Reply #20: The BBC used to have "sign-offs" too.

[mwooldri]

Though we called them close downs.

Here's a BBC 2 closedown from 1998: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3_nRthHnbo&feature=related

And the final BBC 1 closedown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyKc6WBjzyE&feature=related (ropey quality).

Also... start ups (or sign ons) existed but BBC was boring... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCf4IO7uF8Q (before the Internet we had Teletext... interactive pages of information delivered over the TV).

ITV was better: my old local station Southern had this nifty scene in the 60's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=121-5HJngYs&feature=related - HTV had different things for their dual region: here's the HTV Wales start up from the early 1980's: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QD7p-zmDKbI&feature=related

We also had this wonderful thing called on-screen presentation. Grampian was the last region to have on-screen presenters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLtpy8Apx50&feature=related

Oh and if you really like sign offs then watch this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Kkmf8zHqnU

Mark.