How long were TV "intervals" back then?

Well, I just googled the potter's wheel interval film, and it's on Youtube at about 5 minutes, with another interval film of a spinning wheel listed at 7 minutes. But the films might be run one after the other to fill in more time. I think it depended on the nature of the interval - some were just to cover breakdowns in transmission!
 
I seem to remember there were several hours when you would see the test card, with the little girl and the clown. I found an interesting article about it. It appears the test card was created to help television retailers sell sets at a time when there were few - if any - programmes during the day.

BBC-test-card-F-featuring-008.jpg
 
Sandra Piddock said:
I seem to remember there were several hours when you would see the test card, with the little girl and the clown. I found an interesting article about it. It appears the test card was created to help television retailers sell sets at a time when there were few - if any - programmes during the day.

BBC-test-card-F-featuring-008.jpg
Click to expand...
I believe in the early days it was also to aid fault finding on the [at best] iffy cathode ray tubes of the day.
It also seems that now I can get interested in a program, make a cup of tea/coffee and maybe even grab a piece of cake sit down to watch and bang - on come the adverts - by the time the program returns I've eaten the cake and drunk the tea
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom