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

I had an interesting visit this morning to an office in London which controls many of the UK's television broadcasts. I was there to take a quick tour, and to talk to them about some IT requirement. I silently shuffled behind the controllers' desks as hundreds of digitised TV screens flickered away on a massive curved wall. There seemed to be many identical ones for each channel - I guess some were standard, and others high-definition or something.

In a little booth at the back of the room a continuity announcer idly wasted time. It was a young guy - maybe in his twenties, who was dressed very casually (I had always had this vision of the BBC Radio newsreaders from times past who had to present in dinner jackets). A clock above the booth said that the next event requiring their input would be in 9 minutes 19 seconds… 9:18… 9:17…

It made me think about the life of a continuity announcer. Clearly they must have been selected because they have a nice voice - maybe they supplement their income through voicing advertisements.

Now, if the station is showing lots of short programmes, they will presumably get a spot at the end of each, while the credits are rolling, to remind viewers when the next episode of a drama will be shown, or what's coming up next, or later on that evening. They undoubtedly have a prepared script to read, at that precise second.

If, however, there's a long programme, like a football match or a movie, then they could be inactive for hours. Yet they cannot switch off, in case there's a technical fault and they need to tell people what's going on. Maybe they would play some music, or introduce a different programme from their standby schedule. They'd then have to remind viewers regularly that they're not watching the published schedule.

In fact, If I was a continuity announcer, I'd love a technical disaster to happen. It would be a rare moment of excitement.

Imagine if it was your last day in your job as a continuity announcer - could you lock yourself in the office and override the channel's sound, and start doing your own impressions and dialogue over whatever programme was being shown?

<BB<

That formula has been used on Come Dine With Me to great success.

I've obviously showed my ignorance of never having watched 'Come Dine With Me'...

<BB<

It's a dire show which is made actually quite entertaining by Dave Lamb's commentary.

Even so, you may not want to watch it more than once.

"Imagine if it was your last day in your job as a continuity announcer - could you lock yourself in the office and override the channel's sound, and start doing your own impressions and dialogue over whatever programme was being shown?" [Bluebottle]

I expect that if you did that, choosing to do that sort of thing would guarantee that it was your last day.

[P.S. when I pasted Bluebottle's quote, my spell check device said that "programme" was spelled wrong.]

[Amy P]

I'm trying to remember the last time I heard a continuity announcement on tv. We get full-blown commercials for other programs in between one show and another, but the golden voice that used to say "And now this" seems to be gone the way of the two-minute-long commercial.