h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The BBC were regularly scheduling Television broadcasts in the Baird system as early as 1933. The "low definition propoganda broadcasts" in "Nazi Germany" were actually a publicly owned scheduled television service predating Hitler's rise to power, with a full range of programming including sport, fashion and cookery - you shouldn't just dismiss it in a footnote. Their "model" of television was different; sets weren't privately owned - instead state-owned sets were placed in post offices around the country, accessable by all.

"...earning it the nickname of 'Auntie Beeb'..." - actually the nickname was just "Auntie", and it was around before the launch of the Television service; the radio programmes were pretty dry and condescending too...

"...The contract went to TSW> " - is that a stray ">"?

OK. I should have known about the first two, but I swear that > wasn't me...

These need fixing. If there's no Italic response today I'll drop them a line.

Whoami?

My guess is that the > was leftover from the bold tag in the unedited version where station names are bold at their frist appearance. The others were my fault. That's what comes of putting in an introduction full of stuff that isn't really relevant to the topic, so I didn't research it fully. Mea Culpa.

Actually that stuff about the pre-war German service is quite fascinating. I think I'll do a bit more reading on the subject.

Note to self: Don't do preambles in future.

The pre-war German stuff was covered in a rather wonderful documentary about John Logie Baird on BBC Four (Terrestrial Digital TV) about three weeks ago; it may be repeated... Baird's company had a quarter share in the company that made it happen; he got involved in German TV because the BBC were reluctant to let him do his early broadcast experiments in the UK. Technically speaking, the first scheduled UK TV service was commercial, as when Baird was broadcasting over the BBC's transmitters in 1933 his company had to pay the BBC for the privelege...

I've got a couple of biographies of Baird lying round the house; a very technical one published by the Royal Television Society which verges on autobiography as several of the chapters were written by Baird himself, and a more "personal" biography written by his wife after he died. He was a fascinating man, highly imaginative, and with almost as many patents to his name as that other great Scots inventor Alexander Graham Bell. By the end of the 1930s he had demonstrated large-screen TV, (both projection screens in theatres, cinema-style, and large arrays of bulbs for outdoor daylight displays) mechanical colour television, video recording on 78RPM records, high-definition (1000 line!) colour television and 3D colour television!

"Auntie Beeb" and "Auntie BBC" have definitely been used. Maybe not from the start though.

I wanted to say this is a really great article. Someone must have done a lot of research. It even explains that weird floating 3 that replaced the Tyne-Tees symbol for a while.

I'll email TPTB later...

Whoami?

Why ?

The stray '>' for a start...

Whoami?