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

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

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

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

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

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

This was Thames Television.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not at all a bad thing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Daily Mail

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Listener

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

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

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

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

Evening Standard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elegance, style, wit and charm

Sunday Times

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

Daily Express

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

Morning Star

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

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

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

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

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

Playboy

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‘In the first “This Sporting Land” Wynford Vaughan Thomas gives a witty, learned and thoroughly enjoyable account of the history and current idiosyncrasies of cricket. It’s a gem of a programme and will beguile even the most fervent disliker of the game’

Sunday Times

‘The narration, by Wynford Vaughan Thomas, is a mixture of acid, irony, mockery and straight reportage. Each programme will certainly hold the attention. They are entertaining, informative and humorous!’

Times Educational Supplement

ON 12 SEPTEMBER THAMES LAUNCHED TWO MAJOR NEW DAILY PROGRAMMES,
THAMES AT 6 AND AFTER NOON

Former ITN newscaster Andrew Gardner introduced Thames at 6, a 6.00pm report on London and its day. The production was structured to bring more hard, regional news coverage, and more deeply probing investigations, to the traditional Today function. Within the first month these aims began to be realised, with interviews with Jim Slater and the Minister for Health, special investigations into the Luton murder and the drug Primados, and on the lighter side, Kenny Everett’s zany music reviews hinted at what is to come when Kenny;s own series starts on Thames during 1978.

‘The word has clearly gone out that no-one is going to be allowed to get away with anything. The brief bursts of questioning are ultra-tough. (The first week has) managed already by turns to illuminate, to irritate and to celebrate’

Times

After Noon was a recasting of its successful predecessor Good Afternoon, broadening the outlook from traditional women’s subjects’ to greater coverage of the arts, politics, education, medicine and social questions, alongside the personality interviews and magazine features.

In its first weeks, After Noon went on location with reports on the Tate Gallery’s ‘Save the Stubbs’ campaign (with an interview with Arts Minister Lord Donaldson), and on life in high rise blocks. Personality interviews included Mary Parkinson with Pierre Cardin, Judith Chalmers with James Herriot, Elaine Grand meeting Lord Shinwell, Mavis Nicholson holding the first-ever TV interview with current pop sensation Elvis Costello, followed shortly by Morecambe and Wise.

Straight into the national ratings in second place, John Alderton’s first situation comedy series for Thames, The Upchat Line, revolved around Mike Upchat, a freewheeling man about town. ‘We don’t know what he does for a living,’ Alderton explained. ‘Sometimes he says he’s a writer but at other times he claims to be anything from a psychologist to a piano tuner.’

‘The Upchat Line, written by Keith Waterhouse and featuring John Alderton, marks something of a welcome and enterprising departure from the old routine. For this is comedy refined down to a quieter, more relaxed level with some nicely polished lines doing the work of the usual mad antics, and a real star performance from one of the best light comedy actors around today. It is all done with great panache and style, with Mr Alderton giving a deceptively easy performance, casually putting together all the little bits of business, and underplaying and drawling his lines but timing everything with split second precision.

Mr Waterhouse has put together a script tailored to suit him to perfection, and also to provide Thames with a fresh and obviously rewarding range of comedy.’

Daily Telegraph

‘Hilarious new comedy series in which John Alderton proves his comic talent as a would-be writer who spends most of his life trying to find somewhere to lay his head – and his birds. Looks very promising (though not for the husbands!).’

Sunday Mirror

After a summer trip to Spain filming inserts for future programmes, Magpie returned with a new presenter to join the team of Jenny Hanley and Mick Robertson: 24-year-old ex-LBC news director Tommy Boyd, selected from 2,000 applicants. Here’s how the London Evening News welcomed the programme back:

‘The most entertaining and informative children’s programme on television is Magpie, on Thames. Jenny Hanley is extremely attractive and has a presence and authority that enthralls the children. The producers go to remarkable lengths and not a little expense in bringing strange and unusual items to the programme, and whether the kiddies realise ft or not, they are being educated as well as entertained. Magpie is an intelligent show, and also has a fine record in obtaining money for children’s charities.’

Evening News

Originally made as a schools programme, Superman and the Bride’s outspoken survey of how we are conditioned by the media (especially television and film) reached the adult audience in October. Its blend of documentary and revue was described as ‘a refreshing TV breakthrough’ by the Daily Mail.

‘Eight years of the average viewer’s life is spent in front of the box. In that time each one should be forced to spend forty-five minutes watching Superman and the Bride for it is the most intelligent and important appraisal yet produced of the images fed to us by the mass media.’

TimeOut

‘As one of the vox pop interviewees said, you’ve got to overstate a case to make it effectively, and this was the jolliest, zippiest overstatement of a case that badly needs making – energetically, and again and again. It could well prompt further pieces of televisual self-scrutiny. It was itself replete with delicious ironies, notably its unabashed use of advertising techniques as a way of attacking advertising techniques, and also its mere presence on our screens – which is living proof that the “system” can be penetrated.’

The Times

A television appearance by Tommy Steele is a rare event, and to celebrate his twenty-first year in showbusiness (Tommy’s first hit, ‘Rock With the Caveman’, coincided with the first year of ITV) he came to Thames for Tommy Steele and a Show. It was a mammoth production, with producer/director Keith Beckett pulling every trick from videotape technology, to interpret the ‘Show’ as devised by Tommy and written by Eric Merriman. For an hour of music, dance and magic effects, Tommy Steele held the spotlight, and more than 14 million people watched the programme.

‘This in one of the very best light entertainment shows I’ve seen on television. Apart from its star – the eternally appealing Tommy who celebrates his 21st year in show business – the programme uses the latest electronic devices for some stunning visual effects, has all the slick glamour and razmatazz of a Hollywood musical, and imaginative, precision, ballet routines worthy of a Busby Berkeley film’

Daily Express

‘Give ’em the old razzle-dazzle’ sang the star on ITV’s Tommy Steele and a Show, and he certainly did. During his all-singing, all-dancing special it was hard to realise that Tommy was celebrating his 21st year in show business.

With his boyish exuberance and appealing charisma, Tommy delivered a delightful hour of sheer escapism, a welcome opportunity for us to sit back and enjoy his wide-ranging talents’

Evening News

Drama Controller Verity Lambert personally produced The Norman Conquests, Alan Ayckbourn’s West End stage sensation which, according to the Daily Mail, ‘transferred superbly from stage to television’. 11 million viewers shared the disastrous weekend of family argument, which was directed by Herbert Wise as three two-hour plays.

‘The Norman Conquests was a triumph and a treat, Alan Ayckbourn’s tragi-comic trilogy being not only funny but graced by universally accomplished performances. Tom Conti was allowed to let off the fireworks, so to speak, as Norman. But he was matched by Richard Briers’ Reg, often speaking volumes with a soundless double-take; or Penelope Keith, Fiona Walker and Penelope Wilton as the women. Not forgetting David Troughton, in making a gormless bore into a believable, even fascinating person. Just as the action moved from room to room, so the focus shifted, play by play, to different characters, none of whom gave short measure.

A Rolls-Royce of a project, coachbuilt and splendidly engineered.’

Daily Mail

‘The Norman Conquests must be one of the best and funniest things on screen. It justified ITV’s bold decision to give it a total of six hours peak viewing. The plays explore the same weekend in the life of a bickering family from three different viewpoints in witty dialogue as well-honed as a surgeon’s scalpel.’

The Daily Mirror

1976 had marked a unique achievement by Thames when both the drama and documentary Prix Italia awards were won by, respectively, The Naked Civil Servant and Beauty, Bonny, Daisy, Violet, Grace and Geoffrey Morton. In 1977, a clean sweep of this international event was completed, when the third category, music, came to Thames for the St Nicolas Cantata. Benjamin Britten’s musical setting of the Father Christmas story was recorded on location at St Albans’ Cathedral and first transmitted at Christmas 1976.

Meanwhile, the Royal Television Society voted Nick Downie News Feature Cameraman of the year for his This Week programme, ‘War in the Sahara’ – the fourth consecutive year that This Week had won an RTS award.

In October Outside Broadcasts covered the Britannia Awards, the first British awards for popular music, featuring several major acts headed by the reunited Simon and Garfunkel. OBs followed a different kind of entertainment award hunt in the series of Pub Entertainer of the Year, hosted by Frank Carson, which ended in December with 14 million viewers watching the grand final. The England v Italy World Cup soccer match at Wembley was screened to 16 million viewers. Preceding Thames’ match coverage, Sportscene flew Italy’s Giorgio Chinaglia from America to preview the game prospects with Bobby Moore, Terry Venables and other experts.

Vince Powell’s situation comedy Odd Man Out introduced John Inman as fish-and-chip shop owner Neville Sutcliffe, who inherits half of a stick-rock factory in Sussex. Josephine Tewson played his step-sister and factory co-owner, Dorothy, who shared the problems, arguments and laughs of running the business.

To mark the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the USSR, Thames transmitted Hammer and Sickle, an intensively researched history from the 1917 Revolution through the stormy decades of Lenin, Stalin and Krushchev to the present. Producer Martin Smith traced many unique pieces of film of Stalin’s terror chief Beria, of life inside a gulag, of the Czech invasion as filmed by the Russian troops. The two-hour production was written by Neal Ascherson and narrated by Paul Scofield.

Denis Norden returned for the seventh series of Looks Familiar in October. One of daytime television’s most popular programmes, guests for the new series included Tony Curtis, Charlie Drake, Annie Ross, John Junkin, Elaine Stritch and Michael Parkinson.

As ITV’s schools programming entered its third decade, Thames, the single biggest contributor to the network, launched two major new strands to the curriculum. French Studies, for 13- to 16-year-olds, began with five documentaries on aspects of French life, and a series of actuality film sequences shot in France. The English Programme presented new two-part productions of outstanding, published TV plays – Julia Jones’ ‘The Piano’, and Barry Hines’ ‘Speech Day’, followed by a film documentary on the work of Barry Hines. Both programmes were designed to run through a full year’s course, unlike the normal single-term compass of television school’s programming.

‘Ask a friend whether he watched the first Time for Business and before you can add “Pretty much like the other business programmes” he forestalls you with wildly enthusiastic praise of – say – the section on franchising, pointing out how highly original it was,’ wrote Chris Dunkley in the Financial Times. Not to be like the other comparable programmes was important in formulating Time for Business. Eamonn Andrews was a presenter for the layman, not the expert. He explained: ‘people are becoming more sophisticated about the uses of their own money and want to understand what makes the world of business tick. My job, with expert back-up, is to understand that myself, because if I do, so will the ordinary viewer.’

Broadcast live, the programmes gave an hour of film report and studio presentation of business, manufacturing, and the city. Alongside news, information and advice for the big and small investor alike, a more important, broader aim was access to the world of business – ’Allow us into your boardrooms and factories,’ producer James Butler said in a launch speech to high-ranking businessmen. ‘I would like to see us become as familiar a sight around the businesses of Britain as television is at football matches.’ Among those present was Sir Charles Forte who responded, ‘I think Eamonn Andrews will make people watch. There’s an aura of the unknown about business which I think he can break down. If the programme can show how good relationships in business generally are, that will be a great achievement.’

Time for Business was launched with a ‘development capital competition’, designed to illustrate the investment problems of small businesses. The programme offered to make available up to £250,000 for the best investment proposal submitted. The range of responses has already been enormous, from a new glass-lining process for furnaces, to a design for a racing cycle, to a methodist minister who wants to build a new church. So far, audiences have averaged ¾ million – more than the combined daily circulation of the Guardian and Times.

‘Proof positive that money programmes need not be above the heads of the ordinary viewer.’

The Times

There was a stir in the sixteenth, final series of Opportunity Knocks! when Hughie Green introduced a contestant with his face masked by a paper bag. It was explained that this was a one-time teenage idol who now preferred anonymity. He turned out to be P J Proby who was voted into second place by the viewers.

Prince Charles donned a Magpie badge when he was filmed with Mick Robertson at Dunraven Castle in Wales. He joined in the work of a group of Cardiff children, who are clearing waste land for a country park under the Queen’s Silver Jubilee Fund. The 1977 Magpie Christmas appeal for children with brittle bones ran through December and topped the record figure of £250,000.

Thames at 6‘s investigation unit discovered two identical pairs of boots in neighbouring West End shops – also they found a threefold difference in price. For three days the programme pursued the investigation. On the third day, a public apology admitted the expensive boots had been overpriced. They were finally on sale at a fifth of their original price.

Wednesday at Eight‘s winter run jumped into the charts in fifth position. With guest stars like Frankie Vaughan and Max Bygraves, the ratings steadily increased, to settle in December to a regular Network audeince of 18 million.

West German terrorism, secret film of Chile under Pinochet, and reports from Spain and Portugal were covered by This Week towards the year’s end. ‘A Miserable and Lonely Death,’ This Week’s scoop reconstruction of the Steve Biko inquest, was widely praised and has since been adapted for stage production by the Royal Shakespeare Company with Ian McKellen in the main role.

Thames made a large contribution to ITV’s post-Christmas holiday entertainment. Max’s Holiday Hour brought Max Bygraves, Lena Zavaroni and Charlie Cairoli to an audience of nearly 15 millions, and there were two innovative musical pairings when Vera Lynn joined George Shearing, and Peggy Lee shared the spotlight with Charles Aznavour. The Queen’s Racehorses, on Boxing Day, was a totally informal film portrait of H.M. the Queen, talking about and seen with the horses she so loves.

Repeats of Man About the House had regularly topped the ratings during the summer, and the programme’s first offshoot George and Mildred jumped back into the Top Five with a new series, again starring Brian Murphy and Yootha Joyce. With audiences as high as 19.7 million, it was the most popular comedy series on British television in 1977.

‘The funniest and best socially observed comedy of the year’

‘As long as the stars retain their enthusiasm and the writers keep up the mixture of crisp one-liners. cross-purposes encounters and an undercurrent of mild sauciness … it could run for years.’

Daily Mail

‘With a splendidly direct approach, the series has a commendable lack of coyness,’ the Daily Mirror commented on the late-night Problems. Jenny Conway and Tony Bastable were the reporters, on adult sexual problems.

The green, furry, multi-legged Wotsit from Whizzbang made his TV debut in Rainbow, where his zany, fantastic adventures proved so popular that in November he began his own children’s series. Joe Lynch narrated Samantha Lee’s stories.

Michael Whyte, a new director to Thames’ documentary department, spent eighteen months investigating the nationwide problem of Britain’s violent and severely disordered children. The result was a disturbing, at times shocking trilogy of films. 17-year-old Billy was on trial for grievous bodily harm when the first film was made; Jimmy has been in care since the age of twelve, when he attacked his mother with a bread knife; and the third film, Aycliffe, visited a treatment centre for extremely disordered children.

‘Do you like hitting people Jimmy?’
‘If they deserve it, yeah.’
‘Do you ever hit your friends?’
‘If they shout “Chelsea!” or things like that.’
‘But why?’
‘Because there’s nothing else to do these days, is there?’

15-year-old ‘Jimmy,’ the subject of the second of three films on violent children.

John Thaw and Dennis Waterman’s first Sweeney film earned them both awards, as best actor and most promising male newcomer respectively, in the Evening News Film Awards, covered for ITV by Thames. 1978 will see the fourth, final TV series of The Sweeney, and also the second Sweeney feature film.

The post Autumn programmes appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

• Today
• This Week
• People & Politics
• Time For Business
• Thames at 6
• London Looks Forward
  • The Living City
  • The Future City
• Documentaries
  • Hazlitt in Love
  • The Gospel According To St Michael
  • Walt Disney (2 programmes)
  • Marriage Guidance
  • Lonely Hearts
  • The Ruth Ellis Story
  • The Hunting of Force Z
  • Hammer & Sickle
  • Billy
  • Jimmy
  • Aycliffe

OUTSIDE BROADCASTS

• Series
  • Drive In
  • A Town Called
  • Kitchen Garden
  • Wish You Were Here…?
  • Pub Entertainer of the Year
• Sport
  • Darts
  • Horse Racing from Sandown, Newmarket, Epsom, Lingfield
  • Football (7 matches, including 4 internationals)
  • Sportscene
  • Wrestling
• Events
  • Jubilee Flower Show
  • Miss Thames
  • Astrology
  • Model Railway Exhibition
  • Nurse of the Year
  • Variety Club Lunch
  • Evening Standard Drama Awards
  • Evening News Film Awards
  • Royal Film Performance
  • Great British Achievements
  • Chipperfield’s Circus (Easter and Christmas)
  • The Motor Show
  • Britannia Awards
  • The Loyal Address

LIGHT ENTERTAINMENT

• Specials
  • The Benny Hill Show
  • TV Times Top Ten Awards
  • The Eric Sykes Show
  • Bruce and More Girls
  • The Peggy Lee Show
  • Max Bygraves’ Christmas Show
  • Vera Lynn Sings
• Series
  • David Nixon Show
  • Looks Familiar
  • Opportunity Knocks
  • This is Your Life
  • Whose Baby?
  • Whodunnit?
  • Wednesday at Eight
  • The Tom O’Connor Show
  • The Little and Large Tellyshow
  • Night Out at The London Casino
• Comedy Series
  • Odd Man Out
  • Get Some In
  • George and Mildred
  • What’s On Next?
  • Paradise Island
  • Miss Jones & Son
  • The Fuzz
  • The Upchat Line

CHILDREN’S

• Pre-School Learning
  • Rainbow
  • Rainbow Has A Baby
• General Interest
  • Magpie
  • Fanfare
  • Somersault to Moscow (Magpie Special)
  • …And I Write Music (Magpie Special)
• Drama
  • The Tomorrow People
  • Horse in The House
• Animation Series
  • Jamie and The Magic Torch
  • Chorlton and The Wheelies
• Entertainment
  • Michael Bentine’s Potty Time
  • Sooty
• Pre-School Entertainment
  • And Maisy Too
  • Mice and Mendelson
  • The Wotsit From Whizz-Bang

FEATURES, EDUCATION AND RELIGION

• Features
  • After Noon
  • Mavis
  • Money-Go-Round
  • London Scene
  • Superman & The Bride
  • The Story of Job
  • Problems
  • Help!
  • Our School and Hard Times
• Education
  • Seeing and Doing
  • Finding Out
  • The World Around Us
  • Writer’s Workshop
  • The English Programme
  • French Studies
  • It’s Life
  • It’s More Life
  • London: The Making of a City
• Adult Education
  • Could Do Better?
  • This Sporting Land
• Religion
  • Get Out and Push
  • Close
  • Christmas Pie
  • Drawing to an End
  • Faith In Place: Matt’s Place
  • Christmas Special
  • A Matter of Morals
  • St Nicolas Cantata

DRAMA

• Serial
  • Rooms – 61 episodes
• Series
  • Romance – 5 episodes
  • Rock Follies of ’77 – 7 episodes
  • London Belongs To Me – 7 episodes
  • The Norman Conquests
    • Table Manners
    • Living Together
    • Round & Round The Garden
• Film Series
  • The Sweeney
  • Van Der Valk
• Plays For Britain
  • Cork & Bottle
  • Last Summer
  • It’s Only Rock ’n Roll
  • The Proofing Session
  • Not Quite Cricket

The post The programme year 1977 appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

Philip Jones, Controller of Light Entertainment
Alcock and Gander, And Mother Makes Three, The Benny Hill Show, Big Bad Mouse, Bless This House, The Bob Monkhouse Comedy Hour, Cribbins, The David Nixon Show, The Edward Woodward Hour, Father, Dear Father, For the Love of Ada, The Frankie Howerd Show, Love Thy Neighbour, Max at the Royalty, Mike & Bernie, Never Mind the Quality Feel the Width, Opportunity Knocks, Patrick, Dear Patrick, This is Your Life, Tony Bennett at the Talk of the Town.

Philip Jones, Thames Television’s Controller of Light Entertainment, began his broadcasting career in radio in 1948 and joined ITV in the North of England soon after it began. Always specialising in light entertainment and musical shows, in the last ten years he has been responsible for directing or producing many of Britain’s most popular programmes and for a string of export successes. Among his department’s latest productions are Love Thy Neighbour, Bless This House and – not yet transmitted – Tony Bennett at the Talk of the Town.

It has always struck me, talking to our audience after a show, that however much they may admire and praise a comedian they seldom appreciate how tough his job is. In the whole entertainment business laughter is the hardest thing to achieve, and television has made it even harder. The British television viewer, if he wanted to watch it all, could see 20 hours of light entertainment every week. We use more jokes in a week than George Robey used in a lifetime. (Yes, we still use some of his material: people don’t know it all yet!) But there’s nothing so dead as a gag you’ve heard before. And with at least a quarter of the population watching every programme we make, novelty isn’t easy. So I have the greatest admiration and respect for our comedians and comedy actors and equally for the writers and producers. The last twelve months have been very successful for my department, only because all these people work so hard and so professionally at the serious business of making people laugh – and at giving them something new to laugh at.

The problem is that with such a tremendous output we exhaust ideas, and people, very quickly. There is only a handful of entertainers who can consistently win a big audience, and even they have to limit their appearances. With the benny hill show, which is one of the very top comedy programmes in Britain at the moment, we make only 4 or 5 a year. Our Max Bygraves and Frankie Howerd shows are limited too. And although the clubs have partly replaced the music halls, there isn’t the constant replenishment of talent that there once was. We’re always looking for it. Our Opportunity Knocks with Hughie Green is still the only regular showcase on television for new professional talent, and several well-known names have been launched that way. But public demand is greater than supply.

There is more scope for innovation in ‘situation comedy’. In this field, the dramatised comic situations like Bless this House or and Mother Makes Three, it’s always tempting to take a successful programme and keep it running for ever. But there are very few series which stand exposure year after year. We have just stopped Never Mind the Quality Feel the Width, for example, although it was highly popular and I get lots of letters asking for more. But we want to offer something new, and so do our writers – even though we know that at first the audience is likely to be smaller, For the Love of Ada, which we have also just finished after quite a short life, was a case in point. Vince Powell and Harry Driver’s idea of a romance between two old-age pensioners was unusual, and the series took a while to establish itself. But it soon justified the experiment by becoming extremely popular both with viewers and critics.

I make no apology, incidentally, for separating them in that way, because critics don’t always reflect the feelings of our audience. We’ve just produced a programme called Love thy Neighbour, another innovation because it was the first comedy series about the problems of a black and a white couple living next door to each other. It’s simple straightforward comedy, always with this underlying serious theme, and it began by being poorly reviewed. I remember that one critic, whom I respect highly, attacked it from all angles. By coincidence someone else on his paper had talked to ordinary black and white families about the programme, and in the very same issue they gave their verdicts. They said not only that it was very funny but that they thought it was of positive value for good race relations. On their evidence the programme was successful at precisely the level we intended.

Now that doesn’t make the critics wrong. But there are times when their criteria don’t relate to what ordinary people want from their entertainment, which is what we try to provide. Through the people who write to us, and through talking to our studio audiences after every show, I think we have a very good knowledge of what they want (and what they object to) and of how we can best make a more seriously based comedy understood. So we are producing a second series of Love Thy Neighbour, not just because it is now one of the country’s favourite programmes – it topped the JICTAR Top Twenty last week – but because we think its message is getting across to our viewers.

We’ve also just begun a new comedy with Beryl Reid; we’re in production with new series for Max Bygraves, Patrick Cargill, Wendy Craig, Sid James and Harry Worth; and we are trying out four more new comedy programmes in the next quarter. We hope to turn the best of them into series, but that will take nine months or a year. We simply haven’t the airtime now to screen all the new things we would like to make, and of course we do want to carry on our existing successes for a certain period. Even our longest-running series, Father Dear Father, is comparatively new. Thames has only been making programmes for four years, and all our other comedy series have been introduced in the last eighteen months. We do have two series which are more than four years old: Opportunity Knocks and This is Your Life. But they are both what I would describe as self-rejuvenating programmes. This is Your Life in particular has never been more popular.

Once again, there will be people who criticise me for continuing with it and not ‘doing something new’. As it happens I believe that This is Your Life is one of the classic formulæ of television light entertainment, the equivalent of first class popular journalism. But even if that were not so, the real point is that you can’t replace an idea with an ideal. A brilliant new comedian or a marvellous new script can’t be wished into existence. I think it’s fair to say that Thames has produced more successful new comedy series in the last four years than any other company, including the BBC. But none of these series was introduced just because it was different. They all had to promise to entertain as wide a range of people as the shows they replaced.

Of course, it’s fashionable to despise such a simple yardstick as popularity. But in my area of television programmes I regard it as an important measurement. If, with only one channel, we can experiment as we did with Cribbins, then we do so. If we can introduce more serious themes in comedy, as we did with Never Mind the Quality and Love Thy Neighbour, then we do so. If we think a new series is worth the risk of a smaller audience at first, then we make it.

But popularity must always be part of my definition of programme quality. George Robey’s best jokes were the ones that made most people laugh.

The post People behind programmes: Philip Jones appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

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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