End of and era....

[Tubejunke]

In regards to the upcoming end of analog television I was wondering if anyone here knows, or has had any thoughts of what the end will really be like.

Will they announce the end, or will it just happen when they get around to flicking a switch.

I think it would be proper to have the last show be a looking back kind of documentary on television, from its start until today.

Another cool idea would be for the networks to broadcast the spinning likeness of Felix (I think) the cat for the last hour. That was supposedly one of the first images broadcasted in the early days.

Another idea I had was an Andy Griffith marathon for the entire last day.

I'm hoping this event is something with some formality as it would be a good thing to record on the VCR, while it still works...

[jeyurkon]

Originally Posted by Tubejunke

...Another idea I had was an Andy Griffith marathon for the entire last day....

I was thinking "Topper", "The Thin Man", "Alfred Hitchcock Presents"...

John

[Ghoulardi]

Originally Posted by jeyurkon

I was thinking "Topper", "The Thin Man", "Alfred Hitchcock Presents"...

John

I know you guys are talking TV but I'll throw this in. Back in about 1973 or so, one of the radio stations in the Cleveland area was switching to a "Brand New Country Music Format".To mark the event, they played Jerry Reed's "When You're Hot,You're Hot" for 24 hours straight. They would speed it up, slow it down, and drop in all kinds of strange noises and audio clips. If you could stay with it for awhile, it really became quite hilarious.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by Ghoulardi

I know you guys are talking TV but I'll throw this in. Back in about 1973 or so, one of the radio stations in the Cleveland area was switching to a "Brand New Country Music Format".To mark the event, they played Jerry Reed's "When You're Hot,You're Hot" for 24 hours straight. They would speed it up, slow it down, and drop in all kinds of strange noises and audio clips. If you could stay with it for awhile, it really became quite hilarious.

I remember that, and yes, I did "stay with it" for quite some time, as it was something no one had ever done before on radio in Cleveland--and it caught (and held) my interest. I was 17 years old and living in a Cleveland suburb at the time, and the radio station was, IIRC, WELW-FM, 107.9 (it's now urban contemporary WENZ-Z107.9 after several callsign and format changes, and who in the Cleveland area can ever forget their fabulous 140kW ERP signal, which they finally had to throttle back to 16kW ERP in the '80s because of new stations having gone on the air on 107.9 in Pittsburgh and Toronto?). That 24-hour Jerry Reed stunt was the darndest thing I've ever heard on radio in my entire life. As you said, they would do all kinds of crazy things with the song: play it backward, play two copies at once, run it at 78 RPM rather than 33 1/3 ... anything they could think of.

As I said, this was a stunt no one had ever pulled on radio in Cleveland before, and may never do again. In fact, in this age of most radio stations being automated and programmed from central studios hundreds or thousands of miles away, it would seem to me that a stunt like that would be almost impossible to pull off, unless some daredevil engineer at the central computer reprogrammed the system to play one or two songs over and over again. I doubt if either of the big media conglomerates (Clear Channel and CBS Radio, the latter formerly known as Infinity) that own and operate 90 percent of the radio stations in the United States would stand for that although, considering the noise masquerading as music a lot of those stations play all day, every day, I don't see the harm in doing a stunt like the Jerry Reed marathon again. Today's teenagers probably wouldn't notice the difference; after all, to that generation, rock and roll is rock and roll, the louder the better. They couldn't care less if the same song(s) repeat over and over again, as long as it's loud enough to rattle the windows. They don't worry about the loudness or what it will eventually do to their hearing, which is too darn bad. I am reminded of the story of two middle-aged men watching a motorcycle race in which the engines were deafeningly loud. The first gentleman said to his friend, "I tell ya, Joe, at this rate these kids will be deaf before they are 25 years old." His friend answered, "Nonsense! I been riding these things for years and I'm still alive!" The second man had thought his friend had said "dead" rather than "deaf", almost certainly because the second man's hearing had been adversely affected by loud noise (probably ear-pounding rock music through headphones with the volume run up to maximum) when he was a teenager. I live on the main street of a small village here in northeastern Ohio and often hear loud rap and other types of "music" blaring from cars passing by my apartment. The cars' windows are almost always closed as the vehicles zoom by. If their "music" is so loud it can be heard on the street and even inside buildings through the car's closed windows, I shudder to think how loud the same stuff must be inside the car. I bet those young men and women will go deaf within a very short time if they keep this up.

[ha1156w]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

I remember that, and yes, I did "stay with it" for quite some time, as it was something no one had ever done before on radio in Cleveland--and it caught (and held) my interest. I was 17 years old and living in a Cleveland suburb at the time, and the radio station was, IIRC, WELW-FM, 107.9 (it's now urban contemporary WENZ-Z107.9 after several callsign and format changes, and who in the Cleveland area can ever forget their fabulous 140kW ERP signal, which they finally had to throttle back to 16kW ERP in the '80s because of new stations having gone on the air on 107.9 in Pittsburgh and Toronto?). That 24-hour Jerry Reed stunt was the darndest thing I've ever heard on radio in my entire life. As you said, they would do all kinds of crazy things with the song: play it backward, play two copies at once, run it at 78 RPM rather than 33 1/3 ... anything they could think of.

There was a station here in Dallas that when Clear Channel bought them, the whole staff was fired all at once to bring in the "corporate music" zombies. To protest, the old staff put on a CD of "Macarena" on "repeat" and secured the studio such that it couldn't be changed. This went on for like two days....amusing.

[Hemingray]

I intend to set up a couple of sets on our two analog channels, KAIT 8 and KEMV 6 to see just what will happen that night.

[Tubejunke]

Is there a scheduled time?

[Trance88]

Originally Posted by Tubejunke

Is there a scheduled time?

For my stations here in Grand Rapids it's 10am Eastern Daylight time. What sucks is that I'll be no where near a TV during the switch off. I'll be at a camp. I'm going to try to set my VCR to tape analog's last few moments before the plug is pulled. I'm thinking that they won't just pull the plug and the picture turns to snow, I think they'll switch to a message in big bold letters that just says "Get a converter box to continue watching this station" or something like that for a couple weeks before they really turn off the transmitters.

[Tube TV]

Were suppost to be following along in a year or 2 in Canada .
So much for DXing with a vintage TV .
Best I done was on the 1954 Crosley . KCRA Sacramento .
That was a great moment .

[Sandy G]

"This is how the World Ends, then...Not with a Bang, but with a Whimper..."

[shrinkboy]

I Married Joan, My Little Margie, December Brides....

[merrylander]

When you see the angry mob with torches and pitchforks in front of thr Funny Cookie Company building you will know the changeover has taken place.

[batterymaker]

A 12-hour marathon of the movie "Freddy Got Fingered..."

[AnalogDigit]

They should play the National Anthem before they convert to digital. Just like in the old days when TV stations signed off at night.

[kx250rider]

I haven't heard anything from KTLA in Los Angeles yet, but I have eMails in to some people I know there. KTLA has pride in their history as the first commercial TV station on the west coast, and they also had a prewar TV experimental station (W6XYZ) owned by Paramount Pictures. If I had to guess, I'd bet they'll do something special. The first face seen on KTLA was Bob Hope, so sadly that's not possible. But they DO have a newsman; Stan Chambers, STILL WORKING THERE who started in '47 when they went on the air! I hope he gets involved.

Charles