BROADCASTING licences are reviewed every six years by the Independent Television Authority. The major shake-up, which comes into effect today, 13 years after the start of ITV, is a severe warning to the various independent companies that there is no room for complacency.

The very fact that the oldest independent company of them all, Rediffusion, has not retained complete control of London’s weekday programmes is an indication that licences will not automatically be renewed.

Today, it has merged with ABC TV, and as from now your programmes from Monday to Thursday [sic] inclusive are coming to you by courtesy of Thames Television

At a Mansion House luncheon, the service was launched in the presence of figures prominent in London’s Government and business, in London’s music, art and sport, and in the nation’s Press and Parliament which reflect the life and power of the capital.

Speakers included the Lord Mayor, Lord Aylestone, chairman of the ITA, Sir Philip Waster [sic – Warter], chairman, and Howard Thomas, managing director of Thames Television.

Eamonn Andrews introduces recorded highlights of the luncheon at 11.30 tonight. Andrew Gardner describes the scene and talks to some of the distinguished guests present at the Mansion House.

At the weekend – Friday [sic] through to Sunday – programmes will be controlled by the London Television Consortium (London Weekend). This is the company that attracted Michael Peacock away from the BBC and has David Frost as one of its star men.

Then, as in the past programmes made by regional companies will be fed into the schedule for the London area.

Coronation Street, for instance, will continue from Granada, as will University Challenge, What the Papers Say and other well established programmes.

But there will be additional material from the north – from Yorkshire Television. For the territory up there has been divided down the Pennines: Granada hold the rights for the county of the red rose, Yorkshire Television – the company that attracted Alan Whicker away from the BBC – for the county of the white.

It was 18 months ago that Lord Hill, then chairman of the ITA, announced plans to change the face of ITV.

The richest and most sought after prize was London. The contract winners were announced first over a year ago.

Lord Hill said of the London weekday contract “With our principle of programme quality in mind, we felt that Independent Television would gain benefit if the abilities of ABC and Rediffusion were to combine in providing the weekday service. The combination of these two companies seemed to ihe Authority to offer the possibility of a company of real excellence.”

Unlike Thames Television, there will be no opening ceremony for London Weekend Television. And unlike other companies there will be no station symbol – just the name.

London Weekend Television is backed by an impressive line-up of television professionals: men such as Aldan Crawley, Michael Peacock and David Frost.

Of this company Lord Hill said: “Of the applicants for the weekend, the London Consortium impressed us most, particularly because of its creative talent.”

At a recent luncheon in London, managing director, Michael Peacock promised: “There will be a lot of charges in your weekend viewing. New shows, new faces and new times to remember”

Well, what is in store for the viewer?

Thames Television

DRAMA

Frontier: New adventure series set in the North West Frontier when the British Army kept the peace in the Asian equivalent of the Wild West.

90-Minute Dramas: Three plays adapted by William Marchant from short stories by Noel Coward. Already in production, Star Quality, starring Glynis Johns and Robert Hardy, to be followed by Bon Voyage and The Kindness of Mrs Radcliffe. A new adaptation of Mary Shelley’s famous Frankenstein by Robert Muller and an adaptation of Uncle Silas the ghost story by Sheridan Le Fanuare planned.

Premiere: Live, one hour television dramas will be presented through October with top directors, distinguished casts and writers.

The Sex Game: Romantic 60-minute plays. Trials and tribulations of lovers who ultimately merge to live happily ever after.

The Mind of Mr. J. G. Reeder. Adaptations of Edgar Wallace stones starring Hugh Burden and Willoughby Goddard.

CHILDREN

The Tyrant King: A London adventure for children. The first modern colour film TV serial made in Britain for children.

The Queen Street Gang: A new children’s adventure series in which a professor is captured by criminals and rescued by the Queen Street Boys, a highly organised gang, led by his own son.

Once Upon A Time: A series of 15-minute programmes in which celebrities will tell classic or original stories to a children’s audience.

The Sooty Show: Harry Corbett, Sooty, Sweep and the rest of the gang in a children’s entertainment series recorded at The May Fair Theatre.

Pinky & Perky: A series of 15-minute shows featuring the famous puppets Pinky and Perky and their colleagues.

COMEDY

Best of Enemies: Situation comedy written by Vince Powell and Harry Driver about two members of Parliament: a young Labour newcomer to the House of Commons and a wily old Tory. Tim Barrett and Robert Coote star.

Father, Dear Father: Patrick Cargill stars as the divorced father of two very highly nubile mini-skirted teenage daughters with Sally Bazely as his literary agent and good friend.

Comedy Tonight: A season of six new comedy plays written by top authors including Ronald Wolfe and Ronald Chesney, Vince Powell and Harry Driver and Dave Freeman.

Sid James: A new series, as yet untitled, written by Vince Powell and Harry Driver, starring Sid James.

Horne-a-Plenty: Comedy-Revue starring Kenneth Horne assisted by Sheila Steafel and Kenneth’s friends, which might well bear an amazing resemblance to the radio series Round the Horne.

SPECIALS

Already announced are two one hour specials starring Tommy Cooper; The Max Bygraves Show; Liberace in London; An Evening with Jack Benny, in which comedian Jack Benny conducts and stars with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall; a comedy concert with Victor Borge; The Frankie Howerd Show and, of course, The Goons, a half-hour radio show for television starring Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe.

Hughie Green’s Opportunity Knocks! returns for a new season and The Eamonn Andrews Show takes a completely new look when it comes from the May Fair Theatre in the heart of the West End.

FEATURES

Today: A live, dally topical entertainment and information show about people and places in and around London with Eamonn Andrews.

Robert Kee Reports: A series of monthly 45-minute documentaries on important issues of the day.

Applause! Applause! A series of six documentary programmes on great stars of variety and the music hall including Grade Fields, Max Miller, George Robey, Sid Fields, George Formby and Lucan McShane.

Magpie: A weekly magazine programme for children, Forty minutes of information and entertainment plus the serial story of Captain Fantastic.

ADULT EDUCATION

Ballet For All: A series of six half-hour programmes to help bring appreciation of this unique art to a wider audience.

So You’re Going on Holiday: An in-depth appreciation of the countries of Europe – the historical and cultural background behind the holiday facade.

The Tools of Cookery: A new series in which top TV cook Philip Harben demonstrates the importance of using the right tools for the job in the kitchen, from knives and saucepans to ovens and mixers.

World of Crime: Eight new programmes which examine specific cases of the victims of crime in Britain and North America.

RELIGION

A new ten-minute series entitled Last Programme – this will be shown seven nights a week, London Weekend Television will show the series on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

THE AVENGERS

A new series starring Patrick Macnee and introducing Linda Thomson [sic – Thorson] as John Steed’s new partner, Tara King.

Among the successful programmes which will carry on in the new schedules are This Week, Armchair Theatre, Hullaballoo, Callan, The Eamonn Andrews Show, Sexton Blake, Opportunity Knocks!, and Public Eye.

So far as London Weekend Television is concerned plays return to Sunday night; David Frost has three shows; and there is an abundance of comedy to suit all the family. Concerts by Leonard Bernstein, Yehudi Menuhin and Benny Goodman are planned. So are productions of the Beggar’s Opera and Benjamin Britten’s The Golden Vanity.

Saturday specials are planned to broaden the range of cultural programmes. And sports fans are catered for with Sports Arena on Fridays and World of Sport on Saturdays.

All we have to do is wait and see.

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In 1977 Thames Television International, already established among the world’s top ten sellers of TV programmes, achieved two major landmarks. For the first time, more than one hundred countries now see Thames programmes. And with gross sales of over £3 million, the resulting profit from overseas sales has now topped £1 million.

In other innovatory areas too, 1977 was a year of firsts for Thames International:

AMERICA. The most successful new series on the American Networks during 1977 was Three’s Company, derived from Thames’ Man About the House. ABC purchased the programme format, which was adapted for American viewers by the top writing team of Nicholl, Ross and West. The first series in March was quickly established in the Nielson Top Ten, playing opposite ‘Hawaii Five-O’, and with the second autumn series regularly placed in the nation’s top three programmes, Three’s Company promises to repeat the success of its Thames predecessor. International distribution for the American series was retained by Thames, and with sales from Canada to Australia (and Britain) already achieved, Three’s Company will be one of Thames’ biggest international properties during 1978. And in South America Thames comedy made its debut when Man About The House was sold to Brazil.

EUROPE. Thames programmes are now familiar to European televiewers (16 countries in Europe have seen The Naked Civil Servant). During 1977 sales more than doubled, to top £¾ million. Most important sale was The World at War to France, the highest-earning single sale of Thames’ most successful overseas seller. Comedy, formerly considered ‘unexportable’ made large inroads: Father Dear Father made its debut in Spain, Italy where it topped the ratings, and Germany, where with Man About The House it was dubbed into German. And Jamie and the Magic Torch proved popular in Hungary, home of the world’s experts in animation.

AUSTRALIA. 1977 saw Thames become the biggest British programme exporter (including the BBC) to the crucial Australian market. All kinds of programmes are purchased by Australia from Thames: George & Mildred (ABC), Love Thy Neighbour (7 Network), The World at War (9 Network) and Benny Hill (0/10 Network) have all been the highest-rated programmes on the respective networks, and Benny Hill achieved the year’s single highest audience with a one-hour special which he travelled to Australia to make. Other countries where Thames is the largest UK exporter range from Greece to the newly-inaugurated Swaziland television service.

BRITAIN. Since Thames acquired distribution rights of New Zealand-made programmes, Thames International has entered the business of selling programmes to British companies. Most successful is Hunter’s Gold, now sold to sixteen countries – including the BBC.

IRAN. The National Iranian Radio and Television (NIRT) studios played host to Rainbow creator Pamela Lonsdale in June.

She was in Tehran to advise on a unique project, adapting the content of over a hundred Rainbow programmes for the young Iranian audience and their culture. Original actuality film sequences, drawings and music were combined with NIRT-originated material, Farsi-language voice-overs were dubbed on, and the end product was a series of Iranian Rainbows, which still retained the aims and techniques of the Thames programmes made for the British child. This served as forerunner to a similar operation in Jordan, where producer Charles Warren is helping in the making of an Arabic version to be screened throughout the Arab world.

THAMES TELEVISION INTERNATIONAL – SELLING TO THE WORLD

During 1977 Thames Television International executives travelled nearly 150,000 air miles, visiting 37 countries and selling a record total of 5,327 hours of programming.

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Time was when the countries watching Thames Television didn’t even run from A to B, let alone Z. But now Zanzibar has become the hundredth country to by Thames programmes for its own television service.

In four short years, under Managing Director Muir Sutherland, Thames Television International has brought export sale up above the £3,000,000 mark. They’ve done it by creative, aggressive selling in world markets of the programmes we make for audiences here in the UK.

The World at War to 64 countries, including Germany, Italy and Japan. Jennie, Lady Randolph Churchill to 41 countries, and The Sweeney to 34. Father, Dear Father to 29 countries, and children’s series like The Tomorrow People, so far seen in 32 countries.

Thames Television is a British company that makes only one product: TV programmes on film and videotape. Where we diversify is in the language of our audience.

Thames Television International:
British programmes for the world

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Brian Tesler, Thames Television’s Director of Programmes, began his television career as a trainee BBC producer immediately after leaving Oxford. He remained with the BBC for four years and then joined ITV in London, continuing to produce a wide variety of programmes and series until he became Director of Programmes for ABC Television in 1965. He joined the Board of Thames Television on the company’s foundation in 1968.

Recently a leading television critic wrote an article which set out, more fully than before, one of the many current proposals for the re-organisation of British broadcasting. (So many, now, that the question of why such drastic change should be necessary is hardly ever asked.) This particular proposal suggested amalgamating ITV and BBC into a vast State-run broadcasting monopoly with four channels, separate from each other but centrally controlled. I happen to believe that this idea is neither practical nor in the public interest. But what amazed and, frankly, angered me and many of my colleagues was the author’s offhand assumption that ITV’s role in such a partnership was simply ‘to be entertaining and popular’ and to be ‘freed from the obligation to produce programmes against their commercial instincts’.

I can speak only as the Programme Director of one ITV company, Thames Television, which produces about a quarter of ITV’s programmes. But we do not see Thames as a provider of circuses to accompany the BBC’s bread.

In recent weeks our Programme Controllers have been writing about their work in a series of advertisements, of which this is the last. Anyone who has read their varied contributions must surely have recognised three things. First, that here is a group of professional programme makers who are deeply concerned about the service they give to the public. Secondly that, far from being obliged by ‘commercial instincts’ to produce programmes they would not otherwise make, they plan their output on merit alone. And, thirdly, that the range of that output is so wide as to deny in itself that to be ‘entertaining and popular’ is the dominant aim of an ITV company.

Six programme controllers wrote about their work for Thames and of those only Philip Jones – whose Light Entertainment Department is undoubtedly the most successful in Britain – can be said to have dealt largely with popular entertainment. Lloyd Shirley told how his Drama Department has among its forthcoming productions a £1 million series of television films, a cycle of Restoration drama, a life of Napoleon and a de Quincey serialisation. Jeremy Isaacs’ Features Department, producers of This Week, Today, Good Afternoon and Something To Say, are now making ITV’s biggest-ever documentary series, on The Second World War. The Children’s Department under Lewis Rudd, who already produce the leading children’s magazine programme Magpie, are developing a new education and entertainment programme for under-fives.

Guthrie Moir’s team, apart from making award-winning schools programmes, are working on a 13-part series on National Trust houses to follow their British Museum programmes. And Grahame Turner’s Outside Broadcast Department, who could so easily remain recorders of sport, are planning how to bring more of London’s arts and events to Londoners, now that afternoon broadcasting is with us.

Those are only a few of the programmes they mentioned. But implicit in everything they wrote, and indeed in the existence within Thames of six such varied departments of equal importance, is one simple fact: that ITV in general and Thames in particular are achieving the difficult reconciliation between single-channel commercial operation and public service broadcasting.

No-one should doubt that it is difficult. Our challenge is to obtain, with no licence fee or government support, sufficient financial stability to invest in studios and equipment, capitalise new productions, and give security of employment – all without compromising programme quality. We have to do it with only one channel, so we can never give our viewers a simultaneous choice between the product of one programme department and another. We have to share our transmission hours with the other ITV companies, so that less than half the hours are filled by our own productions. And in any case, we have only 4½ days a week in which to broadcast. So the programmes are there, but not always the airtime to transmit them.

My job as Director of Programmes, therefore, is to carry out in those limited hours the policy laid down with my colleagues on the Board: to produce and schedule programmes which range across information, education and entertainment as widely as possible. Our programme controllers have already written about these programmes and their variety. But a range of excellent programmes is not sufficient cause for satisfaction if it is weighted too heavily, as our critic would have it, towards popular entertainment. So I think it worth mentioning that even excluding schools programmes and children’s educational series, four out of every ten Thames productions are in the areas of information, education and current affairs. I might mention too that Thames was the only station to mark this month’s UN Conference on the Human Environment with a special week of programmes on pollution and conservation. They included our own productions and other films from around the world, and they were neither ‘popular’ nor ‘entertaining’. But we felt it important to show them.

By ‘we’ I mean the people behind Thames programmes: people who make This Week and Magpie and The Benny Hill Show and today and The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes and Callan and Sooty and Writer’s Workshop and Father, Dear Father and Treasures of the British Museum and Six Days of Justice and hundreds more programmes of distinctive quality and variety. It is those people who would all be consigned, in that nightmare of a State-controlled television service, to be producers of an endless and mindless flow of mass merry-making. But happily it is only a nightmare. Instead they will go on producing and directing programmes for Thames in an atmosphere where their varied talents and ideas can flourish. Not with enough transmission time, although a second channel would help give them that. Not with enough money, for no producer (and I include myself) was ever satisfied with his budget.

But with enough scope and resources and backing to make, in the words of one of our Controllers earlier in this series, ‘the programmes we want to make and which we think viewers will want to watch’. We hope and expect to be judged by those programmes, now and in the future.

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It’s 10 months since Thames Television came to London.

What difference has it made?

To the London ITV audience?

It’s grown. Grown, for Thames’ evening programmes, by an average of 200,000 homes. That’s more than 14% up on last year.

The facts: Thames transmits to the London ITV area from Monday to 7.00 pm on Friday. In Spring last year before Thames began, audiences between 6.30 and 10.30 on those days averaged 1,309,280 homes*. This year, Thames has boosted the average to 1,497,600 homes.

Outside those peak viewing hours, the average audience for the same period in 1968 was 818,300 homes. This year the average Thames audience was 873,600 homes: and increase of over 6%.

So after less than a year, and despite a difficult start, Thames is consistently attracting more viewers than the Spring 1968 average:

*Comparisons over eight weeks ending 3 May 1968/2 May 1969

To London ITV programmes?

They’ve changed. To help win these bigger audiences, Thames has introduced new programmes to London in all three major fields: drama, light entertainment and features.

The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten has been the most successful documentary series ever to appear on the screen. Three new light entertainment programmes – Max, Two in Clover and Father, Dear Father – have regularly appeared in the London Top Ten list of most popular shows. (Max, starring Max Bygraves, topped the list three times.) Of the dramatic series, Callan has been exceptionally successful; Frontier was described by a leading critic as “the most promising of all efforts by the new ITV companies”; and The Mind of Mr J.G. Reeder has already become one of London’s favourite programmes. Among the new plays produced by Thames to date have been the Premiere series of live “first nights” and the widely-praised productions of Noël Coward’s “Star Quality” and Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Uncle Silas”.

Report, the new one-hour current affairs series, has already had three programmes chosen for the National Film Archive. And Today, first ever local programme for the London ITV area, is watched in more than a million homes five nights a week.

To children?

They’re beginning to like us. Last year they mostly watched the BBC, but not any more. For example Magpie, Thames’ magazine programme for London children, quickly became so popular that it went national, twice weekly. After only ten months on the air it’s watched by more families than the BBC’s excellent Blue Peter.

Mothers like us too (ask them) because we make a really wide range of children’s entertainment, from Sooty and Once Upon a Time to Do Not Adjust Your Set and The Tingaree Affair. That’s why all Thames’ programmes for children are more popular than last year’s counterparts.

To viewers all over Britain?

There’s a new name for good television. Since Thames began, its productions have won more places in the National Top Twenty than any other company. These nationally popular Thames programmes have included This Week, Opportunity Knocks, Callan, Max, Life With Cooper, The Avengers, Mike and Bernie’s Show, Two in Clover, Armchair Theatre and many others. More than a quarter of Thames’ places in the list have been filled by entirely new programmes.

To the BBC?

It comes second. From Monday to 7.00 on Friday, London viewers can choose between Thames, BBC1 and BBC2. The programmes they like best come from Thames. Each week we make a private check on the ten most popular programmes in London during our transmission time. The latest figures, for eight weeks ended 2 May, show that Thames had 78% of London’s ten weekday favourites against the BBC’s 22%.

We don’t usually publish our weekday top ten. But that’s how it looks.

To advertisers?

They’re getting more for their money. In terms of cost per thousand homes viewing, the latest available figures for eight weeks ending 2 May show that Thames’ peaktime rate gave an average cost of 19/1d [rounds to just under 95½p in decimal, £15.75 in 2018 allowing for inflation] per thousand homes – compared to 21/10d [rounds to about £1.09, £18 in 2018 allowing for inflation] in peaktime for the same period last year. The difference: 12½% cheaper on Thames.

(Because Thames’ peaktime rate covers an hour more than last year’s, the chart shows how the Thames cost compares with 1968’s 7.00 to 10.00 and 6.30 to 10.30. Thames is cheaper either way.)

To London’s skyline?

It’s altering. Thames’ new headquarter and colour studios are nearing completion close to the Post Office tower at Euston, ready for the start of colour broadcasting in November. From this new central complex, and from the riverside studios at Teddington, Thames will continue to produce outstanding programmes for London, for Britain and for the world.

That’s the promise we made ten months ago, and it’s one thing we haven’t changed.

THAMES

Television House, Kingsway, London WC2.

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