[720p/50p] | ITV Southern | closedown | 18th December 1981 

At 8:42 - I get the feeling Bill had been sampling the Christmas sherry before he came into the continuity studio at Southern here.

"Don't forget to switch off and unplug because of the fires!" Great upload!

Poor Southern Television, on death row by this time in 1981, with only less than 13 days left on air.

I have never heard this particular tone on a test pattern before

27:14 so emotional I started crying 😭

Good old Bill

Colour bars were sometimes used then rather than the test cards after closedown as here; although not much as far as I know. I am not sure about the BBC but I think that some of the then ITV companies did though too, perhaps not all though? Of course too, although Southern may have used them here, they did not on their last night as we know when they closed down entirely before TVS then started the next day at the time so too. Thank you of course!

Another great upload, thank you :) I nearly tuned in when the religious guest replied to the presenter's claim of having no evidence when saying: "Yes, in the Daily Telegraph..."

The announcer seemed drunk!

21:53 is the best bit.

I think Rome Comes to Canterbury is missing! Well done on the upload!

The testcard was very similar to the Granada TV testcard.

We'll soon see the entirety of the final Southern programme!

That’s fantastic! Would love to find some footage that early soon. Seems so hard to come by though!

They had the wrong slide for the forecast!!!!

8:42

very rare

Would this have been recorded in Dover? I went there once when I was looking into the possibility of working in TV and saw a whole week's programmes recorded from the control room.

loeki de leeuw

No Pope around