Broadcast From the Future, c.1991

We have a new UWTV memory here, sent in by Gluben, one of our readers.

So over to Gluben…

“Okay, this one is pretty obscure, but this was similar to an unsettling ad break from 1989.

“To give people some background, in 1989, First Direct bank launched with a strange advert that literally “interrupted” an ad for Audi (all pre-arranged with Audi) and aired on all ITV regions and Channel 4 at the same time. The ad by advertising agency HHCL claimed to be a broadcast from the future in the year 2010 and was celebrating the 21st anniversary of the launch of First Direct before it returned viewers to their regular programming. It was only ever shown once:

“It was very daring and it was followed by a second pair of adverts that aired during the week, introduced by actress Charlotte Rampling, with different viewpoints of First Direct, a bank that had no branches. The “positive” ad (starring Jeremy Swift in a white suit miming a gospel song) aired on ITV, while the “negative” ad (starring Steve Punt in a black suit miming a blues song) aired on Channel 4:

“Anyway, when the first ad was reposted on YouTube, it brought about a comment relating to something similar. [The commenter] claimed that there was another interruption of a commercial break during a showing of Romancing the Stone on ITV (Central in their region). It occurred in 1991, but was nothing like that one and definitely wasn’t made by a company selling a product.

“For anyone familiar with the book Bringers of the Dawn and the subsequent Pleiadians videos that have been posted online, it was similar in content but abridged and compressed into about 60 seconds. On screen, there appeared a spinning galaxy and possible fleeting images of our planet (their memory was rusty on some details), while the message was spoken by an unseen soft-voiced woman. The gist of what she said is as follows: ‘We have come from your future to let you know that Earth will soon be entering a special phase in its evolution, whereby there will be an opportunity to raise the planetary frequency.’ He definitely remembers a period of 20 years being mentioned, along with the recommendation that we work on increasing our positive vibes, or words to that effect. At the end, she said something like ‘You will now be returned to your regular viewing’ and then it finished.

“He only heard of one other person who’d apparently mentioned it (a friend of a friend, his name is Richard Forbes and he lived in Dudley), although he never got to ask them in person, and was surprised to not find anything reported in the media about it. He’s certain of the year, because he remembers talking to a couple of mates the next day when he met them on his dinner break, and he was only in that particular job throughout 1991.

“I’ve tried my best to locate the ad on the History of Advertising Trust (HAT) website but couldn’t find anything close to matching, and they also emailed back saying they had nothing in their records matching. I’ve also looked through the British Newspaper archive for regional TV listings and there’s absolutely none for Romancing the Stone for ITV or Channel 4 in 1991 in the whole of the UK, let alone the Central region; only in Ireland, but the person is adamant of both the year and the film. He reckons it aired on a Sunday between about 7pm and 10pm and was definitely not in the summer months, so possibly February to April or September to November.

“That’s all we’ve got to narrow it down, so any help finding the ‘advert’ in question, or what it was about, would be greatly appreciated.”

Does anyone else recall seeing this? If so, please respond below or drop us an email and let us know!

UPDATE 06/11/26

We have a possible recollection of a similar TV memory to this, from Scott, a visitor to our blog:

“So I was sat here thinking about the weird thing I saw as a kid. I was 11 at the time. Watching a film, I didn’t remember which til I read this account.

The adverts came on, and I remember it being a car advert. Then it cut after a few seconds. I remember seeing a slightly different account of that weird transmission. It had a calm, almost distant sounding woman’s voice. Not monotone but stripped of emotion. She spoke about how the planet had been almost depleted. She spoke about a lot of things my 11 year old brain couldn’t comprehend so I’m not able to add much clarification. I remember seeing the Earth, and natural occurrences like wind and famine. In my memory of the advert she asked us to board ships and leave the Earth for a better future.

She then abruptly said something like “and now your viewing will resume” and the advert snapped back on. I think it was still the car advert so it can’t have been long.

Anyway, I had thought of it from time to time and no one else I knew had saw it so I resigned to it being an oddity.”

Any more recollections of this “Broadcast From The Future”? If you have any memories, please let us know!