Sunday, June 14, 2009

Online Pick of the Week: Analog Shutoffs (6/12)

This week’s pick is honestly really more than one. I noticed early in the morning along with a friend through IM’ing that there have been many analog shutoffs and signoffs that have been uploaded online. Being the big TV geek I am, I thought I’d try and see which one I thought was the best.

My absolute favorite so far is Georgia Public Broadcasting’s. As I mentioned in the previous analog-to-digital entry, it was done back in February. Unfortunately, thanks to the greedy folks over at Warner Music Group, the sound is not available. After the general manager of GPB mentions the fact that the nationwide required date had been moved from February to June and the reason why they decided to go along with the February date, the traditional signoff which hadn’t been seen in quite a while since going 24/7, with a video montage of places all around the state of Georgia (the Atlanta skyline, the Okefenokee swamp, etc.) with the classic Ray Charles rendition of “Georgia on My Mind” was shown. Very classy.

Two other favorites I’ve seen so far are from WRTV in Indianapolis (great clip montage), and KYW 3 in Philadelphia. With KYW’s, the original test pattern plays, which then fades into a slide with the word “Goodbye” under the CBS eye. It’s very sentimental and a good way to show off the end of an era.

It’s nice to see these stations use historical significance as well as sentiment and tradition for these signoffs. Fans of station logo histories will love signoffs like WOSU’s in Columbus, Ohio.

And again, it’s absolutely lame to see some of these stations do zip for the actual switch. For months and months this was touted as this huge deal and with some stations nothing period was done. Blah.

Analog TV signoffs are my online picks for this week! Find your favorites!

2 comments:

bowler said...

it's been a few days and I haven't heard of any rioting in the streets because of the switch (not yet at least)

Anonymous said...

For those of us who don't want to upgrade our cable to HD, this is terrible!