D Day help for Staff

For some people the first sign that decimalisation was with us came with the arrival of the Jictar Report for the week ending 10 January. The cost per thousands, previously expressed in shillings, were in new pence.

Sales Department and their clients are already getting used to the new type of information. Example: a 30 second commercial slotted at the end of This Is Your Life on 6 January reached 1,920,000 homes in the London ITV area at a cost per thousand of 83 new pence (previous cost per ’000 would actually have been 16/7d but rounded up in the ‘old’ reports to 17/-).

For most of us Decimalisation is still something to be grappled with.

D Day, Monday 15 February, is however only a fortnight away, and Chief Accountant Max Lawson and his department are making their final preparations in a process of changeover and indoctrination that has been going on for almost two years.

Change Stations

One move will affect us all. From Monday 15 February, our restaurants, bars and trolleys will only accept the new decimal coins. This will avoid confusion and cut down delays in service. But to make purchases easier for the staff, Accounts Department is establishing a number of ‘change stations’ at crucial points. Old pence and threepenny pieces may be changed in multiples of 6d or 1/- for the new 2½p or 5p coins.

The change stations will be located at the following places:

Teddington

Chief Cashier’s office during normal working hours. Reception desk in the main hall during normal working hours. The ground floor of the Restaurant from 12 noon to 2 p.m. from Monday to Friday.

Euston

The Petty Cashier’s office (3rd Floor) during normal working hours. The Reception desk in the main hall during normal working hours. The cafeteria from 12 noon to 2 p.m. daily from Monday to Friday.

Hanworth

Mrs. Luccarini will change old pence for new during normal working hours.

Thames to screen next moon walk

Apollo 14 is due to land on the moon on the morning of Friday 5 February, and the astronauts will attempt a moon walk that afternoon. The team at ITN Moonbase will be Alastair Burnet, Peter Fairley, Paul Haney, Dr. Robert Jastrow, Head of the U.S. Institute of Space Studies, and Sqdn./Ldr. Gordon Sharp, of the Institute of Aviation Medicine at RAF Farnborough. Robert Hargreaves will be at Houston Space Centre in America.

Thames will be screening the moonlanding at 8.00 am and the moon walk at 2.30 pm and 6.30 pm. During these transmissions viewers will be able to telephone the ITN Moonbase on a special hot-line to the studio to have their questions answered on-air by experts.

Look-In off to good start

The first two issues of Look-in, the new Junior TV Times which went on sale earlier this month, were a virtual sellout. Alan Fennell, the new paper’s editor, reports preliminary figures of 470,000 and 435,000 for numbers one and two respectively. Both issues were supported with strong Magpie give-aways (cardboard models of the studio and production team). Each issue will feature Magpie, and Wreckers at Deadeye is being serialised during the first six weeks.

Thames on SFTA short-list

Magpie, The Benny Hill Show, Writer’s Workshop and producer Reg Collin have all reached the short-list of nominations for the 1970 Society of Film and Television Arts Awards.

Benny Hill has been short-listed for the Light Entertainment award; Magpie and Writer’s Workshop as two of four official ITV entries for the Rediffusion Star Award for children’s programmes, and Callan producer Reg Collin for the Producer/Director Production Award. This is the second year running that both Magpie and Reg Collin have reached the finals in their respective categories. The awards will remain a secret until 4 March when the winners will be announced at an Awards Ball at the Royal Albert Hall.

Top Ten and Twenty

The JICTAR figures for the first two weeks of the new year (ending 17 January) show that Granada jumped ahead of Thames into second place – a position which we occupied throughout the last 9 weeks of 1970. Top Twenty positions to date are: BBC with 11 programmes, Granada 9, Thames 7, ITN 6, Yorkshire 5 and LWT 3.

In London we maintained our lead in the list of the Top Ten programmes screened in the area (Thames 13, LWT and BBC 7 each), but lost our lead to the BBC in the table of the top ten originated programmes. Figures for this chart were: BBC with 7 places, LWT 6 and Thames 5.

In the Top Twenty chart for week ending 17 January, This Is Your Life was the highest Thames entry (equal third with 7-85 million network homes). Man At The Top leapt up 9 places from the previous week to 9 with 7.35 million homes and Shadows Of Fear entered the chart for the first time at 12 with 7.10 million homes.

Emergency measures for GPO strike

Special arrangements during the postal strike have been made by Teddington and Hanworth Manager Ken Pike. They include special delivery to all ITA premises and stations, all ITV companies and the Independent Television Companies Association, all advertising agencies, Post Office Telecommunications HQ and the Post Office Tower, Rediffusion Television and EMI. Urgent mail for overseas is also being accepted.

The company’s despatch riders are continuing to carry out their normal duties and in addition are also delivering important letters which would normally go by post.

All other post is being held by the secretaries in each department, to avoid a pile-up in the Post Room.

Postal Supervisor Bert Short and Travel Officer Don Heaven report “no panic and no problems to date.”

Previews at NFT2

After almost two years of research and filming, Till I End My Song will be seen on the network at 9.00 pm on Tuesday 16 February. It will be previewed at the National Film Theatre’s No. 2 cinema on 11 February. Written and produced by Jeremy Isaacs and directed by David Gill, this documentary records the sights and sounds of the Thames. It looks at the varied activities of the people whose lives centre around the river – from swan-upping to garbage disposal. It is the first Thames programme to be shown in the new peak time documentary slot of 9.00 pm.

Early in March the exciting Thames documentary exclusive on the ascent of Annapurna’s south face will also be previewed at NFT2. The programme, The Hardest Way Up, will be seen on the network on 16 March at 9.00 pm.

New officers sought for Club Committee

The Annual General Meeting and Elections of the Club will be held on Monday 1 February at 6.30 pm in the Teddington restaurant. Neither Club Chairman Ron Walsby nor Secretary Bernard Burke are standing for re-election. Urgent nominations are required for these posts and the rest of the committee.

The Club Committee is responsible for the Club bars (opening hours, service, prices, catering, etc.) and various social activities during the year. It is important therefore that as many as possible vote at Monday’s AGM.

The post Newsletter – 29 January 1971 appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

Designers get together

One of those joint conferences between ourselves and the BBC in which rivalry is forgotten for a while has recently taken place at Teddington. Members of the Guild of Heads of Television Design accepted the invitation of Patrick Downing to a meeting at Teddington on 7 October to discuss points of interest and mutual problems within the industry and to exchange ideas.

(Patrick is founding chairman of the Guild which came into being at the beginning of this year).

Those present were: Michael Yates, Head of Design, London Weekend; Peter Alexander, Head of Design, Scottish Television; Richard Levin, Head of Design Services, BBC; John Dilly, Head of Design, Southern; Eric Briers, Head of Design, Tyne Tees; Geoffrey Martin, Head of Design, Yorkshire; Richard Greenough, Head of Visual Services, ATV; Peter Roden, Head of Scenic Design, ATV; Alpho O’Reilly, Head of Design, Radio Telefis Eireann; Malcolm Beatson, Head of Design, ITN; Peter Ash, Head of Design, Granada; Clifford Hatts, Head of Scenic Design, BBC.

An added reason for the meeting was that it was the last opportunity all the members had for a meeting with Richard Levin, before his retirement. After the meeting Patrick on behalf of Thames, entertained members of the Guild to dinner on the MV Iris.

No floods

The time of extreme flood danger from the Thames early this month has now come and gone without the river bursting its banks – though some newspaper reports just before the danger time talked of “the gravest threat of floods in one hundred years”. Sighs of relief everywhere – including Thames studios at Teddington where the Admin Department had taken precautions.

Inevitably there is a sense of anticlimax and some people have wondered: was there unnecessary panic? As far as Thames was concerned there certainly was not. Flooding on a serious scale could have occurred. That it did not was due to a combination of three lucky factors: little rain to swell the rivers; very high barometric pressure; and a wind blowing against the tide.

Report — Munich

Director Jolyon Wimhurst, reporter John Morgan and a Report film team have just returned from Munich where they were completing the new dramatised documentary on Munich which will be screened in the Spring of 1972. Munich, the Bavarian capital, has always had a weakness for extravagance and a reputation for laissez-faire. This attitude gave birth to artistic and political excesses – from its Baroque architecture to revolutionary ideas, culminated by the rise of Adolf Hitler. In the year of the Munich Olympics Report tells the story of the city from the beginning of the 18th century to the present day.

EMI contract

EMI Electronics has won a major television equipment contract worth almost £200,000 to re-equip a Belgian television studio for colour broadcasting. The contract, which includes the first export order for the company’s new ‘2005’ three-tube colour cameras, is for the replacement of existing EMI monochrome equipment at the Brussels studio of Belgium Radio Television’s Flemish Service.

Still winning

As already reported in the Newsletter, the Thames Vauxhall Firenza at its very first appearance at a race meeting scored two out-right wins and broke the class record twice. The car continued its winning ways on its second outing at Inglistone on 10 October. It won the first saloon car race of the day, after Gerry Marshall had clocked the fastest lap in practice. Incidently the win was achieved despite the fact that the opposition was “formidable” to quote Bill Blydenstein. Before the final saloon car race (in which the Firenza was entered) the organisers gave each of the previous race winners a lap of honour. The unfortunate result of this was that the Firenza’s engine oiled up its plugs and although the plugs were changed the car went on three cylinders again during the race and finished seventh overall. But for the lap of honour it might well have come away with a double victory again.

U.S. Rivals

“Variety”, the U.S.-published, international show business magazine has a unique vocabulary. For those of us who don’t see it regularly, the following review of Rivals of Sherlock Holmes may be amusing:

Thames TV, the London independent, has whipped up a promising ITV network series meant to redress at least some of the balance with regard to the great detectives of Edwardian fiction. Hence the overall intriguing handle for this series of 13 hour long colorfilm mellers which has already sold in a number of off-shore markets.

The initialer featured John Neville as a smoothie forsenic scientist – a bit too smooth, in fact, since Philip Mackie’s script (from an Austin Freeman story) portrayed the hero as a man of immaculate gee-whiz intellect as well as urbanity. It was, in short, no contest from the start in this tale of a brothel murder. Never mind the plot cliches – the producers couldn’t be faulted for being faithful to the original text in that respect. And include among the cliches a compliment to the Baker St. hot-shot, in that Neville, too, trailed a Watson-type sidekick.

The seg was, however, nicely paced and sharply cast, and the Edwardian flavor came across effectively if economically. In notable support of Neville were James Cossins as his acolyte, Terence Rigby, Bernard Archard, Paul Darrow and, in particular, Eve Pearce as the madame-cum-innocent-landlady.

Fast Workers

Records were broken at Euston on 29 September to get a Daily Express ad on screen in the shortest possible time. The story began at 8.45 pm, when advertising duty officer Tony Clemens received a call from the Express asking if we had a spot available that night. We hadn’t, but one was cleared at 9.58 pm. By 9.45 pm, the script and artwork were ready and cleared, and were taken to Presentation for taping, and the commercial duly went out one hour and ten minutes after receipt of the first enquiry. John Robertson, the Publicity Manager of the Express, came to see the transmission, and expressed his gratitude for the co-operation we had given his organisation at such short notice.

Armchair for Armchair

There’s a neat compliment for the Armchair Theatre series in a glossy magazine campaign by Parker-Knoll at the moment for their Buccaneer suite of chairs. The ad shows three photographs of a man watching telly while sitting on a Buccaneer armchair. The captions read: “It’s an armchair for ‘Armchair Theatre’”…, “A knees-up for ‘Come Dancing'”…, “And an escape from the fifth repeat of the ‘Wooden Horse’”… Fortunately for our reputation the man is sitting up keen, alert and vigilant for “Armchair Theatre”; very relaxed for “Come Dancing” and sound asleep for the “Wooden Horse”.

Out in front

At the end of the first 39 weeks of 1971, Thames has established a clear lead over the BBC and all other ITV programme companies in numbers of programmes in both the Network Top Twenty, and the London Top Ten. Up to 3 October, we had had 169 programmes in the Top Twenty (21-5 per cent) compared to Granada’s 153 programmes (19 4 per cent) and the BBC’s 149 programmes (19 0 per cent). In the London Top Ten we had screened 244 programmes (55-8 per cent) and originated 127 programmes (29 1 per cent). Full tables:

Network Top Twenty

TOTAL	785	100
THAMES	169	21.5
GRANADA	153	19.4
BBC	149	19.0
ITN	126	16.1
YORKSHIRE	80	10.2
ATV	53	6.8
LWT	51	6.5
OTHER ITV	4	0.5

London Top Ten Screened

TOTAL	437	100
THAMES	244	55.8
BBC	112	25.6
LWT	81	18.6

London Top Ten Originated

TOTAL	437	100
THAMES	127	29.1
BBC	112	25.6
GRANADA	66	15.1
LWT	57	13.0
ITN	42	9.6
YORKSHIRE	21	4.8
ATV	11	2.5
OTHER ITV	1	0.2

Booked?

No, not quite! Ciss Stapleton, lady cleaner with Thames, gets a big smile from the local traffic warden, Ciss had just collected her new trolley from Bob Hurley, so she decided to invest in ‘L’ plates until she feels ‘qualified’. Ciss, by the way, has been with Rediffusion and Thames for 15 years.

The post Newsletter – 22 October 1971 appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

Answering John Tasker (Head of Sound, Teddington), when he suggested that “it shouldn’t take a crisis to get management and staff together”, Mr Thomas repeated what he and the Chairman had said at the two earlier presentations at Euston. “In an industry which is at the very centre of communications, we seem to find difficulty in communicating effectively with each other. There has got to be an improvement: and I hope you will see these talks by the Executive Directors as a positive step forward.”

All three presentations were well attended and the general opinion was that useful information about the company had been put across. The question sessions at the end were particularly valuable.

Extracts

The Managing Director introduced the presentation by reiterating Thames’ position as ITV’s leading company. “Let me remind you, then, that Thames now makes more of Britain’s most popular programmes than any other ITV company. That in its own area, London, Thames is consistently more popular than the BBC or London Weekend Television. And that in sales of commercial time, despite a period of comparative recession in the advertising industry, the company has outstripped its competitors.”

Technical operations

Having described the divisional structure of the company, he paid tribute to the engineers. “The technical operations of Thames are second to none in ITV. The studios at Teddington, and those here at Euston and also our outside broadcast division at Han worth, keep us on the air and they also keep us one step ahead of the game in this fast-moving business. It was Bernard Greenhead and his team who did such a great deal to pioneer colour television for ITV.”

Sales

He then introduced George Cooper, Director in charge of Sales, Research and Publicity. Mr Cooper reminded the audience of ITV’s growth from a medium reaching only half a million homes across the country in 1956 to one now capable of being seen in 16.6 million homes. 94% of the total population was now covered by ITV, and advertisers spent £98.5 millions in 1969 to reach that audience.

He went on to talk about the Thames area. First its size: “If you take the whole of the population of Australia plus the population of New Zealand, and put them into an area half the size of Tasmania, you have the Thames market in size and population. It is the largest and most influential of all television areas. It contains four-and-a-quarter million Independent Television homes and fourteen million people”.

Its buying power: “Although our single area contains 25% of all the television homes in the country, it accounts for over 30% of total national sales. Many companies can, and do, operate successfully and profitably in the Thames area alone. With its high concentration of retail outlets and stores, its higher than average incomes and the sophistication of its population, it offers considerable economies in sales and marketing costs and gives opportunities for exceptional rewards to companies who are geared to take advantage of these conditions.”

ITA forecast beaten

Mr Cooper then turned to Thames’ actual performance in selling time.

“The Independent Television Authority calculated that from 1968 the five main companies would earn revenue in the following order:

1. ATV with seven days in the Midlands.
2. Granada with seven days in Lancashire.
3. Thames with four-and-a-half days in London
4. LWT with two-and-a-half days in London.
5. Yorkshire with seven days in Yorkshire.

And they divided the London contract on an almost equal basis, with 50.4% of the revenue to Thames and 49.6% to London Weekend.”

In practice, he continued, the ITA’s forecasts have not materialised. Thames soon became, and has remained, No. 1 revenue earner and not third as the Authority predicted. And what about the roughly 50/50 split of London revenue between ourselves and LWT?

“In fact, we are considerably above the 50% line and LWT are well below it. We have been steadily improving our share of the London revenue going up from 55% to 60% and in June 1970 as high as 65%. This in spite of intensive efforts by LWT to improve their position with attractive rate offers to advertisers. These achievements made Thames No. 1 in London and No. 1 across the Network, a position we intend to maintain.”

Future

Finally he looked to the future: “Advertising budgets are being cut, money is being spent on promotional activities other than television and press, and our customers want more help and services from us. We have pioneered support activities like the Ansafone Service, reply coupons in the TVTimes, inclusive production facilities and many other services which are time consuming and sometimes costly. But these facilities are necessary if we are to attract new sources of revenue to make up for losses and to encourage our customers that television is right for them. Colour, videotape, studio facilities for the smaller advertiser – these and many other services will be necessary to develop our advertising income and maintain the excitement and effectiveness of the medium.”

The post Staff communication to be improved appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

Associated Rediffusion took over the building in 1954, and began the conversion from what had been the wartime Air Ministry to the home of the infant ITV. Studios and technical areas were installed where steel shelters had stood for Winston Churchill and headquarters RAF staff. One member of the Marconi planning team which supervised the conversion was Phil Berkeley, now Head of Engineering Projects for Thames.

Since TVH went on the air on 22 September 1955, it has been the base of ATV, ITN, Rediffusion, Southern, Scottish, TV Times and Thames.

Now the building is to be ripped apart again, for IPC, and given a new name.

… and at the Lyceum

The Lyceum has been associated with staff parties for almost as long as TVH with television. Many Rediffusion parties were held there, and Thames continued the tradition for its first two years.

But now that Thames has moved to Euston, the Board has decided it would be inappropriate to hold parties there any longer. Chief advantage of the Lyceum was its closeness to Television House, particularly for staff involved in transmissions on the night of the party.

Announcing the change this week, the Managing Director stated “We will not have a Christmas Party at the Lyceum this year, but instead consideration is being given to either a summer or autumn function at a more suitable location within the Greater London area. A committee to plan this, and discuss the form and frequency of future parties, will be set up under the chairmanship of Colin Wills. It will consist of representatives of various departments of the company and members of the Social Club committee.’*

Euston move completed successfully

The careful and elaborate plans made over several months by Administration and Engineering Departments have paid off. The Euston move has been completed more or less without mishap and on schedule.

The last departments moved earlier this week, and all central London staff are now in their new accommodation — with the exception of Betty who opens the shutters of her new Club bar at 6.00 pm on Friday 13th!

Casualties of the move included Maintenance Foreman Derek Drury (slipped cartilage) and the electric typewriter of Sales Director’s secretary Betty Wilson (smashed carriage).

First reactions from the staff to their new home and to the smoothness of the move were good. Sue Mathiesen, Secretary to Sales Controller Jim Shaw: “There’s so much more space and light, and the cleanliness after Television House is marvellous. I used to work in the area before when I was with Rank Xerox, and I like being back. It’s so much easier to get to the shops at Oxford Circus by getting on the Victoria Line.” Bob Hurley was one of the team of duty officers who worked around the clock throughout the move. He praised the job done by Vanguard, the removal contractors. “They were ahead of schedule and goods were pouring into Euston at such a rate that we had to work hard to keep up with them.”

A last word from Colin Wills, who was in charge of the move. “The Executive Directors are most appreciative of the way in which the staff tackled this difficult changeover. Without their cooperation and readiness to roll up their sleeves to get on with the job, we should not have succeeded. I should also like to thank the members of the co-ordinating committee who planned the move.”

On the lighter side, Wanstead police telephoned on Monday, 2 November, to tell the company that old files were seen drifting down Wanstead High Street! In view of the recent council workers’ strike they are not pressing charges against Thames or against the refuse contractors who should have delivered them safely to a dump.

The post End of an era at TVH… appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.