Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
From June (or possibly late May) 1986, here's a sign-off from WNET channel 13, the Public Broadcasting Service TV station out of Newark, New Jersey, serving the New York City tri-state area. The video quality isn't great.
The evening's program, a rerun of the 1974 documentary "The Unquiet Death of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg" (with 1983 update) ends. There's a "made possible by" VO, then the familiar 1970's PBS logo. Then promos for "Man From Moscow," and part one of "Cities at War," this episode about Hitler's relentless bombing of Leningrad.
Another promo for "In Search of the Trojan War: The Legend Under Siege" follows, and then longtime host Paul Duke touts "Washington Week in Review." Finally the "American Playhouse" premiere of "Sunday in the Park with George" is previewed.
The sign-off is read by Roger Rathburn, who runs down the particulars of the station, shouting out to the evening's crew by name. He also mentions that the next broadcasting day would begin with "3-2-1 Contact" at 8am. There were no color bars/tone or signal noise, just silence and black until the recording ended, so I kept it short.
More sign-offs and other WNET 13 stuff HERE: youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6TJvVXLI-3yRki-IZWNq2KPtrvIYCX_s
And NO, other YouTubers, you may NOT hijack this video for your own channels--I'd prefer the views stay right here, thanks!
No rights held or implied. (If you'd like this video removed for copyright reasons, please contact me rather than notifying YouTube, I will gladly take it down from this channel.) This is on compilation cc14 at oldtvads.blogspot.com...
From June (or possibly late May) 1986, here's a sign-off from WNET channel 13, the Public Broadcasting Service TV station out of Newark, New Jersey, serving the New York City tri-state area. The video quality isn't great.
The evening's program, a rerun of the 1974 documentary "The Unquiet Death of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg" (with 1983 update) ends. There's a "made possible by" VO, then the familiar 1970's PBS logo. Then promos for "Man From Moscow," and part one of "Cities at War," this episode about Hitler's relentless bombing of Leningrad.
Another promo for "In Search of the Trojan War: The Legend Under Siege" follows, and then longtime host Paul Duke touts "Washington Week in Review." Finally the "American Playhouse" premiere of "Sunday in the Park with George" is previewed.
The sign-off is read by Roger Rathburn, who runs down the particulars of the station, shouting out to the evening's crew by name. He also mentions that the next broadcasting day would begin with "3-2-1 Contact" at 8am. There were no color bars/tone or signal noise, just silence and black until the recording ended, so I kept it short.
More sign-offs and other WNET 13 stuff HERE: youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6TJvVXLI-3yRki-IZWNq2KPtrvIYCX_s
And NO, other YouTubers, you may NOT hijack this video for your own channels--I'd prefer the views stay right here, thanks!
No rights held or implied. (If you'd like this video removed for copyright reasons, please contact me rather than notifying YouTube, I will gladly take it down from this channel.) This is on compilation cc14 at oldtvads.blogspot.com...
