Engineering Announcements began because the ITA had been getting so many queries about delays to the launch of local relays.
The ITA felt that the trade should be kept informed about when stations were to open and that the best way to do this was via a television programme[1] and as time progressed, the broadcast expanded to cover technical advances in the industry, such as the launch of satellite television and NICAM stereo, along with details of new transmitters and the scheduling of transmitter downtime.
Engineering Announcements, and the BBC's similar Service Information, are examples of regularly scheduled "ghost programmes," so called because they were never advertised in on-air schedules, in newspaper TV listings, the TV Times or on teletext.
Engineering Announcements was originally scheduled directly after Monday's Newcomers, another ghost programme which offered the advertising trade the opportunity to watch first runs of new adverts before they aired in prime time on ITV.
[3] Throughout its time on Channel 4, the theme tune to the programme was "Current Affairs" by Francis Monkman.