations.

Station sign-ons usually took place around 5:00 or 5:30 am each morning (sometimes a little later), depending on when the station's first scheduled program for the day was. TFTP will feature one of these station sign-ons each month on the first of the month (or the first Monday if the 1st is on a weekend).

TFTP Flow: Public TV Pledge Breaks during "Summerfest '79" on WTTW (Chicago) (Aug. 25, 1979)

Posted to YouTube by user 'The Museum of Classic Chicago Television'

Here at TFTP we work in public television, and we just finished the latest pledge drive, so here's a set of vintage public TV pledge breaks from 1979. These are from Chicago's WTTW Channel 11 and they feature as the on-air personalities Cherie Mason and Paul Brian. Compared to today's pledge breaks, which can often be a little staid and stuffy, Mason and Brian are refreshingly loose and improvisational in their banter and pitching. Other elements are likewise offbeat and clever, such as a brief filmed segment in the first pledge break (featuring a pre-fame and pre-"Cheers" Shelley Long).

One striking thing about the names of the programs above the ranks of phone volunteers in the background is how many of the shows are still on the air 35 years later. "Masterpiece Theatre", "NOVA", "Sesame Street"--these are public TV mainstays even today (and some of them, such as "Sesame Street", had already been on the air for a decade in 1979). Public television in the U.S. television system is a unique creature that remains dependent on viewers becoming members (or to use the terminology here, "subscribers") in order to survive. Here we see a relatively early example of the ways in which public television sought to acquire those memberships.