The basic difference between the news at nine on BBC 1 and News at Ten on ITV is one of style rather than content — Dougall’s Magic Porthole against the informal mateyness of the two-man team on the other channel.

The events recorded by each may be much the same, but somehow the news seems graver on the BBC, despite the Peeping Tom effect of watching it through that spyhole, as if one were a morbid voyeur prying furtively into the world’s misfortunes.

By contrast News at Ten purveys good cheer, probably because two newscasters simle more than one. Over to Reggie. Smile. Back to Leonard. Smile. BBC newscasters have little chance to smile as they plough their lonely way through the average day’s quota of civil war, famine, motorway deaths and riots, though sometimes they are given a dreadful pun to deliver and then they smile bravely to hide the pain.

About News at Ten there is often the kind of ruthless optimism that characterized the Daily Express in Beaverbrook’s time. Things, it seems to say, are not that bad. Outer Mongolia may be on the brink of nuclear war with Inner Latvia but Reggie and Leonard (or Andrew and Sandy) have tucked their pens away and smiled at each other and life goes on. This can be most reassuring to a viewer on his way to bed and, with luck, a dreamless nights sleep; it is also, they say at ITN, the most effective way of disseminating news.

The aim there is to produce a programme rather than a bulletin, to communicate as well as to inform. “At the BBC,” Leonard Parkin once said, rather unkindly, “they produce news like the Water Board produces tap water. At ITN we feel one can be responsible without being dull.” Punting it another way, Nigel Ryan, ITN’s editor, says: “Our priorities are objectivity, clarity and humanity. They are equally important.”

Derrick Amoore, recently appointed editor of BBC Television News, might claim much the same thing himself. Certainly the BBC’s bulletins are at least as objective and clear as ITN’s. Even in the field of humanity, Mr. Amoore says stoutly, the BBC is up there with the front runners. “The News at Ten chaps are lovely,” he admits, “but our chaps are lovely, too. Robert Dougall can’t go down the street without being mobbed, and Richard Baker has the highest personal rating of any news reader in the country.”

Mr. Amoore, who has been editor since March 1, has made no great changes and claims to have none planned for the future. “New brooms are very boring and very inefficient. If I was the inheritor of a broken-down machine I might well be worried. But in fact, as far as we’re concerned, more people look at us than at them.”

This may well be true, since the B.B.C. produces nine hours’ and I.T.N. only six hours’ news a week. But the certain area of rivalry, so far as ratings are concerned, revolves round the nine o’clock news on B.B.C. 1 and News at Ten. Sadly, BBC2’s Newsroom at 7.30, which is crisp, informative and comprehensive, and perhaps the best news programme on television, hardly registers with the viewers. It has an audience of about 300,000 compared with nine million or more for the later bulletins on the other channels.

Which of these two actually has the higher viewing figure is debatable; the BBC claims approximate parity, I.T.N. a dear superiority. But since they measure their audiences in entirely different ways the statistics are virtually meaningless.

Barry Norman
The Times 1 June 1971

Comment from Thames

As most JICTAR watchers will know, there’s very little in it as far as audience ratings go. Since the beginning of this year, News at Ten has been marginally ahead of the BBC’s Nine O’clock News in the Thames area. ITN’s best nights are Monday and Thursday.

But the important things to note are, first, that News at Ten averages a London homes audience of nearly 1,500,000 homes every night; and secondly that its audience is of a very special quality.

For example, Thames recently commissioned two studies* of the News at Ten audience. First, a series of interviews with AB men revealed that:

• 79% of AB MEN in the Thames area watch NEWS AT TEN regularly – the highest percentage for any BBC or ITV programme including the 9.00 News.
• 57% of AB MEN in the Thames area watch NEWS AT TEN up to three times a week.
• 43% watch it four or five times a week.

In the second study, two hundred leading businessmen (all Chairmen or Managing Directors of companies listed in The Times 500 for 1969-70) were asked for their confidential views about News at Ten.

• 64% of these top businessmen watch News at Ten at least once a week.
• 34% watch three, four or five times a week.

The majority rated News at Ten and BBC 9.00 News equally on clarity of reporting, reliability, lack of bias and standard of news reading.

But News at Ten was the clear leader on RANGE OF COVERAGE, SUITABILITY OF TIMING, and INTEREST OF PRODUCTION.

* 1. Personal interviews with 200 AB Men in Thames area carried out by Dataplan.
2. Personal questionnaire answered by 200 leading businessmen.

The Grocer, of course, is full of ads like this. Ads that tell retailers and wholesalers about imminent television campaigns or recent TV successes. But have you counted the ads that mention imminent Press campaigns lately? Try it. You’ll find that practically nobody thinks they’re worth shouting about as far as the trade is concerned…

PS: Have you ever thought of telling your retailers about a TV campaign -on TV?

The post News at 9.00 – news at 10.00? appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

The ITA have recently announced that advertising revenue for all companies during June 1969 is down on June 1968 by £886,504 even before the present government levy of varying rates up to 47½% is deducted. Current Company policy is to conserve and not waste money. The sales functions at Teddington in no way contradict this policy. They fall into three main categories. (1) Advertisers or agents using our premises for Sales Conferences. (2) Entertaining people who may be of use to the Company. (3) Promoting Thames to advertising agencies by using slides and other visual aids accompanied by a commentary persuading them that the most profitable way of advertising is to spend money with Thames. These functions include an escorted tour of the Studios, which seems commonplace to us but is of immense interest to people outside Television.

The first example mentioned involves Thames in the provision of facilities and organising the function. The second requires organising and costs the Company a small amount of expenditure on refreshments but the possible return of attracting future clients completely justifies this. The third function is obviously more expensive and financed by our promotion budgets.

Our dealings with Qantas Airways is an excellent illustration of how we profit from these occasions. They held a reception for all the leading travel agencies on MV ‘Iris’ to celebrate the opening of their television advertising campaign with commercials featuring Warren (Alf Garnett) Mitchell. Organising this function resulted in us gaining the exclusive advertising contract, which is worth approximately £100,000 between July 1969 and February 1970.

On 30 July fourteen women connected with advertising in London and belonging to a club called Adwomen were entertained at Teddington. In the future any one of them could be in a position to influence advertising with Thames.

In conclusion it should be emphasized that our major source of income is commercials and anything which we can do to increase that revenue benefits us all.

The post Sales talk appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.

Unlike earlier systems which simply monitored the availability of airtime and administered the bookings, ‘Enterprise’ also provides accurate and continuous evaluation of the many factors which affect campaign planning: audience composition; ratings patterns; the impact of programme changes; the current demand on the time available, which governs its price; and even the existence of bookings for competitive products. So clients can use the service to plan their campaigns before placing a firm schedule booking.

Over 300 different programs are built into the system with 60 million characters of information on bookings, breaks, programmes, ratings, products and agencies. It is run on EMI’s multi-million pound computer installation at Hayes in Middlesex, which is linked by four data lines to Thames’ Euston offices. At Euston, there are twenty ‘work stations’, operated by sales executives each with a visual display unit, keyboard and thermal printer. In addition, order confirmations and management reports are automatically printed out.

As well as being a breakthrough in time-buying, ‘Enterprise’ represents a new relationship between people and technology in the work of media evaluation. Since its inception several other ITV companies have expressed interest in how the system might be applied to selling airtime in their own areas.

The post Changing the face of time buying appeared first on THIS IS THAMES from Transdiffusion.