''Engineering Announcements for the Radio and Television Trade'', sometimes abbreviated to ''Engineering Announcements'', was a weekly magazine of news and information intended for technicians and salespeople in the United Kingdom, produced and transmitted by the

Independent Television Authority The Independent Television Authority (ITA) was an agency created by the Television Act 1954 to supervise the creation of "Independent Television" (ITV (TV network), ITV), the first commercial television network in the United Kingdom. The ITA exi ...

(and later the

Independent Broadcasting Authority The Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) was the regulatory body in the United Kingdom for commercial television ( ITV and Channel 4 and limited satellite television regulation – cable television was the responsibility of the Cable A ...

) from 23 November 1970 until 31 July 1990, coming off air five months before the IBA was disbanded. The broadcast covered technical advances in the industry such as the launch of satellite television and

NICAM Near Instantaneous Companded Audio Multiplex (NICAM) is an early form of lossy compression for digital audio. It was originally developed in the early 1970s for point-to-point links within broadcasting networks.Croll, M.G., Osborne, D.W. and Sp ...

stereo, along with details of new transmitters and the scheduling of transmitter downtime. ''Engineering Announcements'', and the BBC's similar ''

Service Information ''Service Information'' was a regular slot in the early days of colour television in the United Kingdom that gave out engineering information for the radio and television trade. These announcements were made by the BBC continuity announcers of t ...

'', are examples of regularly scheduled "ghost programmes," so called because they were never advertised in on-air schedules, in newspaper TV listings, the ''

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'' or on

teletext A British Ceefax football index page from October 2009, showing the three-digit page numbers for a variety of football news stories Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipp ...

Scheduling

''Engineering Announcements'' was originally scheduled directly after '' Monday's Newcomers'', another ghost programme which offered the advertising trade the opportunity to watch first runs of new adverts before they aired in prime time on ITV. It was shown at 9:45a.m. In September 1972, ''Engineering Announcements'' moved to 9:10a.m. on Tuesdays, where it remained until May 1983 as the launch of

TV-am TV-am was a TV company that broadcast the ITV franchise for breakfast television in the United Kingdom from 1 February 1983 until 31 December 1992. The station was the UK's first national operator of a commercial breakfast television franchise ...

meant that the ITV network would no longer be available to show the programme although it was still shown on ITV for the two months following the launch of TV-am, in the 10-minute gap between the end of TV-am and the start of ITV - the gap was needed to allow for switching ITV from national transmission to the local ITV contractor. When this process became automated, the gap was no longer required. TV-am's hours were extended until 9:25a.m. and consequently the slot used to transmit ''Engineering Announcements'' disappeared. At this point, the programme was switched to

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

and S4C, with the first edition on the new channel being broadcast on 24 May 1983. It continued to be shown at the same time (Tuesdays at 9:15a.m.) with a repeat at 12:15 p.m. the same day, although the lunchtime repeat was not shown on S4C. However, as broadcasting hours increased, ''Engineering Announcements'' was forced into increasingly earlier time slots. The 12:15p.m. repeat was lost in September 1987 when ITV Schools was transferred to Channel 4/S4C. It moved to 8:10a.m. at the start of 1989 and when Channel 4 launched its

breakfast television Breakfast television (Europe, Canada, and Australia) or morning show (United States) is a type of news or infotainment television programme that broadcasts live in the morning (typically scheduled between 5:00 and 10:00a.m., or if it is a l ...

service in April 1989, ''Engineering Announcements'' was moved to 5:45a.m., where it could be recorded by engineers for later viewing. It remained in that early morning slot until the programme's final edition on 31 July 1990.IBA Engineering Announcements final edition
/ref> Throughout its time on Channel 4, the theme tune to the programme was "Current Affairs" by

Francis Monkman Francis Monkman (born 9 June 1949, in Hampstead, North London, England) is an English rock, classical and film score composer, and a founding member of both the progressive rock band Curved Air and the classical/rock fusion band Sky. He is ...

. During the ITV strike from August to October 1979, ''Engineering Announcements'' was the only programme broadcast on most of the network.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Engineering Information
ITV (TV network) Broadcasting in the United Kingdom British non-fiction television series British television news shows 1970 British television series debuts 1990 British television series endings Radio in the United Kingdom 1970s British television series 1980s British television series