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.

The post The new look appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

When the new franchises were advertised at the end of 1966 the general assessment was that the new company, Yorkshire, was being introduced to dilute the power and profitability of the four major companies, and perhaps to make life more difficult for them; thereafter, change for the sake of change would bring in two or perhaps three new regional contractors.

The real problem facing us at ABC Television was how to find a new area to replace our ‘lost week-end’ as Peter Black of the Daily Mail called it. The company’s reputation stood high with the Authority, but it would now be homeless. London was our objective. Like the other companies, we thought that the Authority would be content with simply weakening Rediffusion by lopping off the Friday evening. We at ABC therefore decided to apply for the London two-and-a-half day week-end contract, and, as second choice, the seven-day Midlands contract. The boards of directors of all the companies had studied their potential revenue and costs figures before reaching decisions. There was little difficulty in convincing our own Board that although the extra evening’s programme in London would be costly, the resulting revenue for the week-end would provide a profit at least equalling ABC’s current £3,000,000 [£55,000,000 today, allowing for inflation] and perhaps more if we worked hard enough at it.

The Authority had been doing its own arithmetic. It was on the assessments of their canny Director of Finance, Tony Curbishley, that the Authority had divided the five contracts as evenly and as fairly as they could. Curbishley, who had access to all the details of every company’s finances, had worked out the potential revenue of each area, deducted the running costs, and he calculated that the net profit on each of the four major companies would be £3,000,000, with smaller Yorkshire below this level. It was Curbishley who had been responsible for re-dividing London’s revenue and he calculated that the total income would be evenly split if the London week-end contract began at 6 p.m. or 7 p.m. on Fridays. According to his figures both of the London companies should show a profit of £3,000,000. This confirmed the figures we had worked out and presented to our own Board. The fact that London Weekend failed to achieve such profits in the early years reflected their early difficulties and miscalculations.

And perhaps now was the opportunity for new blood to be infused? It soon began to leak out that certain BBC executives were being nominated by would-be new contractors and were, in fact, appearing at the Authority’s Brompton Road hearings alongside the new applicants. Then, ominously, Michael Peacock resigned from his job as Controller of BBC1 to join Aidan Crawley’s London Weekend Television consortium. Whilst other BBC executives were known to have allowed their names to go forward, to be revealed only to the Authority, we decided that some sort of assurance must have been given to Peacock before he would venture from security into the unknown. It was discovered that he had been nominated as Managing Director of the proposed company, and other BBC names began to emerge: Humphrey Burton (music and opera), Doreen Stephens (head of BBC children’s programmes), Frank Muir (supervisor of comedy shows) and also John Freeman and David Frost. Such expertise and renown would be almost irresistible to Lord Hill.

By this time there was confusion and suspicion in the ITV boardrooms and on the third floor at the BBC. For everyone concerned, the final pronouncement by Lord Hill could not come too soon. The Authority reached its final decisions on the new contractors at their meeting towards the end of May and it was decided that the Chairman would make the announcement two days later, on a Sunday, to avoid Stock Exchange reactions.

On the fateful Sunday morning the Chairmen of the three London contenders returned with their cohorts to Brompton Road for their final interviews with Lord Hill and Sir Robert Fraser. Thus it was that London Weekend was awarded the programme contract it had sought, while John Spencer Wills, Chairman of Rediffusion Television, was told by Lord Hill of the Authority’s decision – which was to merge Rediffusion with ABC Television and to award the London weekday contract to the new joint company. There would be an equal sharing of profits but fifty-one per cent of the voting shares and the control of the new company would go to ABC, who would provide the managing director and the controller of programmes. Lord Hill described John Spencer Wills’ reaction as ‘deeply shocked, if not flabbergasted, but courteous throughout’.

Next it was ABC Television’s turn and I went with my Chairman, Sir Philip Warter and the deputy-chairman Robert Clark. We were given the same formula, with the addition that Lord Hill and Sir Robert Fraser congratulated me on my appointment as Managing Director of the new London company. It was only on the day after the meeting with Lord Hill and Bob Fraser that I began to realise fully the enormity of the task upon which I had been so suddenly embarked. My first thought was for the staff; nearly three thousand men and women employed by both companies were now reading in their newspapers that something had happened to their jobs. To operate the new company (and what should we call it?) for four-and-a-half days in London would need fewer staff than Rediffusion employed and more than had worked for ABC. There would be jobs for little more than half of the total payroll of the merged companies. Lord Hill had already tried to quell rising apprehension among the ITV workers by a promise that there would be a job for everyone – somewhere.

It was important too to retain the most valuable programme executives and I had to make rapid decisions as to who should be in control of the six programme departments, bearing in mind the equal division between the two original companies and the knowledge that some people had committed themselves already to new contractors.

The post Shotgun marriage appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

This brought incessant problems of morale and money. The ABC staff, trained in Manchester, were facing upheaval from their comfortable homes to start afresh in a ‘foreign’ city. Studio staffs had their loyalties split down the middle and were uncertain whether they would be working for LWT or for the new and unnamed company arising from the demise of ABC and Rediffusion.

ABC paid out half a million [£9 million now allowing for inflation] in redundancy settlements, and Rediffusion almost twice as much. There was also the question of pensions, and transfer of rights. Since Rediffusion’s pension funds had been invested with typical business acumen there were handsome benefits for those whose careers had developed with the growth of their company. Somehow we managed to keep ABC Television going and by the end of our last financial year (March 1968) we had a turnover of £11,753,000 [£203,000,000] and showed a trading profit of £2,159,000 [£37,350,000]. The parent Corporation could have no complaint about the return on its original investment.

When we came to giving the company its name I was resolutely opposed to any more initials. I had always envied the solidity and sturdiness of a single word like Granada or Rediffusion. I believe in descriptive titles for companies and products and I would have liked to include the magic word ‘London’ but already this belonged to London Weekend Television. (I had no regrets when they began to use the initials LWT for in the process they lost some of the impact of the word ‘London’.)

As well, I wanted a name that would lend itself to a graphic symbol. My first thought was Tower Television, combining the symbols of the old and the new, Tower Bridge and the General Post Office tower. In the end we settled for the name of Thames, influenced partly because our Teddington studios were alongside the river, near the ancient lock. It was also a name of international recognisability and our future expansion lay in world-wide sales. Above all, Thames was a romantic name, for many have come to London as I did, to stand on the bridges and gaze on the breath-taking skylines. My own favourite skyline was the rooftops of Whitehall, as seen from the bridge over the lake in Green Park, and it was this that led to the London skyline which became the symbol of Thames Television. We did take artistic liberties with our spires and somehow the Post Office tower popped up from behind St Paul’s Cathedral. The London Evening News calmly ‘lifted’ the skyline idea, turned it into a silhouette and used the result as their own symbol. We could hardly object, because London belongs to all of us who live and work there.

The signature music came to me when I saw a gypsy woman selling lavender in a Chelsea street. She was singing ‘Who’ll buy my sweet lavender?’ The street cries of London were the very first singing ‘commercials’. When the day came to launch Thames officially with a rather pompous opening ceremony at Mansion House, Lord Mayor and all, a pretty girl strolled into the gold-plated hall with a trayful of sprigs of lavender, singing ‘our song’. She happened to be a soprano from Sadler’s Wells, but the simple melody was a refreshing change from the customary fanfares. Some fortunate composer was commissioned to ‘orchestrate’ the tune, almost to the point of unrecognisability I regret to say, and it probably provided him with a pension for life.

But it was not all harmony in Television House when we began to move in to the former Rediffusion headquarters. I took a corner office in the building, from where I sighted Ivor Novello’s former roof-top flat, and Thames’ occupation began whilst the remaining staff of Rediffusion were still struggling loyally to complete the advertised programme schedule. Brian Tesler was already planning our new ‘mix’ for London weekdays. We decided on which ABC series to retain, and which of Rediffusion’s. Beyond that we planned new series like Frontier, a vigorous North West India episodic tale of war and love. For economy reasons this had to be filmed in the mountains of North Wales, which surprisingly were not all that different from the authentic Himalayas.

Rediffusion’s venerable current affairs programme This Week, was an inevitable choice, but we decided to drop the two quiz programmes which had overstayed their welcome and possibly had handicapped Rediffusion in their application, Take Your Pick and Double Your Money. We also decided to discontinue ATV’s Crossroads because of the poor quality of scripts and acting compared with Coronation Street. This turned out to be a mistake and the series had to be brought back by sheer public insistence. For this reason Crossroads episodes transmitted in the London area always languished six months behind the Birmingham sequences. Only years later were the episodes synchronised, with Noelle Gordon interpreting to the London audience in a special ‘what-happened-then’ edition the missing strands of the endless saga.

The post Who will buy my sweet lavender? appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

Lord Mountbatten was born in the first year of the century and had taken part in the pageant of history, with a seat in the Royal Box. Always attracted by the visual arts and a pioneer in the use of the motion picture for the training and entertainment of the Royal Navy, he had turned down all the offers to publish his written autobiography. It was typical of Mountbatten to choose the most up-to-date of all media, television, as his means of personal communication. His agreement with Rediffusion was that he would make himself available, together with his rare collection of diaries, letters, photographs, films and memories, to record his life on camera. In return he would possess the overseas rights of the resulting programmes, for the benefit of his Broadlands estate. Rediffusion assigned to him their distinguished documentary producer, Peter Morley, and for three years these two men worked together, with increasing understanding. Lord Mountbatten has admitted the early attempts to interview him on film were disappointing, but inexorably he mastered the technique and became an accomplished professional broadcaster.

I believe the original concept was a series of twenty-six half-hour programmes, although no networking arrangement with the other companies had been negotiated. During lengthy screening sessions Brian Tesler and I reviewed the results with Peter Morley; in ‘rough cut’ we looked at hours of library material, mostly in black and white, with new material filmed in colour of Lord Mountbatten returning to his scenes of glory.

Our decision was to make this the show piece for Thames. We took the bold course and decided to make twelve one-hour episodes, transmitted at the peak time of nine o’clock, though we had no illusion that any of the other stations would be likely to follow our example.

All this we explained to Lord Mountbatten and his film producer son-in-law Lord Brabourne, a joint ally valuable to both of us. I remember how Lord Mountbatten came down to our riverside Teddington studios to get to know us better. After luncheon aboard our ‘retired’ boat, the m.v. Iris, a survivor of Dunkirk, we went on a tour of the premises. On the nearby car park the Drama Department were recording a section of Frontier, where a firing squad in British Army uniforms was lined up to execute an Indian spy. As we were walking towards them the production halted and out of habit Lord Mountbatten ‘inspected’ the shooting squad. They must have looked a motley lot, actors in uniforms hired from Berman’s. There was only one real soldier around, a regimental sergeant major seconded from Aldershot to act as military adviser and obviously enjoying a few leisurely days at Teddington supervising an Equity squad and drilling them for the sequence. His embarrassment can be imagined when the raggle-taggle of actors suddenly found themselves being inspected by the Supremo himself! The RSM’s face was red as Lord Mountbatten gave him a curt nod. Inside, a prison play was in production. Lord Mountbatten was impressed with the dress rehearsal of a scene where the prisoner was taken from the condemned cell to face the Governor in his office. The reproduction was accurate, as Lord Mountbatten knew from his recent survey of prisons and subsequent report to the Government on the subject. He smilingly congratulated me afterwards on the excellent organisation of having troops on parade and a prison play laid on for him!

This was a pleasant interlude away from the attrition which had broken out in the ITCA headquarters where the new “Big Five’ were now meeting to plan the first season’s programmes of the new phase of ITV. Interesting new characters had arrived upon the familiar scene, as the principals turned up with their adherents. The infiltration of the new had begun.

One familiar face was missing. Rediffusion’s former protagonist, John McMillan, had been submerged in the blending of ABC and Rediffusion. Cecil Bernstein, Lew Grade and I had agreed that John McMillan’s knowledge and experience should not disappear from ITV, and we lost no time in creating for him a new job in the industry, as Director of Sport. Such an appointment was not welcomed by the incoming London Weekend Television who were now to be responsible for Saturday sport and wanted to take over ABC’s World of Sport.

At the programme planning meetings the old guard was much in evidence; Cecil Bernstein, with another Granada pioneer, Denis Forman; Lew Grade, with his latest number two, Robin Gill, a pressurising young man with ambitions to succeed even Lew Grade himself; Brian Tesler and I, who had now moved up the ladder from the week-ends and provinces to London. The new companies were represented by Yorkshire’s Ward Thomas and Donald Baverstock, and London Weekend’s buoyant team of Michael Peacock and Tom Margerison, both eager to teach new tricks to old masters.

The situation was clearly defined. In the assessment of the Authority, four companies had equal strength and opportunity, with practically the same potential advertisement revenue and the same potential profit, £3,000,000. Yorkshire came fifth in size and revenue, but with their fair share of networked programming guaranteed by the Authority.

Lew Grade had been swayed by Robin Gill’s financial calculations to concentrate on the Midlands contract, but now he was without his foothold in London and was one more regional contractor. As a former tenant of the London Weekend preserve he was also smarting under the deprecatory comments Michael Peacock continued to make to the press about ATV’s shortcomings, and his promises of more uplifting programmes at week-ends. Surrounded by his shining knights from the BBC, he believed implicitly in what London Weekend’s colourful application for the franchise had set forth. Now he was determined to prove his words and to revitalise the week-end’s television.

Granada had been little disturbed by the changes, except that they now faced the problem of contributing from Lancashire their quota of Saturday and Sunday programmes on a reduced income. Yorkshire had its own task of starting off with new staff and without any programmes in reserve. They would have to originate fewer programmes than the other four, but correspondingly they had to network more than anyone else and therefore their ratings depended upon whatever new programmes were available for them. The programme output of Granada, ATV and Thames was predictable, but after the shouting had died down would LWT be capable of supplying an effective Saturday-Sunday output?

Even when the interchange of programmes was agreed payments would still have to be arranged between the five companies; a new system had to be devised. An immediate issue was that if LWT were to be given absolute control of Saturday afternoon sport why was the budget for World of Sport so suddenly inflated? What percentage of Midland, Lancashire and Yorkshire sports contributions would be included in the reconstructed programme?

Peacock and Tom Margerison faced up to this with apparent equanimity but when they returned to their office in Burlington Street there must have been some puzzled consultations with their colleagues. BBC-trained executives were used to competing in a gentlemanly way for allocations of the overall budget and once the figures were settled they simply ordered programmes from the appropriate departments. They had merely to ask for fifty hours of drama, sixty hours from Light Entertainment, and so on, then await the detailed proposals. ITV programme controllers had to go back to their studios and then make their own programmes. At LWT there was little understanding of the intricacies of ITV programme finance and the proper division of costs. Nor was the scheduling, planned with the other four major companies, the final stage; there still remained the ten regional companies to be convinced of the workability of the schedules.

The final judgement, though, would come from the public, and there was a wide difference between the time-honoured BBC policy of giving the public what was good for them, and the ITV attitude of trying to offer the public what they would like to view. If the public did not respond to whatever was new and revolutionary in the LWT week-end schedule then the advertisers, an ultra-conservative group, would probably sit back and wait until the required audience was assembled, just as they had done in the early and desperate days of ITV.

It was in this uneasy and uncertain mood that ITV was relaunched in its new career in August 1967. Many tried and favourite programmes had been thrown out of the new schedule. Unknown and unresearched programmes were being tendered by three new companies; a percentage of failure was inevitable. Unfortunately, too, a new method of audience research was being introduced. TAM Rating (Television Audience Measurement) was another of the casualties of the era of change, to be replaced by Audits of Great Britain’s new system (“son of Tam’ some called it). The new means of audience appraisal had the backing of the Joint Industry Committee for Television Advertising Research (JICTAR) and therefore was financed collectively by advertisers, agencies and the programme companies. It was an improved system but two years would go by before its new standards of measurement would be understood and accepted.

Meanwhile, according to the first JICTAR figures the audience for ITV had shrunk alarmingly, almost overnight.

The post Mountbatten’s ratings appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

Then came the technicians’ strike. Disenchanted staff, suddenly transplanted from one county to another, or even from one part of London to another, were demanding compensation, displacement money, new agreements, new safeguards, new conditions. Men doing exactly the same jobs in the same studios were claiming redundancy payments. Men transported from Manchester to Leeds wanted money for new houses, legal fees, removal costs, and ‘displacement’ compensation. Who, after all, wanted to give up Manchester United for Leeds United?

ITV was crippled and the BBC scooped up the audience, as certified by JICTAR, basely backfiring on its new supporters. Advertisers switched away from the uncertainties of television and returned to the comparative reliability of the press. As if this was not enough for the programme contractors the Government decided to increase the levy on television advertising. Like everyone else, ministers and their civil servants had read The Times, Financial Times and Daily Telegraph, gloating on the financial bonuses Lord Hill was supposed to have handed out with bouquets to consortia, companies and a few Midas-minded individuals. In view of these predictions the Treasury moved in. Meanwhile, those of us who had laboured in these vineyards for twelve years without any capital gains at all glowered with some envy at the newcomers who were to amass fortunes simply by entering the industry.

In July 1969, within a year of the inauguration of the new chapter of ITV, the government levy on television advertising revenue was increased by the Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, Roy Jenkins, scalping another £3,000,000 [£52 million now allowing for inflation] out of the revenue.

Once again Independent Television was in a struggle for survival. In its first year Thames could show a profit of only £759,000 [£13 million], a poor return on its £7,000,000 [£121 million] capital employed on a six-year contract. Yet the warriors who had been through such experiences before were accustomed to the switchback career of the industry and when they were plunging down to the Big Dipper’s depths they knew how to hold on to their seats. To Granada and ATV it had become a way of life, and Thames had sprung from sturdy stock. Yorkshire, too, was no newcomer, for the staff had been recruited mostly from ABC and Rediffusion, and the Managing Director, Ward Thomas, had reared a small company, Grampian Television. His task at Leeds had not been easy because although Yorkshire’s brand new studios had managed to open on time their transmitting mast on the wilds of Emley Moor had been blown down in a gale, causing a £250,000 [£4½ million] loss of revenue.

It was now that London Weekend Television found themselves in a game where professionalism was all; not only in the art of television but professionalism in the business of television. They were in a do-it-yourself industry, where you not only had to conceive programmes, but you also had to produce them yourself, sometimes having to argue with staff and technicians about the conditions of making the programmes. It was an industry, too, where your future depended upon the customers’ support and without the viewer-customers you would not attract the advertisers, and without advertisers you would have no income.

A television programme company is an exceptional animal. It has to be a dynamic (but not explosive) band of artists, engineers and salesmen sharing a single aim: to produce a public service of imaginative quality. The advertising salesman must be sympathetic to the creative man’s ambitions; and the engineer to his foibles. The creative man has to meet the engineers half-way and he must have also sufficient business acumen to appreciate that without ammunition from him the salesman will not be able to raise the money for his own livelihood and, sometimes, his indulgences.

London Weekend Television was like an international football side of brilliant individuals but untrained as a team. When their confidential application was finally published in a pamphlet, The Open Secret, the prospectus was revealed to be a scintillating piece of authorship but lacking in practicability. LWT’s programmes and planning did not appeal enough to the public, the advertisers, or the other companies. As the week-end ratings subsided Granada, ATV and Yorkshire were unwilling to let their most effective programmes be slotted into the week-end schedules, and struggled to keep them within the security of the successful weekday schedule. There were also unfortunate press statements ones like Michael Peacock’s: ‘The trouble is that ITV believes that people stop thinking at weekends,’ and the epitaph spoken by the programme controller Cyril Bennett in a moment of truth when introducing LWT’s 1969/1970 plans: ‘The first duty of a commercial station is to survive’.

Michael Peacock took on a mammoth job; with loyal and better support he might have survived. He had to start from scratch, in studios which were less than up-to-date and with studio star disgruntled at the loss of employers who had kept them happy. There was no real and united production team at the top, only a collection of talented individualists who did not have the experience or the patience to weather the inevitably frustrating early years. There were sensational resignations and at last Michael Peacock was fired by his board two years after winning the contract. Several of his supporters who had been signatories to the original application resigned in sympathy with him.

After two years of headlines and front-page publicity, from the euphoria of the successful application and the promises of irresistible week-end programmes, to uninhibited full-page advertisements boosting its own talent, LWT appointed its new chairman and Chief Executive, John Freeman, and finally settled down into the new pattern of ITV.

With the limelight focussed on its competitor, Thames Television went quietly and unspectacularly about its job of welding together the choice ingredients of two companies with much solid achievement behind them. Out of the disappointments and disarray, a group with rare experience and proven ability was taking shape within Thames, which was to remain almost unchanged for six years. One of my earliest moves was to take thirty programme people, the most creative in the new departments, away to Brighton for a couple of days, to get to know each other and to exchange ideas, and to air publicly the more constructive critical comments overheard in the local pubs and in our Thames club.

The post All fall down appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

It is hard to assess what mergers do to people. After the machinations of boards of directors, merchant bankers, lawyers, financial wizards; after the battle has been lost and won, there remain the staff, the workers, the executives, and all their families, who have suffered so much worry, apprehension and, sometimes, sorrow. EMI could not have been more thoughtful and helpful in their care of the thousands of men and women who had worked so loyally for the old firm. Yet, as in any other merger, the middle-aged executives suffered most. The very qualities of devotion to a company and its bosses, often at the expense of rejecting other job offers, becomes a handicap when new, younger executives cast a cold eye upon the comfortably established men in their forties and fifties who have, perhaps, begun to take things a little too easily.

A merger certainly hurts. This one was too much for the ascetic Sir Philip Warter. Besides the feeling of inadequacy in that he had allowed his father-in-law’s business to succumb, he had the additional agony of losing his only daughter Shirley after a painful illness. When the merger became inevitable Sir Philip refused to remain on the Board and chose to retire to the West Country. He did not live for very long.

Even the sturdy, resolute Scotsman, Robert Clark, was disconsolate after the take-over, and probably felt secretly that his old master, John Maxwell, would somehow have saved the situation and held on to control. A tremendous worker, dedicated to his company in spite of disheartening experiences, Robert Clark took a year or two to recover and then began to enjoy the pleasures of getting closer to his family. Some day a sympathetic writer will have to analyse the effect of mergers – and there are hundreds of them – and the impact they have upon the people concerned.

At Thames Television our immediate assignment was to find a new and ‘independent’ Chairman.

On the EMI Board were several distinguished non-executive sectors and it seemed to us that the quest could begin there. One possibility was Lord Shawcross, a controversial and undoubtedly independent figure. When the Authority asked my opinion I said I considered he would make a prestigious Chairman of Thames. Thereupon Sir Robert Fraser said that I had better go around to Lord Shawcross and invite him to become Chairman of our Board of Directors. I had never met Lord Shawcross until I faced him across the desk of his small office in the Morgan Guaranty Trust in Lombard Street. Stern, lined, handsome, he sat like a judge before me and when he asked, unsmilingly, why I thought he should become Chairman of Thames Television, I decided to tell him the disadvantages. As a director of a commercial television company he would not be allowed to appear on ITV; for the same reason the BBC would be unlikely to ask him to appear on their television programmes; as a constant contributor to The Times letter page he would be seen to be writing more as a chairman of a television company than as a vigorous independent.

Lord Shawcross accepted the invitation, additional to his other directorships, and we began a five-year association from which I was to learn a great deal. Not an easy man to get to know, his personal swing from left to right had made him extremely critical of the political element which he was convinced would disrupt Britain. Lord Shawcross was also on very friendly terms with another cross-bencher, Aidan Crawley, Chairman of our rival, LWT, and the two Chairmen often found themselves in the same club comparing the very different performances of the two companies. At first they tried to find ways of working harmoniously together, but as London Weekend’s audiences and revenue slumped there began talks of a possible working collaboration. As the LWT situation deteriorated discussions between the companies ended, for there was doubt whether the week-end company could survive its internal and external troubles. There was indeed a point where I began to prepare for an emergency situation and plan a weekend programme service if requested by the Authority.

By this time Sir Robert Fraser had retired and Brian Young been appointed Director-General. 1970 was a difficult year to enter Independent Television and Brian Young, coming from the directorship of the Nuffield Foundation and the Headmastership of Charterhouse, soon found at the SCC meetings that he had inherited an awkward squad of prefects. He supported the principle of limited collaboration between the two London companies but he was opposed to any kind of merger or take-over. With Lord Aylestone he battled on through the firings and mass resignations of London Weekend executives, resisted the onslaught of Rupert Murdoch in his bid to popularise week-end programmes in the Australian pattern, and was relieved to support the appointment of John Freeman to stabilise the company.

Brian Young’s first experience of this turbulent industry was not confined to company survival. A Director-General has the final voice on whether or not a controversial programme should be transmitted. When his staff found themselves unable to reach agreement on, for example, the script of a play, the last stage would be a confrontation between the Director-General and the Managing Director of the company concerned. Outstanding playwrights were in short supply and Thames had been delighted to commission a play from an actor who had become increasingly successful as a dramatist, Colin Welland.

Say Goodnight to Your Grandma, was a modern North Country play about an independent young wife determined to hold on to her weak husband against a possessive mother and the pals of his bachelor days. When one of the friends, Ray, had banteringly propositioned her, Jean had flabbergasted him by suggesting they should adjourn to his car outside. As Ray retreated in embarrassment the husband asked Jean whether his friend had said anything to upset her. She replied: ‘No! Just asked if he could screw me!’ The writer and director argued that such a dramatic line was only a modern successor to Bernard Shaw’s ‘not bloody likely’ for Eliza Doolittle. The author wanted to use a more Anglo-Saxon four-letter word than the American ‘screw’ and the producer informed us that the two different versions had been recorded.

I believe it was the first such decision Brian Young had to take, and he wisely sought further opinions from the Authority. There was no question about the dramatic value of the line but the final decision on the actual verb to be used rested with the Authority. Brian Young telephoned me to say that if we used the word ‘screw’ there would be no objection and the play could go on at normal time, 9 p.m. On the other hand, if the company felt very strongly that the four-letter word was essential to the play then it could be used, but at a later hour; that was, at 10.30 p.m. following the ITN news. I settled for the normal time and the word less likely to offend viewers. The play eventually reached the West End stage unexpurgated and had a profitable run.

The post Exits and entrances appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

BBC-1 and the big 4 ITV regions (London, Midlands, North West, Yorkshire) were due to go into colour with a big bang at the stroke of midnight on Saturday 15 November 1969. Of course, in London there were two ITV companies – Thames Television and London Weekend Television. Saturday fell under the management of London Weekend, so they went colour on schedule while Thames had to wait until Monday afternoon to open up properly in colour for the first time.

This led to a slight promotional problem for Thames. While the big campaign for the switch to colour was on-going, advertising the new colour service on its start date was advertising LWT, and the two companies did not get along for many reasons. So Thames let the national campaigns for the switch run, but mounted its own small campaign to remind people that Thames would also be in colour… but from Monday 17 November.

One promotional device was this sticker – in reality, about the size of a postage stamp – issued on sheets to staff for them to put on letterheads and envelopes. This also saved Thames the money of printing special stationery that would soon look out of date.

The post Thames goes colour appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

When ITV first began in 1955, Associated-Rediffusion and ATV London had good relations. Partially this was of necessity: the two shared A-R’s London facilities, and when bankruptcy beckoned in early 1956, AR had effectively bankrolled ATV to keep it on air. The last thing A-R needed was to expand its loss-making 5 day operation into a loss-making 7 day operation, after all.

Once ATV opened in Birmingham, AR was looking forward to another company pulling its weight and taking some of the burden of the weekday production requirements.

Alas, ATV chose to save its best output for London weekends; anything of value that could be recorded in Birmingham to show in London found its way on to ATV London.

ABC and ATV fought like cat and dog from the start – on launch day, ABC was to be found in the High Court arguing that the new London weekend contractor was passing off the initials ‘ABC’ by calling itself Associated Broadcasting Company. ATV had changed its name and on-air identity by its third week.

ABC and ATV went into partnership on studios in Birmingham out of necessity in the early, loss-making days. Howard Thomas describes in his autobiography how this was a necessary short-term solution that caused him unending problems as ATV in turn denied him access to London and challenged the costings of the few programmes they did allow through.

ABC and Granada had a better relationship, if only because the two of them resolutely ignored each other as much as they could. Granada was eventually told by the ITA that their closedowns on a Friday night, which implied that there was no television at all until Monday, would have to not only mention that ITV continued when Granada was off, but also name-check the weekend service.

Nevertheless, Granada in all its publicity continued to suggest that the north of England was served by Granada and Granada alone.

These petty differences were swept away when the new pattern of broadcasting was announced in 1967. From now on, the previously regional model of 7-day companies would apply everywhere.

Except London.

The London weekday company was already the dominant company in ITV – although this was partially because ATV was distracted by its split region and Granada had an almost-illegally close relationship with AR and continued to be pals with Rediffusion London.

However, the fact remained that a 7-day London company would very quickly overwhelm the entire network. It would be richer, have better access to stars and would start to draw money and talent from out of the regions – an anathema to the ITA in pre-devolution days, but not something that worries regulators now.

So the split was retained. But the ITA wanted the new “Big 5” to have roughly equal shares of the revenue of ITV (roughly because YTV was a minnow compared to the other 4, whilst ATV had rich diversifications like ITC that somewhat muddied the waters) and also planned to end the practice of one company having two contract areas (ABC and ATV).

The split therefore needed to move to create a more useful equity between weekdays and weekends in London. The most useful split would have been a straight Monday-Thursday/Friday-Sunday division.

However, the ITV system had commitments during the day on Fridays. Schools programming couldn’t just stop or change style or control on a Friday – although control of output could go elsewhere (it went to ATV in Birmingham).

Sports programming like racing and cricket was a staple of daytime ITV, being exempt from the broadcasting hours restrictions that kept television to a largely evenings-only experience until the early 1970s.

But a major London event, like test cricket or Wimbledon couldn’t efficiently be split between two providers without a lot of waste, duplication and confusion.

Worse, most major news stories in those days occurred on weekdays during the day – politicians and terrorists alike hadn’t learnt to time events to catch the BBC news at 8.55 or the ITN News at Ten.

With the ITA planning a specifically different service on weekdays to that seen on weekends, it didn’t want the weekend provider suddenly having to cover a major story of the style of Churchill’s funeral. Likewise, it didn’t want the entire responsibility to fall on to the shoulders of ITN, who would have had to run to the ITA to ask them to make ITV pay for the increased responsibility.

Therefore the split would need to be after these things were unlikely to happen, but before the meat of the evening was underway – sometime on Friday evening.

The time of the split appears not to have been fixed by the time of the contract interviews. Certainly the new London Television Consortium (later London Weekend and later still LWT) was already lobbying for all of Friday for its weekend service well before it went on air.

Thames also wanted as much of peak time as could be garnered.

The time to split was set at 7pm by the ITA, though they agreed to keep this under consideration as both contractors wanted to push it an hour or more either way.

Therefore Thames and LWT were thrust into closer contact than any two companies had ever been before. The split between the two was noticeable not only for its picture roll at 7pm but also for the failure of either announcer to acknowledge the other’s existence – although Thames would provide the epilogue on LWT at first, and in the 1980s would even provide LWT with a service called “Thames Weekend News”.

Needless to say, the two companies started to bicker almost immediately.

LWT’s management was largely ex-BBC. They had no idea how ITV worked, but knew that it didn’t and were happy to tell their opposite numbers of that fact to their faces. Thames management was ABC, and they took pleasure in telling the LWT shower that they would crash and burn.

After the launch-week strikes and subsequent shut down, Thames’s ex-ABC sales force went out on the rampage to rebuild the lost business.

LWT’s ex-Rediffusion sales force arranged to have lunch with a contact here and a friend there.

Thames organised discounts, special offers and freebies.

LWT took people to dinner and gave them free tickets to studio audience shows.

Thames sales staff knocked on doors, rang around, called in favours, got friends and families to recruit small advertisers.

LWT sales staff sat and waited for the phone to ring like gentlemen should do.

Thames, worried over the potential financial ruin from the botched launch period, poured money it didn’t have into popular programmes and local interest features.

LWT produced the highbrow arts features, reviews and David Frost talk shows they had promised the ITA. And put them out in peak time. And wondered why the other regions didn’t take them.

Thames aggressively sold its programmes to the network and abroad.

LWT offered its programmes to the network and expressed wry amusement when there were no takers. How foolish these old-fashioned ITV people were! The programmes wouldn’t sell abroad, either – after all, they wouldn’t sell in the UK.

The end result of this was obvious to everyone except those at LWT.

LWT crashed and burned.

The ex-BBC executives were amazed when it was pointed out to them that their programmes had to attract viewers to attract advertisers to attract money. If that circle never started, the company would simply go bust.

The executives had all been crying out for serious arts and documentary programmes on a weekend that neither BBC-1 nor ATV London were supplying. They thought that providing expensive arts programmes to the masses in place of Sunday Night at the London Palladium would be providing the masses with just what they needed.

It’s likely true that the masses needed that. But foisting it upon them wouldn’t work on the BBC (which is why they left) so it was even less likely to work on ITV on the weekends. If nothing else, the masses still had popular programming on BBC-1 at weekends – that didn’t end when the executives left (quite the reverse – Sir Hugh Carleton Greene’s reforms of the BBC were bearing fruit even as he was leaving; the BBC had never been so popular since the monopoly ended).

The ITA, powerless to stop LWT making a fool of itself but required by law to be ready to pick up the pieces, drew up two plans of action.

1. In the first instance, the day LWT went bankrupt, Thames would go 7 days. Howard Thomas reports that he was asked to draw up an emergency schedule for Thames weekends, undoubtedly to last the period until a new contract could be let – generally regarded to be about a year.
2. Second, that contract would be offered first and foremost to Rediffusion Television. They would be invited to takeover the remains of LWT (the studios, staff and programming at a peppercorn certainly; the actual bankrupt company itself if they were wiling to yet again throw money at ITV, despite their treatment last time).

When the second event came to pass, Rediffusion would give up its share of Thames at market rate. EMI would be a willing buyer; if not, there were others.

Rediffusion would be compensated by having the ITA’s favour, so far as that went. Most probably that meant rebates on rental and a favourable eye cast upon any programme plans.

Rediffusion Television, under John Spencer Wills, wasn’t fooled by this; nevertheless it was a tempting offer and one that BET was unlikely to refuse.

But BET was already noticing that its 49% of Thames was earning almost as much money as 100% of Rediffusion London. Given time to settle in and an end to the recession that had inevitably followed in on the heals of the new Tory government in 1970, 49% of Thames was likely to be worth far more than 100% of Rediffusion Weekend Television.

Rediffusion-BET were therefore cautious in their replies to the ITA’s back-channel private soundings.

In the end it didn’t matter – LWT recovered after a series of painful boardroom coups, relaunches and attempts to grasp the nature of Independent Television.

But a suspicion between LWT and Thames was now set in cement. Many LWT staff had been displaced from good jobs at Rediffusion by the coming of Thames. The sales force of Thames had helped doom the early ideals of LWT. The new management at LWT knew that Thames was always waiting to catch their contract should they fall.

There would be co-operation and contact between the two companies over the years, but never trust.

When contract renewals came up in 1973/4, 1980/2 and 1991/3, the two would back the bids of others either loudly or behind the scenes.

Eventually one of them would win by default. But that’s another story.

The post Weekend world 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.”

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