Any of you guys remember when the TV day used to sign off?

Reverend Conehead

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I remember when TV stations used to not all broadcast 24/7. At midnight or 1 AM, they would end their broadcast day, sometimes by playing the national anthem. They would start maybe with some fighter jets flying overhead and then start playing the Star-Spangled Banner and showing beautiful scenery from around the country like Mount Rushmore, national forests, and farm fields. Most of the time, they played the Star-Spangled Banner, but on occasion they would play America the Beautiful, which I've always felt was kind of like a second national anthem and also a great song. It was kind of a cool way to end the day on a patriotic note.

Now with 24/7 TV and streaming TV, we've lost this end of the broadcast day thing. I kind of miss it.
 

big dog cowboy

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cowboyec

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I remember when TV stations used to not all broadcast 24/7. At midnight or 1 AM, they would end their broadcast day, sometimes by playing the national anthem. They would start maybe with some fighter jets flying overhead and then start playing the Star-Spangled Banner and showing beautiful scenery from around the country like Mount Rushmore, national forests, and farm fields. Most of the time, they played the Star-Spangled Banner, but on occasion they would play America the Beautiful, which I've always felt was kind of like a second national anthem and also a great song. It was kind of a cool way to end the day on a patriotic note.

Now with 24/7 TV and streaming TV, we've lost this end of the broadcast day thing. I kind of miss it.
i remember it was a big deal to stay up til the national anthem.
and then one night...instead of signing off...they stayed on...with an info-merical.
some channels played old movies.
but i remember the fighter jets well.
 

CyberB0b

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I always wondered why TV stations signed off. From what I remember, it was around 2-3am, and they would start up again in a few hours. Why not run some programming during that time?
 

Runwildboys

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I always wondered why TV stations signed off. From what I remember, it was around 2-3am, and they would start up again in a few hours. Why not run some programming during that time?
Since they were only paid by advertising, I assume they felt they're wouldn't be enough people watching, and advertisers wouldn't want to pay for airtime when nobody was seeing their commercials.
 

Reverend Conehead

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Ah, the good old days.
Back when tobacco companies could advertise and pharmaceutical companies couldn't.

I remember the cigarette ads. Those have been gone a long time. I think they nixxed them in about '72. Recently, I found an old Cowboys game on Youtube that still had the ads in. A cigarette ad came on and I was like, whoah!

I do find the prescription drug ads annoying. They go on and on about how great their drug is, then all of a sudden, they're like, "May cause asthma, epileptic spazzes or death." I'm like, WTH, I thought you said it was so great.
 

DanteEXT

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Since they were only paid by advertising, I assume they felt they're wouldn't be enough people watching, and advertisers wouldn't want to pay for airtime when nobody was seeing their commercials.

That was what I was thinking though this thread had me curious. I did find that in the mid-80's the FCC rescinded the policy banning program-length television commercials. Helped usher in the infomercial.
 

Runwildboys

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Since they were only paid by advertising, I assume they felt they're wouldn't be enough people watching, and advertisers wouldn't want to pay for airtime when nobody was seeing their commercials.
Since they were only paid by advertising, I assume they felt there wouldn't be enough people watching, and advertisers wouldn't want to pay for airtime when nobody was seeing their commercials.

Fixed it for me.
 
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