Sign-off (broadcast)
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Sign-off (or closedown) is the term used to describe the close of operations for a television station during the overnight hours. Usually, this entails some sort of annoucement informing the viewer of this, the playing of the national anthem, the displaying of a test pattern and/or the cutting of the carrier signal (as in the transmitter being turned off and the television viewer seeing static). It is the opposite to a sign-on.
The practice varies from country to country, and from station to station. Often, the sign-off happens between midnight and 1:30 a.m.
These days, sign-offs are rare in developed countries, however, they still occur at some television stations (mostly low power and UHF stations) in the United States during the weekend, and more often in Canada.
A few stations that still sign off each night include KAPP, KVEW, KLEW, WKTV, WYTV, WWNY, WWTI, KX Television (all 3 stations), and a few others.
North America
In the United States and Canada, stations generally list the following details about a station:
- Technical information, such as the callsign, transmitter power, translators used, transmitter locations and STL links.
- Ownership of the station.
- Contact information – such as street and mailing addresses, telephone number and Web site address.
- List of related organizations.
- A commitment to quality (or perhaps, a slogan).
- The time when the station is scheduled to sign-on the following day, before a "good night"-type message.
- The send off (which usually includes a montage of video clips played over the national anthem), followed sometimes by a special signal, usually a series of DTMF tones, to shut off any remote transmitters, before switching to a test pattern (or static for stations that cut off the signal).
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, typically information about the programmes for the next day was given out, a weather forecast, maybe a news update, and finally a look at the station clock. On BBC One, this led straight into God Save the Queen, played out over the BBC One ident. On ITV regions, most of them played the National Anthem over scenes of the Royal Family, although Wales and West of England region HTV played both the Welsh and British national anthems (with scenes of the flag changing to indicate the end of one and the start of the other) and the London & North-West regions (Thames Television & Granada Television respectively) chose to play popular or instrumental music over their clock instead of a national anthem.The ITV regions gradually switched to 24-hour television between 1986 and 1988. Channel 4 followed suit from 6 January 1997, while BBC One's last closedown took place on 8 November 1997 (BBC News 24 has filled the early hours since then). Therefore, BBC Two is the last English terrestrial channel to still sign-off at night (the Welsh channel S4C still does), showing pages from Ceefax coupled with music during downtime. Only during the Christmas period does BBC Two sign-off for the whole night; for the rest of the year, BBC Learning Zone or simulcasts of News 24 fill up most of the night, with Pages from Ceefax only putting in brief appearances. Both BBC One and Two still go off-air once a year for engineering tests.
New Zealand
In New Zealand, from 1981, Television New Zealand's Television One played a cartoon known as the Goodnight Kiwi, showing a kiwi closing up shop for the night, putting the milk bottle out, riding an elevator to the top of the transmitter, and going to bed in a satellite dish. An alternate version shown on the second channel, TV2 (formerly South Pacific Television) showed the kiwi shutting the camera. It was popular with children, particularly Television One's animation.External links
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