Talk:Greenwich Cablevision

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Section removed[edit]

I've removed the following paragraph, which has been tagged as unsourced since September 2014:

Life after closure

When the full time operation closed the service was taken over by volunteers. A new studio was constructed in two converted garages under a tower block in Plumstead, atop of which was the Cablevision receiving aerial. One garage contained the single camera studio, while the other housed the control room. There was a large glass window between the control room and studio so presenters waiting to do their spot could keep an eye on proceedings. Although paid-for advertising was not allowed the service did run a card advertising service whereby an automatic card sorter would show a continuous programme of postcard adverts. Unfortunately the machine used for this service was very unreliable and the card sorter would often get jammed.

The volunteer staff produced three programmes a week - each an hour long. Meantime went out on Saturday mornings from 11.00am and contained local news, film reviews, financial advice, sports reports etc. Sunday mornings were time for Sangam, a programme aimed at the large Asian population in Plumstead, while on Sunday evening there was a general interest magazine programme with items of local interest, hobbies and normally a phone in quiz with cinema tickets and the like as prizes.

The service ran on for several more years but it was obvious that it could not continue indefinitely as the equipment was becoming very problematic. Some equipment was sourced from Swindon Viewpoint on loan, but when that had to be returned the situation became desperate.

A couple of interesting events took place during the volunteer time. The first was the introduction of a cable radio station, 'Greenwich Sound', which operated from a third garage which the TV station had used as a store, and the second was the introduction of a breakfast TV service using early colour portable cameras, which pre-dated BBC Breakfast by a week.

~dom Kaos~ (talk) 18:15, 1 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]