TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Station Sign-Off from KHQ/Spokane (1986)

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

Posted to YouTube by user 'robatsea2009'

This mid-1980s sign-off sequence is from Spokane, Washington, station KHQ, which has been the NBC affiliate going all the way back to its inception in 1952. (The station still uses the "Q6" branding we see in several spots in this sequence.) The sign-off begins with the very end of a late-movie airing of a 1977 TV movie called "Relentless" (starring Will Sampson of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" fame), which is followed by a brief promo for the upcoming late-movie airing of another TV movie called "The Four Feathers". A film of the song "The Navy Hymn" precedes the customary "Star-Spangled Banner".

The standard ownership and technical voiceover here is laid over fascinating images of some of the workings of a 1980s station, including the loading and shelving of the large reels of videotape and smaller video/audio cartridges used at the time. The sequence ends with a brief "Trouble Coming. Please Stand By" blue screen before going to color bars.

TFTP Will Return After These Messages: Commercial Blocks from WUAB/Cleveland (Summer 1983)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Broadcaster1988'

Here are three commercial breaks from the same program, a 1983 late-movie airing of the 1942 film "Wings and the Woman" on Cleveland independent station WUAB. It's no coincidence that most of these are either ads for local establishments or mail-order ads, as these were the types of advertisers independent stations attracted, especially for something like a late-movie.

In the first clip above: (1) a great mail-order commercial for a camping knife called the "Travel Carver"; (2) a long-ish promo for WUAB's airings of "The Rockford Files" (weeknights at 8:00!); (3) a really cool animated PSA that basically is advertising the fact that WUAB runs PSAs; and (4) a bumper for "The Late Show II" leading back into "Wings and the Woman" (with "Late Show II" being the station's branding for this late-movie timeslot; there must've been another late-movie preceding it).

In the second clip: (1) a mail-order commercial for the album "The Best of Creedence Clearwater Revival"; (2) an ad for a local Cleveland store called the "Sunbeam Shop", which seems to be a thrift store benefiting vocational training (or some such thing); and (3) the "Late Show II" bumper again, this time followed by a few seconds of the film itself.

And, finally, in the third clip: (1) a mail-order commercial (late-movie commercial breaks were lousy with them) for a series of romance novels called Sapphire Books; (2) a recruiting ad for Control Data Institute, a trade school; (3) a promo for an airing of the film "The Organization" with Sidney Poitier (under the banner of "Channel 43 Star Movie", a prime-time movie timeslot on WUAB); and (4) the bumper leading back into "Wings and the Woman".