Keeping one eye on the sky, another underground and both feet planted on the floor is a good trick if you can do it. And that is exactly how Thames Television International is exploiting the rich income promised by new television technology.

The sky eye is on the lookout for broadcast satellites, the underground eye for cable connections, and the firmly-planted feet are vital for anyone who wants to understand and explore the coming revolution in the way viewers use their television sets.

There are three potential rivals to the TV companies who at present dominate the airwaves. The first, video, is with us right now. Nearly a million British homes already possess a videotape recorder which gives them access not only to off-air programmes but a large and growing catalogue of pre-recorded films, music shows, look-and-learn cassettes and golden oldie television material.

The second threat comes from Direct Broadcast Satellites (hereafter called DBS). In America, satellites are already beaming programmes to local cable operators who pipe pictures to subscribers. And if the cash and the political consensus can be found, there could be a DBS perched above every country in Europe by 1990.

Cable itself is the third strand. Once again America leads the way, mainly because the cable was needed to improve signal quality. But now, many entrepreneurs provide viewers with an alternative service to the major networks, and American subscribers can buy anything from month-old movies to ‘live’ sex-shows from companies offering up to 50 different channels at the touch of a button.

Britain, of course, is a long way off that stage, and the initial demand for cable might be rather limited. But if the forthcoming experiments in a number of areas already cabled up are successful, fibre optic ‘narrow-casters’ could soon be spreading their tentacles under every street in the land.

If that happens, the search for programming to fill the new hours will be on, and indeed in America, the hue and cry is already at fever pitch.

So instead of fighting the alternative invaders, TTI has concluded that it is healthier to join them, and Thames material is already finding its way into the new markets.

Mike Phillips, who is TTI’s Controller of Commercial Development explains. ‘We’re already deeply involved in video, partly through the High Street outlets of our parent companies, Thorn-EMI and Rediffusion. There are now nine Thames titles in the EMI Video list, and they include Botanic Man, Swan Lake, The World At War and Kenny Everett. There’s a Benny Hill compilation, the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Shows from 1978 and 1980, some marvellous gymnastics, and the first of Alan Ayckbourn’s Norman Conquests plays trilogy, which Thames screened a while back. There’s obviously a great deal more in the pipeline, now that ITV has reached agreement over royalty payments with the talent unions.’

Much of this material will also find itself spinning profits at the rate of 700 revs per minute, when the video disc joins the battle next autumn.

Discs can be stamped in bulk much more cheaply than tape (which has to be run off in ‘real time’). They can provide stereo sound, and their 54,000 picture frames per disc can store vast amounts of information. On the other hand, they can’t record, and two, (possibly three) incompatible systems are already vying for market share.

Two systems – Philips’ Laser Vision and the VHD disc made by JVC and adopted by Thorn-EMI – use a hard-wearing groove less disc while RCA have developed a cheaper, less-sophisticated disc not unlike a conventional audio LP in appearance. All three are about the size of an ordinary record, played on machines no bigger than a music centre. The players will sell for between £350 and £5(M), and the discs for around £15.

The Thorn-EMI/Rediffusion connections will ensure Thames a prominent place in the market. When launch day comes next year, Everett, Bellamy & Co will be on show in up to 7,000 rental and retail outlets in the chain of wholly-owned or contracted Thorn-EMI and Rediffusion shops featuring the new VHD disc system. But, says Phillips, Thames material is also available to distributors using the other disc formats, so TTI hope for massive penetration of the new markets as soon as the discs hit the High Street.

As for satellites, Muir Sutherland (TTI’s Managing Director) is still fairly sceptical. ‘The DBS is still a long way off in Britain and Europe and it will take a lot of political will to persuade governments that foreign-owned satellites should be allowed to invade their broadcasting airspace.’

‘And I’m not sure how many viewers will want to spend the money for the big dish aerials; there are still many technical problems in providing a reliable service. Satellites are going to be far more valuable as a means of distributing material to cable operators, as in America.’ Joe McCann (TTI’s Controller of Television Sales) and Don Taffner (their US Representative), have created a lot of interest in these new outlets for Thames programming. They’re finalising sales of Benny Hill to Home Box Office, Napoleon and Love and Swan Lake to CBS, Warner Amex are buying The Tomorrow People for their children’s channel, and other very large deals are close to completion.

‘We think Thames has a huge stockpile of material to offer the new cable operations,’ says Joe, ‘and they are also keen to bring their projects to us as well.’

All sorts of joint-production possibilities are opened to Thames International. But says Mike Phillips, ‘We musn’t get it out of perspective. Co-financing never covers the actual cost of making a programme, but it does help offset the cost and it might help us to go ahead with projects we couldn’t afford on our own.’

In the meantime, TTI is looking at all the new American cable operations and selling appropriate programmes where it can. Thames was offered an exclusive deal with one organisation, much like the deal the BBC has just made with RCTV. one of the cable newcomers, but as TTI already earns more from the USA than the recorded BBC annual guarantee, it prefers to play the field and exploit different markets in different ways.

As Muir Sutherland says, ‘We’re delighted that the BBC have agreed to enter into an exclusive deal in the USA, if only because it means that the other channels can’t get their hands on BBC programmes, and puts us in a stronger position.’

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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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But even before the Eighties arrive, the next couple of years are crucial to our future. We are faced by the need to secure a new contract from the Independent Broadcasting Authority and to justify its award, before and after the event. We are faced by the prospect that the Government may provide ITV with a second channel, and we must be ready to take the opportunities it would offer. But we recognise equally that this long overdue move might be even further postponed. If it is, we shall have to find other ways to ensure that our talents and energies can range more widely, and improve our service to the public even further.

PROGRAMMES ARE THE KEY to realising these aims. Conceiving programmes, creating programmes, transmitting them, selling them, making them better, bolder and sometimes bigger. So my priority as Managing Director, now and in the future, will be to work with my colleagues to ensure the excellence, invention and effectiveness of our complete range of programme production and scheduling. That process has already begun with a new annual Programme Plan developed with Jeremy Isaacs and his Controllers. The operation of this plan will be the basis of all the company’s future activities. As a result of that plan and its varied programme aspirations, we have a busy and rewarding year in prospect.

OUR NEW STRATEGY includes the development of a stronger, more comprehensive local journalism for our region with the creation of a fully-staffed Regional News Unit. This unit will also, I hope, see the introduction of lightweight electronic newsgatherjng techniques (ENG) which are such an important part of our future broadcasting technology. It will be responsible not only for the daily Thames at 6 but also for lunchtime regional news bulletins and other programmes. We shall also be developing our weekly network current affairs programme into new areas.

We intend to enlarge and improve our range of sports programmes and look afresh at what the viewing public want from sport on television. And we plan to introduce a complete new programme for the afternoon, designed by Thames, which will encompass the current variety of programmes seen during that period on ITV.

IN ADDITION to these extensive new developments we shall continue to concentrate on those areas where we have shown such outstanding success. In light entertainment we shall be producing no less than 70 situation comedies in the year, together with the variety and spectacular shows which have given the department such an unparalleled record. And it is our aim to continue to attract the finest talents in this field, as in others. The main newcomers in light entertainment are already household names: Morecambe & Wise, the record-breaking entertainers who have joined Thames to make television programmes and a feature film; and top DJ Kenny Everett, who will have his own pop music and entertainment show starting in the summer.

THE DRAMA DEPARTMENT will be producing Edward and Mrs Simpson, the story of Edward VIIIs abdication starring Edward Fox and scripted by Simon Raven, together with John Mortimer’s Rumpole of the Bailey, ten new plays for peaktime and, I hope, a new run of daytime dramas from Teddington. Euston Films will have a new series of The Sweeney and will begin to work on the first dramatic episodes of Danger UXB, featuring the heroic work of army bomb disposal.

We will have two highly popular and informative series in Botanic Man, David Bellamy’s study of ecology shot on location around the world, and Hollywood, a riveting documentary series about the silent era that gave birth to the world film industry.

I HAVE BEEN QUOTED as saying that the primary aim of a television company is to make fine programmes and that ‘the rest is housekeeping’. I do not underestimate the importance of everything that goes to make up ‘housekeeping’. In addition to Jeremy Isaacs I count myself fortunate to have alongside me controlling these activities Ian Scott, Director of Administration and Finance, whose wide-ranging experience is proving invaluable; a Sales Department under Jim Shaw which is the most effective of its kind in the country; an extremely successful international sales operation led by Muir Sutherland which has trebled Thames’ income from overseas sales in three years; and under Bob Godfrey’s direction a Technical and Engineering Department of high accomplishment and many varied and impressive skills.

Our plans for this coming year will require the cooperation and enthusiasm of staff in all areas and the gradual expansion of our facilities together with the maximum utilisation of existing resources. I know that all will be forthcoming.

I regard it as a privilege, as well as a challenge, to lead the 1750 men and women of Thames in maintaining our standards of excellence in the interest of the public we serve.

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