[Neil Jones]

Actually, if you watch closely Ed's closing links, they sometimes seem to have been edited in from different recording sessions (clue's usually with the number of crystals on Ed's podium) - I'm guessing the running order of each series was decided after production wrapped, hence he would have needed to record separate sign-offs.

Are you sure that's not a result of a Virgin edit, as they had form for making incredibly ridiculous edits, and it would not surprise me in the slightest if they just found the shortest Ed outro they could out of the 24 available (as there wouldn't be any point using a "see you next year" one) and tacked it on...

I remember Virgin edited something out of a Bullseye episode during the dartboard credits for some reason and the audio jumped, but it didn't affect the visual. But it was blatantly obvious an edit you have to wonder why it was done.