Singular sensation.

A few days back, I was getting all nostalgic for the 80’s and mentioning Max Headroom. The truth is that the eighties are in many ways the forgotten decade for me for more reasons than I care to number.

Talking about Max Headroom though, there was an interesting story regarding the character and something that happened in the Chicago area back then. It involved the theft of a broadcast signal.

The Max Headroom broadcast signal intrusion incident was a television signal hijacking in Chicago, Illinois on the evening of November 22, 1987; it is an example of what is known in the television business as broadcast signal intrusion. The intruder was successful in interrupting two television stations within three hours. Neither the hijacker nor his accomplices have ever been found or identified.

It’s unheard of for your television signal to get hijacked, it just doesn’t happen. It’s usually the stuff of sci-fi stories, movies and tv. TV as a medium, is a closed system, so much so we take it for granted a lot of the time.

We often fail to acknowledge the increasing power TV has on our lives, shaping both our opinions and world view. Anyway, that’s what makes this story all the more interesting.



If you want to, you can see a tape of the original signal hijack here and also here (with cleaned up audio).

I just got to thinking wouldn’t it be cool if they used it in the new Doctor Who series as a story element.