Time-check beeps come from broadcast radio, where stations play a short tone or a set of pips at the precise start of the hour so listeners can set their watches. Short clips of these tones circulate widely on soundboards because they are instantly recognisable and free of speech or music. Editors reuse them as neutral markers for time passing, deadlines and mock newscasts, in the same family as a ding sound effect. Their appeal is pure function: one clean beep that everyone reads as 'now'.