Thanks again for more Ulster content! It's so rare to see these, considering the tiny amount of folks who could actually record in 1976, and the juxtaposition of the shiny adverts against the backdrop of horror in Northern Irish society at the time. It's gripping stuff. Almost Lynchian in tone!
The gaps were usually down to UTV not being able to sell ad space on some nights. This was a problem, as money was very tight, and Northern Irish companies sometimes didn't buy up the ad space on the channel, leaving some dead air to fill.
I can well-remember that style of slides, as in the 'Tomorrow on UTV' one, with there being similar ones such as 'Sports Results' and 'Weather Forecast', and there were probably some more. There may have been some in that style made for specific in-house productions, but I can't be sure and don't remember seeing any uploaded from archives and people's recordings.
ITN for their news programmes always waited around 2 seconds before starting their news to ensure each region had opted in safely into the networked news. BBC One regions on the other hand had a bad habit of crashing into the news theme, as the some regions weren't in sync.
Border Television used it as the theme music for their longish-running, low-key interview series 'Look Who's Talking', presented (and quite possibly devised and other things) by Border stalwart Derek Batey.
If they manage to upload those rare UTV recordings, can we hope for a BBC 1 Northern Ireland recording during the 70's too? (fun fact: that very rare BBC 1 Northern Ireland recording from 1973 is currently the most-watched video on this channel)
