Thames Television is London’s major ITV station, with headquarters and studios in the heart of the city on the Euston Road, with the main multi-studio complex sited fifteen miles away, on a bend of the river Thames at Teddington.

Our programmes cover the whole range of modern television, from Botanic Man to Edward and Mrs Simpson, Hazell and the Kenny Everett Video Show.

Our success as a medium for advertising is directly linked to the quality of our programmes. Thames’ plans for the future include a four-part film series of Quatermass, starring Sir John Mills as the famous professor; Love in a Cold Climate, a dramatisation of Nancy Mitford’s best-selling novel; Hollywood our celebration of the silent film; and new programmes from top-class entertainers like Max Bygraves and Morecambe and Wise.

Filming entirely on location, our subsidiary Euston Films produces taut drama series like The Sweeney and the six-part serial Out, starring Tom Bell.

Thames has an unrivalled reputation for documentary films like Palestine, our three-part history of the birth of Israel, while each week TV Eye brings back film of a major news story from all over the world. We’re proud to say that our programmes equal the best in the world, having won all the major international prizes, including America’s coveted Emmy award. Thames is the only company to have won the Prix Italia four times, including victories in all three categories.

As London’s weekday station, Thames has a special responsibility to viewers in the London area. Since September 1978 we have seen the establishment of a comprehensive local news service for London. Andrew Gardner, Rita Carter and Robert Southgate introduce the main daily local news programme at six o’clock, which is supported by bulletins at lunch-time and late in the evening. In addition, the weekly half-hour Thames Report, looks in depth at the most important story of the week in London. A considerable investment in personnel and equipment has made it possible to cover stories as they happen, right up until transmission – if necessary, through a live outside broadcast.

Sports coverage is also expanding with Thames Sport Roger Allison’s Friday round-up. And we’ll be providing exclusive coverage of major events in international gymnastics, while Thames will be powerfully represented in the hundred-strong ITV team for the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.

As well as being shown across the country through the ITV network, Thames programmes made for the London viewer have conquered the world.

Thames is the largest exporter of programmes to Australia, where Benny Hill, The World at War and George and Mildred have topped the ratings. In the USA, Three’s Company, which was derived from Thames’ Man about the House, was the most successful new programme in 1977/78. In Europe The Naked Civil Servant has been shown in sixteen countries and Father, Dear Father topped the ratings in Italy. Thames is making an impact with quality programmes, in more than a hundred countries all over the world.

Our chief source of revenue is the screen-time we sell to advertisers. We take no cash from the government television licence fee. Instead we provide the most influential platform for advertising in the London area.

The Thames area covers London and most of South East England, stretching from Brighton to Buckingham and Braintree, from Thanet to Oxfordshire. That area contains more than a quarter of the British people in eleven counties around London.

Thames Television Limited
306 Euston Road – London – NW1 3BB – 01-387 9494

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TWW lost their contract to Harlech; Telefusion Yorkshire gained a foothold and half of Granada’s service area: ATV was to end their Midlands weekday/London weekend split and entrench themselves solely in the Midlands.

The most significant of the changes was that there would be no weekend contracts in either the North or Midlands, and ABC – undoubtedly the most distinctive of all ITV incumbents – had put their bid in for the weekends at London, a move they had been well-prepared for over a long period of time, and the award of which appeared to be merely a formality.

However, two events changed the course of ABC’s fate.

The David Frost-Aidan Crawley London Television Consortium (later London Weekend) was bright, intelligent, cultured, and promised much for the future, and under the ITA’s ethos that the system had to be open to newcomers, the LTC were awarded the weekend contract for the capital that had been ABC’s by right.

Secondly, Rediffusion had, for a long time, appeared to be creating a number of problems between themselves and the ITA, culminating in an interview that was disastrous for them.

The Authority then decided to suggest that a joint company to provide London with a weekday service could be devised from the resources of Rediffusion and ABC.

This was Thames Television.

New ITV contractors needed to sign up the best talent they can find, as well as devising ratings-winning programmes, so as to establish a reputation for quality.

Thames had an advantage over all the new companies, as well as many of the older ones, in that they could develop new programme strands as well as incorporate elements from the outputs of both ABC (showbusiness, drama) and Rediffusion (current affairs, children’s and schools programmes).

They also had a number of artists on contract, ensuring that they had access to creative talent, and technical expertise and experience.

Added to this, they had Teddington Studios, a riverside location that they would use to the full in years to come.

The share split in Thames – ABC 51%, Rediffusion 49% – inevitably effected a number of decisions made in the company to the point at which Thames was, effectively, ABC in disguise.

From the first day, Thames was attempting to establish a loyal audience by scheduling a brand-new magazine programme “Magpie”, guaranteeing that viewers would tune in by incorporating episodes of the “Captain Fantastic” serial into it – itself previously a feature of Rediffusion’s “Do Not Adjust Your Set”, soon to be revived by Thames.

Eamonn Andrews would now be the anchor of “Today”, from Monday-Thursday. “This Week” would continue. There were a few sitcoms, like “Never Mind the Quality, Feel The Width” that had begun in the ABC era, and “The Avengers”, “Callan” and “Public Eye” would be mainstays of Thames drama.

However, there was one disadvantage for the new company. The previous London weekday contract was for Monday-Friday, morning to closedown.

Now LWT had extra hours from Friday, 7pm to close, which meant that Thames had, at best, four evenings a week in which to build an audience and to gain vital advertising revenue.

This led to some oddities in scheduling: “Opportunity Knocks”, an ABC Saturday night talent show, was to be slotted into a 6.45 slot on Monday evenings.

Eamonn Andrews’ chat show, on which he had previously interviewed “Sunday Night People”, was scheduled for Thursday evenings.

“Just Jimmy” with the Clitheroe Kid himself had been moved from Saturday teatime, where it had been a family show, to Friday teatime, as a children’s show.

Over time, Thames planning staff worked out the best network slots for many of their programmes and out of the three mentioned, only “Opportunity Knocks” survived in its original Thames timeslot.

8pm Wednesday became the slot for variety specials and one-offs, drama was featured at 9pm, and 7pm became a time for sitcoms.

“Armchair Theatre” was moved into various places throughout the week, but never quite fitted, and never really regained its hard-won reputation: there were, however, attempts to update it, notably “Armchair Cinema”.

In June 1974, “Regan” was shown in this strand, to unanimous praise, and this film led to commissions for “The Sweeney”. “Armchair Cinema” later became “Armchair Thriller”, and was allowed to disappear from the screen forever.

One thing that should never be overlooked is that Thames, with roots in ABC and connections to EMI could make use of those relationships to the full. Thames were able to reap rewards from cinema films of “Callan”, “Sweeney!” and “Sweeney 2” and, most lucratively, “The Best of Benny Hill” – made for very little, using video-to-film transfer of the best of the early Thames series.

The best years of Thames were probably from its inception to 1979, when there was still a great deal of the ABC staffing on board and when production values were maintained at a high level.

They had signed most of the major talent, such as Morecambe and Wise, Tommy Cooper, Mike Yarwood and Kenny Everett, and had won a number of international awards.

The company was also about to make significant inroads into the US, thanks to Don Tuffnell’s sales of “The Benny Hill Show” and an entire week of programmes shown in the USA in September 1976. It might also be true to say that Thames lost their way in trying to establish themselves as world players.

What a pity that at yet another ITV franchise round, the company lost its contract to Carlton.

The legacy of Thames lives on now in both the name of an independent production company and an archive of programmes that has continued to be shown, frequently, on satellite and terrestrial television.

These programmes show, to both those who saw them first time around and to younger viewers just discovering them, that Thames had plenty of grace and style – qualities that both ABC and Rediffusion had in endless supply.

Not at all a bad thing.

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Benny Hill presented his versions of the New Avengers, Mastermind, I Claudius, Dickie Davies and even Bionic Baby, in the first of his self-penned specials for 1977. A third of Britain watched.

People & Politics continued into the New Year, with Llew Gardner mixing individual interviews Merlyn Rees, David Steel and Harold Lever were among his subjects with broader debates on topics like transport, and workers participation.

February and March again saw Hughie Green’s Opportunity Knocks! in its fifteenth series riding high in the network top ten every week.

Get Some In!, with Tony Selby starring in John Esmonde and Bob Larbeys comedy of National Service life, had two new series during 1977. Their average network audience for the year was over 15 million viewers per episode.

Not many programmes reach across the class and age spectrum to inspire much the same reaction from diverse people, but Get Some In! is one of them.

Countless National Servicemen (Retd.) – and their fathers – dredging up memories of wartime basic training – keep telling me that the show is not only funny but true to life.

A highly skilfully rationed sprinkle of nostalgia – in the first edition of the new season, references to Ruby Murray and Ronnie Ronalde – Tony Selby’s craven bully of a Corporal, and unselfish teamwork by the rest of the cast, make Get Some In! hard to resist.

Daily Mail

Two popular Outside Broadcast series returned on 23 February. James Hunt was special guest in the first Drive In, with Shaw Taylor and Tony Bastable introducing television’s only regular magazine programme for motorists.

And Keith Fordyce and Claire Rayner returned in Kitchen Garden, to show how to grow and cook your own garden produce – from growing potatoes in a bucket, to cooking your own sour Borscht.

Terry Scott, Lionel Blair and Aimi Macdonald were among the personalities joining Roy Castle, to try to guess the famous parents of young guests who appeared in the new series of Whose Baby?

Mandao, a thoroughbred stallion, was the star of Horse in the House, a six-part children’s drama series written by Rosemary Anne Sissons. Kim McDonald played Mandao’s owner, Melanie.

This Week continued their regular coverage of Ireland in ‘Derry, Time to Remember’, five years after Bloody Sunday. And in Rhodesia, Jonathan Dimbleby talked with Ian Smith and President Nyerere on the failure of the Kissinger plan; in September he would return to cover the next Anglo-American plan.

Outside Broadcasts went to Wembley twice during February to cover England’s fortunes in soccer matches with Holland, and the crucial World Cup battle with Luxembourg.

Rooms continued to occupy the afternoon drama slot each Tuesday and Wednesday, with over sixty episodes in 1977 on the people and events in a West London rooming house.

Getting something new for Robin was a long-term plan. We thought there was a lot more to say about the characters but not in the setting of ‘Man About the House’, which, after 39 episodes, had exhausted their possibilities. Robin is now living happily unmarried, with the daughter of the man whose cash pays for a restaurant business…

Johnnie Mortimer, co-writer with Brian Cooke of ‘Man About the House, top 1976 situation comedy ‘George & Mildred’; and in January, ‘Robin’s Nest’.

‘Welcome to Robin’s Nest, a most professional quick-fire comedy series by Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke, Richard O’Sullivan (Robin) lives with Tessa Wyatt (Vicky) – and a handsome pair they make – much to the disgust of Vicky’s father (Tony Britton, who has the expert timing of a comic pro). We are often labelled a permissive society, but how many years since it has been portrayed in cinema and theatre has it taken television to present a comedy series about living together?’

The Listener

The first episode of Robin’s Nest jumped into the National Top Twenty in third place. It was up to number 2 for the rest of January, kept from top position only by…

This is Your Life, presented by Eamonn Andrews, which held the top network audience for ten weeks running from January through to March. This is Your Life’s perennial audience appeal is reflected by its taking nine out of the top twenty programme viewing figures for the calendar year 1977.

ITV’s first major documentary of the year was Hazlitt in Love, a dramatised film of the famous writer’s love life, written by C P Taylor and based on Hazlitt s book ‘Liber Amoris’. Kenneth Haig played the title role with Lynne Frederick as his femme fatale.

‘Beautifully photographed sexual cliff-hanger based on the slim volume published by the essayist William Hazlitt in expiation of his obsession with his landlady’s daughter, Sarah Walker. Lynne Frederick is faun-like as the lady; Kenneth Haigh is the distressed essayist.’

Evening Standard

Wish You Were Here…? Outside Broadcasts’ midwinter preview of summer holidays, took viewers out and about in Britain with Judith Chalmers and Chris Kelly. During January they travelled from Pitlochry in Scotland and Killarney in Ireland, to Jersey, North Wales and resorts in England.

Christopher Neame and Ann Hasson starred as Romeo & Juliet in a special Schools production of Shakespeare’s play, transmitted in eight episodes.

This Week started the year with an exclusive interview by Peter Williams of Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, just two days after his arrival in Britain. The following week saw the second part of John Fielding’s Soho gangster expose on the murder of ‘Scarface’ Smithson.

Denis Norden’s afternoon programme Looks Familiar had a rare scoop on 12 January when David Niven provided a memorable half-hour’s nostalgia about life in Hollywood during the ’30s and ’40s.

Elizabeth Shepherd, one of the heroines in Romance, described a romantic as ‘someone who does not pine for the loss of her past and has an absolute belief in the possibilities of the future.’ It was this image of the romantic heroine that was revived in six love stories based on classic romantic novels taken from a century of the British love story. Producer Peter Duguid explained his aims in bringing romance back to television:

‘Many of these novels were considered so risque by contemporary readers that they produced a storm of controversy.

‘But while today’s viewers will find little to outrage in our series, I believe we have recreated for television a genre that has been underexposed to the point where it has become, perhaps, undervalued: full-blooded, rich in romance, with a hero, a heroine, often a villain, and a story with a beginning, a middle and an end.

‘It is these easily recognisable values which made the originals so popular, and we have tried to respect them in our television adaptations. I hope that viewers will share and enjoy the magic of these marvellous love stories.’

Three Weeks by Elinor Glyn, adapted by Gerald Savory, director Waris Hussein, starring Elizabeth Shepherd, Simon MacCorkindale.

Moths by Ouida, adapted by Hugh Whitemore, director Waris Hussein, starring Cathryn Harrison, Nigel Davenport, Maria Aitken.

The Black Knight by Ethel M Dell, adapted by John Kershaw, director Peter Hammond, starring Sinead Cusack, Edward Fox, Simon Williams.

High Noon by Ruby M Ayres, adapted by Julia Jones, director Barry Davis, starring Celia Bannerman, Lynn Farleigh, John Fraser.

House of Men by Catherine Marchant, adapted by Ray Jenkins, director Piers Haggard, starring Mary Larkin, James Laurenson, Michael Kitchen.

Emily by Jilly Cooper, adapted by Eleanor Bron, director Alastair Reid, starring Gemma Craven, Ronald Pickup.

Elegance, style, wit and charm

Sunday Times

Take a dash of Wuthering Heights, add a dollop of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, stir in lashings of true romance… marvellous, good old-fashioned stuff.

Daily Express

For sheer escapism, stories with a beginning, a middle and, usually, a comforting end, it will be difficult to beat Romance.

Morning Star

Money-Go-Round, Good Afternoon’s special feature on consumer news, marked its hundredth edition in March with Joan Shenton and Tony Bastable surveying the changes in eating, shopping and life-styles over the past hundred years. Good Afternoon continued daily at 2.00 pm, featuring guests like Alan Coren (on the Silver Jubilee) and Yehudi Menuhin reflecting on his life in music.

March saw the debut of a new 13-part children’s series Jamie and the Magic Torch, from Thames’ animation subsidiary Cosgrove Hall Productions.

In March, This Week’s coverage ranged from Peter Taylor investigating the success of ‘The Hustler’, a sex magazine that is now America’s third best-selling periodical, to John Fielding’s widely-acclaimed expose of The Poisoning of Michigan a This Week Special which told a horrifying story of death and disease resulting from chemical pollution.

While Rock Follies of ’77 was in the final stages of production, the original Rock Follies series was being repeated in Britain, taking America by storm on the Public Broadcasting Network, and winning the Best Drama Series award in the British Academy awards, and two Royal Television Society awards.

The zingy highlight is sure to be Rock Follies – a five-part, five-and-a-half-hour sock-it-to-’em musical soap opera about three smashing birds, long past their teens, who set out to become England’s top group. This funky bundle from Britain, produced by Thames Television, was a rollicking hit over there and ought to score pretty high Stateside as a likeable, offbeat showbiz saga. Throughout, Rock Follies provides a unique and exhilarating change of tempo: less snob appeal, more sex appeal.

Playboy

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