(c) BBC MCMXCIVIXXI

[chrisbailey]

Just wondering, why (until recently) did television companies find it neccessary to put roman numerals on their production endboards? Why didn't they just put the year, like Granada does now?!

[sft42]

Because dear boy, the Beeb was the first to use this system and was staffed by the old boy network from eton and the like and this was a proper thing to do, not to use some common dates like the oiks on the other channel.

[Merthyr Imp]

I thought it was so that people wouldn't notice so easily that the programme they'd just watched was an old repeat!

[FredPuli]

The practice seems to have come from the film industry. Films were dated in this way from the early days of Hollywood. Ther reasoning was apparently exactly that of not letting on when the picture was made whilst complying with the legal requirements over copyright . That way films could be shown in the provinces years after they were first shown in big cities and the customers would not grumble about getting second rate treatment. Another benefit was that studio artists under contract could make a whole lot of films in a batch ; these could then be released as and when over the ensuing years as new without anybody noticing the coincidences of near identical casts (and plots and style too sometimes).

[misk111]

Since when was 1994911 a date?