We Now Conclude Our Broadcast Day

December 31, 2007 11:59 PM

2007 has come to a close and so we now conclude our broadcast day.

WCBS, New York City (1960s)
WKYC, Cleveland (1976)
WJZ, Baltimore (1981)
WCBS, New York City (1981)
CHCH, Hamilton, ON (1979)
WUAB, Cleveland (1981)
KOAP, Oregon (1981)
WCLQ, Cleveland (1982)
WNAC, Boston (1982)
KXLY, Spokane, WA (1982)
KTHI, Fargo, ND (1983)
KFSM, Fort Smith, AR (1983)
KCET, Los Angeles (1984)
WNEW, New York City (1984)
KTXL, Sacramento, CA (1985)
KHQ, Spokane, WA (1985)
WLVT, Allentown, PA (1986)
WNEV, Boston (1986)
WSBK, Boston (1986)
WUSI, Carbondale, IL (1986)
WNJS, Camden, NJ (1986)
KITV, Honolulu, HI (1986)
KCOP, Los Angeles (1986)
CBWT, Winnipeg, MB (1986)
WABC, New York City (1986)
WNBC, New York City (1986)
WNYW, New York City (1986)
WTNH, New Haven, CT (1986)
KYW, Philadelphia (1986)
WPVI, Philadelphia (1986)
WTAF, Philadelphia (1986)
WPHL, Philadelphia (1986)
WTAE, Pittsburgh (1986)
WBOC, Salisbury, MD (1986)
KOMO, Seattle (1986)
KHQ, Spokane, WA (1986)
WNET, Trenton, NJ (1986)
WNJT, Trenton, NJ (1986)
WTVN, Columbus, OH (1987)
CBUT, Vancouver, BC (1987)
CHEK, Victoria, BC (1988)
WPTF, Durham/Raleigh/Fayetteville, NC (1988)
WCOM, Mansfield, OH (1988)
WJZY, Charlotte, NC (1989)
WRAL, Raleigh, NC (1989)
WNRW, Winston-Salem, NC
WKFT, Fayetteville NC (1993)
KDLT, Sioux Falls, SD (1993)
WNYC, New York City (1996)
WOAY, Oak Hill, WV (2007)

Lots more patriotism and conclusions of broadcast days at TV-Signoffs.com: Piedmont Triangle, North Carolina | Charlotte, North Carolina | Raleigh/Durham/Fayetteville | South Carolina | Tennessee | Roanoke and Lynchburg, Virginia | North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma | California, Oregon and Washington | Los Angeles | U.S. Cable Stations | 1950s TV sign-off audio recordings

posted by dhammond (31 comments total)

You ain't kidding about the "more inside", huh!

Here's the one from my childhood: WGBH, Boston, MA, 1970's. The song is etched in my head.
posted by not_on_display at 12:09 AM on January 1, 2008

Tulsa TV Memories has some old Real Video clips of 1970s Tulsa signoffs. The Dick West "Indian sign language Our Father" video is really poor quality, but Cy Tuma's KTUL signoff comes through OK.
posted by dw at 12:21 AM on January 1, 2008

Nihon Telebi sign-off.

Fitting the day, TV Asahi Opening.
posted by panamax at 12:55 AM on January 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

Wonderful. I'd missed these, though I barely remembered them.

Amazed that New York had them as late as the eighties.
posted by Epenthesis at 1:04 AM on January 1, 2008

The station back home still signs off every night with a patriotic little broadcast. It's blaring rendition of the national anthem has awoken me many a time from my slumber on the couch... Soar on brave KEYC-TV, you carrier of CBS to all of southern Minnesota and northern Iowa. Soar on!
posted by boubelium at 1:13 AM on January 1, 2008

"Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth, and danced the sky, on laughter silvered wings...."

Remember it, and love it still....

"High Flight"....Woooooooo!!!
posted by The Light Fantastic at 1:15 AM on January 1, 2008

The pilot's name is Scott Peterson
posted by parmanparman at 1:20 AM on January 1, 2008

Television New Zealand's Goodnight Kiwi.
posted by Canard de Vasco at 2:08 AM on January 1, 2008

Better Late Than Never Filter: I've made a YouTube playlist of the videos in the post, as well as other great videos from the comments.
posted by dhammond at 2:16 AM on January 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

You do all know that "High Flight" was written by a Canadian, don't you?
posted by djfiander at 5:16 AM on January 1, 2008

Yes, children. Once upon a time, television stations eventually stopped broadcasting and went off the air for a little while, instead of filling the ether with commercials for cooking appliances, make-up, and exercise equipment.
posted by Dave Faris at 5:58 AM on January 1, 2008 [2 favorites]

I did a declamation speech in high school that was written and delivered by Christa McAuliffe in the months before the Challenger crash. She quoted that poem in her speech, but I had forgotten until just now. Neat post!
posted by chihiro at 6:19 AM on January 1, 2008

If only SOMEONE would post the one from KVOA-4 Tucson circa 1982-83. They had a pretty damn good one that showed Tucson sleeping at night, donut shops open, etc, set to the Silent Running theme song (from 1972). That signoff kicked ass. There's a slim chance it may be on a tape in my parents' attic, but I think I combed through them back in the 1990s and never found any old stuff.
posted by mr. creosote at 7:24 AM on January 1, 2008

A terrific show always came on after the sign-off (something about the birth of the universe?). Used to get wasted and watch that for hours. Until it went into reruns.
posted by hal9k at 8:01 AM on January 1, 2008

I remember seeing the FPP'd signoff on my local NBC affiliate (WIS-TV, Columbia, SC) when I was a kid. And I first became acquainted with "High Flight" when I was reading US astronaut Michael Collins' memoir of the Apollo program, Carrying the Fire, in which he mused about the poem and its author, "This, from the cockpit of a Spitfire! I cry that he was killed."
posted by pax digita at 8:01 AM on January 1, 2008

Television Quatre-Saisons, in its first years, used to go off the air relatively early. Instead of having a big send-off they would broadcast a looped video of a wood log burning in a chimney.
posted by clevershark at 8:37 AM on January 1, 2008

Good lord, I can't believe I've started 2008 by watching (and enjoying) a bunch of TV sign-offs. And I swore this year would different and more productive.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 8:49 AM on January 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

AWE!!!!!
SOME!!!!!!

As a kid in Detroit, I would see this on weekends. Nothing gets a boys attention like cool fighter jet action! I remember being fooled several times into thinking this was the introduction to a movie. When the words "High Flight" would come on the screen, I would lean think I was going to see a cool fighter jet movie. The the flag and Star Spangled Banner would play. What?! It fooled me more than once, so I obviously forgot between viewings. Duh.

Jets are cool though!
posted by The Deej at 9:15 AM on January 1, 2008

Love these signoff clips. Thank you!

I particularly liked the KCET signoff -- public TV in Los Angeles in the 1980s, brings back memories.
posted by blucevalo at 10:22 AM on January 1, 2008

Nothing gets a boys attention like cool fighter jet action!

*cough* T&A *cough*
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:22 AM on January 1, 2008

Instead of having a big send-off they would broadcast a looped video of a wood log burning in a chimney.

You mean like this? We got a full 24 hours of it over Christmas. I do like that it beat Dr. Phil in the ratings at least one year.
posted by gimonca at 11:51 AM on January 1, 2008

You mean like this? We got a full 24 hours of it over Christmas.

Yes! I've actually seen DVDs of this for sale (quite cheap, though).
posted by clevershark at 12:37 PM on January 1, 2008

The one from Baltimore has Oprah, before she became famous and was a local newscaster there, co-hosting with ambiguously white and gay Richard Sher.
posted by stbalbach at 1:16 PM on January 1, 2008

OK, I haven't been through them all (Some of us actually work. Ok, not a lot, but the proxy sucketh for youtube) but one of the locals for Nashville when I was growing up used the 'High Flight' film, but I swear one had John Wayne telling a story or reciting a poem - strike a chord with anyone?
posted by pupdog at 2:31 PM on January 1, 2008

Found it! KOLO from Reno used it as well it seems...
posted by pupdog at 2:44 PM on January 1, 2008

Scary! Last time I remember seeing a TV station sign off, Carol Anne went into the light and the tree tried to eat my brother.
posted by drstein at 5:50 PM on January 1, 2008

djfiander: I was about to get all pissy about the Canadianness of High Flight, but Wikipedia tells me that the author was actually Anglo-American, born in China, and was merely flying with the RCAF at the time.

Not that that should keep you from enjoying the animated CBC sign-off, or from wincing at the maddeningly pastoral alternate CBC sign-off, which is so intent on confirming everyone's dumbest Canadian stereotypes, it actually features a clip of a guy scraping ice off his windshield.
posted by bicyclefish at 6:03 PM on January 1, 2008

Nothing gets a boys attention like cool fighter jet action!

*cough* T&A *cough*
posted by ROU_Xenophobe

Oh yeahhhh!!!! Trains and autos!!!!
posted by The Deej at 7:07 PM on January 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

This is the greatest thing ever. I should do one for shortwave stations.
posted by mykescipark at 9:16 PM on January 1, 2008

Something like this for shortwave would be great, mykescipark.
posted by dhammond at 11:08 PM on January 1, 2008

CFTO Toronto, 1980s
posted by evilcolonel at 10:30 AM on January 2, 2008