Revamped testcard gets a touch of Klass

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But there's something different about the girl on the testcard these days.

Eight-year-old Carole Hersee has been replaced - by 29-year-old Myleene Klass.

The pregnant pop star turned TV presenter has been signed up as the face of Sky's HD channel and will appear on an updated version of the testcard to be shown when the service is off the air.

Myleene: Miss Klass has taken on the traditional BBC's Test Card F in her latest modelling assignment

In contrast to the original static image, however, Miss Klass will step out of the frame - and give viewers a ten-minute guide to high-definition television.

HD, as it is known, is a method of broadcasting which produces significantly sharper images.

Testcards were first introduced in the 1930s to to help engineers finetune TV sets.

The most famous - Test Card F - first appeared on our screens 40 years ago. It was the first to feature a person - BBC engineer George Hersee's daughter Carole - so adjustments could be made for skin colour.

Carole was pictured playing noughts and crosses with a grinning toy clown. The choice of game was not random - the X marked the dead centre of the card.

Test Card F was first shown on BBC2 in the summer of 1967 and by the time it was no longer in regular use, it had been shown for an estimated-70,000 hours. It is thought Carole - now a 48-year-old mother-of-two - holds the record for the most TV appearances by a single person.

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How Carole Hersee looked in the more familiar Test Card. aged eight, and today in the same pose, 40 years on

Her image has such a hold on the public's imagination that there are websites set up in its honour.

She was delighted when her image finally disappeared from the nation's screens. "I became fed up hearing about it. It should have gone years ago," she said at the time.

Miss Klass, a former member of the group Hear'Say who appeared in TV's I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!, said: "I'm really excited to be the face of the Sky HD testcard and to be taking part in a little piece of TV history.

"For me, the card evokes nostalgic childhood memories of staring at the TV waiting for Playschool."

Chris Johns, Sky's chief engineer, added: "Myleene looked great in the jungle and looks even better in HD. We hope that our Sky HD test card will become as iconic as the original."

Viewers with HDTV will be able to tune into Miss Klass on Sky channel 268 from today.