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Ghost Signals: The Shadowlands Of British Analogue Television 1968-1995
Ghost Exploring the Haunted Airwaves of British Television
There is a secret history written in the static.Before the era of infinite streaming and corporate algorithms, British television was a landscape of strange experiments, folk-horror nightmares, and "wyrd" transmissions. Today, many of these programmes have vanished from official channels, leaving behind only Ghost Signals: a hidden world of analogue drama waiting to be rediscovered in the digital shadows.
The "Undiscovered Country" of the Airwaves
Ghost Signals takes you on a journey through the "shadowlands" of terrestrial TV. These aren't the polished hits found on Netflix; they are the programmes "hidden in plain sight" across the corners of the internet - unmediated, unmarketed, and eerie.
Why 1968 to 1995?
This era marks the rise and fall of a very British kind of The Dawn (1968): The year the "wyrd" began to take root. From the birth of acid-folk to the broadcast of Whistle and I’ll Come to You, 1968 saw the foundations of wyrd and hauntology culture laid bare.
The Twilight (1995): The final stand of the analogue era. Sandwiched between the birth of digital TV and the arrival of DVD, 1995 represents the last gasp of a broadcast world that felt truly physical - and truly haunting.
A Return to the Roots
Released as part of the A Year In The Country project, which explores the intersection of folk horror, hauntology, and the "eerie" landscape, the book delves into a unique period of British history where public funding met social experimentation, resulting in a "broad diet" of television that was often as challenging as it was chilling.
Step beyond the stream. Tune into the static. Discover the signals that were never meant to fade.
Chapter
1. A Ghost Story for Christmas - Whistle and I’ll Come to You, The Stalls of Barchester and The A Lineage of Seasonal Hauntings
2. Tales of Conjuring Half-Hour Worlds of Unsettling Tension and Intrigue
3. Play For Today - The Lonely Man’s Lover and Stronger Than the From the Fields of Non-Horror Folk Horror to Seaside Secret State Cycle Subterfuge
4. Scorpion Tales - The Great Occult Summonings and Ambiguity in Suburbia
5. The Moon A Teatime Layering of Legend and Mythology
6. Leap in the Dark - Jack Be Pathways Through Paranormal Powers and Between the Roots of Magic and Glamour
7. The Bells of Trapped Forever Guarding the Chalice
8. A Pattern of Timeslip Echoes and Cold War Controversies
9. Play for Tomorrow - Escaping from the Shadow of the Cold War into Prescient Virtual Worlds
10. Dramarama - The Exorcism of Stepping Into a Fever Dream World
11. Screen Two - Unfair Exchanges and The Blue A Multi-Layered Shadowed Whirlwind of Creativity, Paranoia and Fringe Science, A Phantom's Revenge and Roads to Doom
12. Unnatural Causes - Lost A Bubble World of Quiet Horror
13. ScreenPlay - The Black and Blue Metatextual Satire and Preternatural Timeslip to Life on Mars and Back
14.
There is a secret history written in the static.Before the era of infinite streaming and corporate algorithms, British television was a landscape of strange experiments, folk-horror nightmares, and "wyrd" transmissions. Today, many of these programmes have vanished from official channels, leaving behind only Ghost Signals: a hidden world of analogue drama waiting to be rediscovered in the digital shadows.
The "Undiscovered Country" of the Airwaves
Ghost Signals takes you on a journey through the "shadowlands" of terrestrial TV. These aren't the polished hits found on Netflix; they are the programmes "hidden in plain sight" across the corners of the internet - unmediated, unmarketed, and eerie.
Why 1968 to 1995?
This era marks the rise and fall of a very British kind of The Dawn (1968): The year the "wyrd" began to take root. From the birth of acid-folk to the broadcast of Whistle and I’ll Come to You, 1968 saw the foundations of wyrd and hauntology culture laid bare.
The Twilight (1995): The final stand of the analogue era. Sandwiched between the birth of digital TV and the arrival of DVD, 1995 represents the last gasp of a broadcast world that felt truly physical - and truly haunting.
A Return to the Roots
Released as part of the A Year In The Country project, which explores the intersection of folk horror, hauntology, and the "eerie" landscape, the book delves into a unique period of British history where public funding met social experimentation, resulting in a "broad diet" of television that was often as challenging as it was chilling.
Step beyond the stream. Tune into the static. Discover the signals that were never meant to fade.
Chapter
1. A Ghost Story for Christmas - Whistle and I’ll Come to You, The Stalls of Barchester and The A Lineage of Seasonal Hauntings
2. Tales of Conjuring Half-Hour Worlds of Unsettling Tension and Intrigue
3. Play For Today - The Lonely Man’s Lover and Stronger Than the From the Fields of Non-Horror Folk Horror to Seaside Secret State Cycle Subterfuge
4. Scorpion Tales - The Great Occult Summonings and Ambiguity in Suburbia
5. The Moon A Teatime Layering of Legend and Mythology
6. Leap in the Dark - Jack Be Pathways Through Paranormal Powers and Between the Roots of Magic and Glamour
7. The Bells of Trapped Forever Guarding the Chalice
8. A Pattern of Timeslip Echoes and Cold War Controversies
9. Play for Tomorrow - Escaping from the Shadow of the Cold War into Prescient Virtual Worlds
10. Dramarama - The Exorcism of Stepping Into a Fever Dream World
11. Screen Two - Unfair Exchanges and The Blue A Multi-Layered Shadowed Whirlwind of Creativity, Paranoia and Fringe Science, A Phantom's Revenge and Roads to Doom
12. Unnatural Causes - Lost A Bubble World of Quiet Horror
13. ScreenPlay - The Black and Blue Metatextual Satire and Preternatural Timeslip to Life on Mars and Back
14.
149 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 16, 2026
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About the author
Stephen Prince
50 books12 followersStephen Prince teaches film history, criticism, and theory at Virginia Tech’s School of Performing Arts . He received his Ph.D from the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.
Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Librarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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