TNA 1

TNA 1 is the main channel of Television North Arlesbury, one of the various "companies" that make up the North Arlesburian Broadcasting Corporation. TNA 1 is a "standard entertainment" channel.

History[edit | edit source]

Television North Arlesbury was established on 15 December 1955 as the national television service, under Article 1 of Decree nº 40 341.

Test broadcasts were first conducted on September 4, 1956, at the now-defunct People's Fair amusement park in Plymouth. At 21:30 that evening, a speech was made by Richard Feenes, in a program aptly called Nerves, introducing viewers to television, considered at that time to be "one of the greatest revelations of our time", and stating that the television service would enter the definitive stage in 1957, with hopes for the five transmitters to be active by then, locating the transmitters on a map. The inaugural program was followed by TNA's first continuity announcer, Mary Alvary Scott (who was with TNA until the change of regime), announcing the remaining line-up for the evening. These consisted of:

World of Sport
Plymouth
Music and Artists
World Report, with reports provided by United Press Television

Feenes returned to finish the broadcast. The experiments continued throughout September, and tropospheric propagation helped increase the reception. These experimental broadcasts resumed on December 3, delayed from the initial plan in November. These experimental broadcasts consisted of filmed documentaries, slides and test patterns. Daily, a pre-recorded continuity announcement was made by Gina Stephens about the reception of TNA's signal and how to obtain a television set. Throughout December (excluding Sundays) the experiments consisted largely of music videos, Sierran imports and filmed features from the Michillies made for television. The line-up plans changed in the second half of January 1957 the signal was being tested between 17:00 and 19:00 and again between 21:00 and 22:30; the tests weren't conducted on Wednesday nights. The afternoon period started with slides for 45 minutes, then 15 minutes of technical test programming, ending at 18:00, with an hour of films interspersed with slides, the second period at 21:00 started with 5 minutes of slides, then filmed content until 22:30, ending with sign-off slides. TNA broadcast 71 hours of filmed programming in the month (including fifteen documentaries made in Nnorth Arlesbury) and 22 hours of test patterns. Regular continuity announcements were added on February 5, and on February 15, a new newscast, Television Report.

On March 7, 1957, TNA started broadcasting at 20:30.