[Stooky Bill]

Yes, there was a lot of switching going on at midnight. The circuits feeding the transmitter changing from originating from the South Bank rather than Thames. The missing bongs will either be because the two stations were taking the shot of Big Ben from different sources or some sort of difference in delay in their playout. Carlton were (I think) live in Trafalgar Square so could well have been providing the clock face from that OB)

There was also a bit of a glitch a few minutes later when Teletext went to air, presumably their data bridges being put into line at the transmitters.

Normal caveat about VHS recordings making the switching look a lot worse than it was at the time. The regular switch between Thames and LWT, and the one between them and TVam were quick and barely noticeable



There was a similar situation in the south west as Westcountry had a totally new transmitter distribution put into line at midnight so it wasn't just a change of origination point (I read somewhere that it was accidently put to air earlier that evening briefly)

We were watching Channel 4 that night and there were switching glitches on there too, again they went from gojng via the ITV companies to a new distribution network. Then, like ITV, Teletext caused a little disturbance when that went to air

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And then we had a greeting from the new Carlton presentation, which was a shock, compared to what we had been used to from Thames Television, followed by Chris Tarrant live at Trafalgar Square for a few moments, before what I read was a recorded show, taped earlier sometime to see in the night.

Some of it was pre recorded, some was live. The studio bits presumably days before. The bits like the items in Trafalgar Square and the hospital were probably live

The item in the LNN newsroom was recorded, if you look at the TVs behind Roy Castle you can see Thames branding on air