TFTP Signs-Off for the Week: Sign-Offs Through the Years - 1993 (WKFT/Fayetteville, NC)

Posted to YouTube by user 'SignOffsGuy'
Length - 6:47

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

And throughout 2018, we are featuring "Sign-Offs Through the Years", as we go year-by-year with each successive week.

As we reach 1993 in Sign-Offs Through the Years, we have this clip that is a combination sign-off/sign-on from Fayetteville, North Carolina, station WKFT (now WUVC). The sequence begins with a couple of well-known North Carolina references--the end of a spot for the National Hollering Contest in Spivey Corners, followed by a promo for a baseball game by the Durham Bulls, made famous in the movie "Bull Durham". Next comes the ownership/technical voiceover, on graphics displaying some of the information being conveyed in the voiceover, and the national anthem film.

After some color bars and tone (and presumably an edit cutting out at least a few hours of time), an ownership/technical voiceover for the sign-on comes on, which is basically the same as the sign-off voiceover with a couple of details changed reflecting the start of a broadcast day.

TFTP Signs-Off for the Week--and Signs on for December! Station Sign-Off and Sign-On from WCBS/New York (1977)

Posted to YouTube by user 'SignOffsGuy'
Length - 8:53

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...

AND

TFTP marks the beginning of each new month with a classic station sign-on sequence to "sign-on" for the month....

This special post--coming on a 1st of the month that is also a Friday--features a unique clip that includes BOTH a sign-off sequence and a sign-on sequence. Apparently (according to the notes for this clip on its YouTube page), WCBS (the flagship affiliate for CBS) at this time signed off each morning at 5:00 am for just one hour before signing back on shortly after 6:00 am. The clip above contains both the sign-off sequence as well as the start of the subsequent sign-on sequence for the era circa 1977.

The sign-off sequence begins (after a brief closing bumper for "The Late Late Show") with a public service announcement for the Jewish Chautauqua Society consisting of poetic voiceover on images of children's drawings and footage of abandoned concentration camps. This is followed by a religious segment called "Give Us This Day" featuring a Jewish rabbi delivering an inspirational message. Next is the ownership/technical voiceover (with some slide mix-ups involving the NAB code slide), with the national anthem film (a rather prosaic one featuring images of flags and national monuments in Washington, D.C.) closing out the sign-off.

Then the sign-on sequence starts. A WCBS test pattern kicks it off, followed by a ownership and technical voiceover that starts by greeting us with "Good Morning".

TFTP Signs-On for November: Boston Station Sign-Ons from 1987

Posted to YouTube by user 'MSTS1' (both)
Length - 2:18 (top); 3:20 (bottom)

TFTP marks the beginning of each new month with a classic station sign-on sequence to "sign-on" for the month....

To kick off November, here are two 1987 sign-ons from Boston TV stations--independent WSBK and WBZ, Boston's NBC affiliate at the time.

WSBK's sign-on features a technical/ownership voiceover followed by the national anthem sung by an a capella choir, topped off by a station ID bumper. WBZ's sign-on features a national anthem played by none other than the Future Farmers of America band! Then there are a few quick images (one of a "Morning Prayer" slide) that seem to be technical malfunctions, followed by a stretch of pastoral imagery with soothing music. In both sign-ons, the sequences are preceded by color bars and test patterns.

TFTP Signs-On for October: Launch Day Sign-On from WTIC/Hartford, CT (Sep. 21, 1957)

Posted to YouTube by user 'robatsea2009'
Length - 4:37

TFTP marks the beginning of each new month with a classic station sign-on sequence to "sign-on" for the month....

Throughout the late-1940s, 1950s, and even into the 1960s, a new TV station's launch day sign-on was always a special event not just for the station but for the community in which the station was being established. Here we have the launch day sign-on for Hartford, Connecticut, station WTIC, which at its September 1957 launch was an independent station not affiliated with a network (it would become a CBS affiliate the following year).

As with most station launch sign-ons, this one seems to be taking place not in the early morning but rather in the evening, as there is reference to the broadcast of a station launch ceremony that most likely took place in prime time. After a few seconds of test pattern, the sign-on begins with the camera tilting up the WTIC transmitter tower while the opening ownership and technical voiceover is announced. This is followed by a national anthem film before cutting to the station's studio where the president of the Traveler's Broadcasting Service Group, WTIC's owner, gave a brief introductory speech, followed by a priest offering an invocation for the ceremony to follow.

TFTP Signs-On for September: Launch Day Sign-On for TV Land (Apr. 29, 1996)

Posted to YouTube by user 'mark loudin'

TFTP: Television from the Past returns after a long absence and signs on for the month of September with this clip of the April 29, 1996, moment of launch for Nick at Nite's TV Land cable channel. It's a fantastic compilation of bits from many different classic TV programs edited together to make it seem as if it is counting down to--and in the process celebrating--the launch of a channel dedicated to classic TV.

The network's early moniker as "Nick at Nite's" TV Land indicated the channel's origins as a spin-off of the popular Nick at Nite classic TV programming that had been airing in the evenings on the Nickelodeon kids' channel for over a decade by 1996. Nick at Nite developed the offbeat and campy sensibility that became TV Land's approach for its first several years on the air.

TV Land has to some extent moved away from its longtime focus on classic television with original programs that have lately aimed for a younger demographic. But at launch and for many years thereafter, TV Land was THE cable network dedicated to (usually in a playfully tongue-in-cheek fashion) the preservation and celebration of classic TV.

And that's why it's fitting that this clip also launches the return of TFTP!

TFTP Signs-On for June: Station Sign-On (w/ "Carolina Calling") from WBTV/Charlotte, NC (c. 1959)

Every first of the month, TFTP signs-on with a classic station sign-on sequence, to launch another month of Television from the Past...

Posted to YouTube by user 'iblefty1951'

This is maybe the oldest station sign-on sequence available out there on the interwebs: a late-1958 or 1959 sign-on from Charlotte, North Carolina, CBS affiliate WBTV that includes the first few minutes of legendary local program "Carolina Calling".

This clip begins with a customary voiceover of ownership and address information, over images of the station's studio and transmitter and a few varieties of station logo. This is followed by the image of an alarm clock (reading 7 o'clock) going off, the opening to "Carolina Calling".

"Carolina Calling" was a morning variety show, with music from Arthur Smith and his band the Cracker Jacks, with the kind of information we've come to expect from morning shows--weather conditions, etc.--sprinkled into the banter between songs. The show was a TV extension of the show by the same name that Smith had been involved with on radio in Charlotte.

Professional video taping systems (invented in 1956) only became available to local stations in the middle to latter part of 1958, and WBTV was reportedly one of the first to get one--thus dating this video-taped clip to circa 1959.

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).